Jewish Holidays

The intense pressure that the Greeks exerted against the Jews kindled a spark in their souls, and when the Greeks arrived in the village of Modi’in , Matityahu rose up and killed the Greek officer and his Hellenized Jewish collaborators.

As a result of the conquests, Greek culture spread throughout the world, consuming all other cultures and forming a single Hellenistic civilization

after the destruction of the Second Temple, the Sages abolished Megilat Ta’anit. Only Ĥanuka remains of all those day, as the Sages explain, because of the unique miracle of the oil that it commemorates and the mitzva of lighting Ĥanuka candles that the Sages enacted to publicize the miracle.

It is a mitzva to educate our children to observe the mitzvot relating to Tisha Be-Av and mourning over the destruction of the Temple, just as we teach them about all other mitzvot.

When the ninth of Av falls out on Shabbat, the fast is postponed to Sunday. On that Shabbat, we show no signs of mourning.

The Babylonians conquered the Temple on the seventh of Av and set it ablaze toward evening on the ninth of the month, and it continued burning throughout the tenth. The Jewish people refrained from eating meat and drinking wine on that date.

Most of the passages recited in the Korbanot section were included in the regular prayer service. On Tisha Be-Av, when one may not study Torah, the question arises: May one recite these passages?

We remove the curtain from the synagogue’s ark prior to Ma’ariv. Many have a custom not to wear a talit or tefilin at Shaĥarit.

The laws of reciting Aneinu on Tisha Be-Av are the same as on the other fast days. The Sages instituted that one should add the Naĥem prayer to the berakha of Boneh Yerushalayim in the Amida whenever Aneinu is recited.

The Sages state: “Anyone who works on Tisha Be-Av will never see any sign of blessing from it”.