Sitting Shiva for a Broken World | Tisha B'Av with the Chief

Personal mourning fades with time. Our national mourning, the Three Weeks leading into Tisha B'Av, on the other hand, move in the opposite direction. It grows more intense until a day described as "sitting shiva for the world itself."

Why would we deliberately awaken grief for a loss most of us have never personally experienced?

Drawing from Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, Rabbeinuyu Bechaye, Pirkei Avot and the wisdom of our Sages, The Chief Rabbi explores why Tisha B'Av is not only about mourning the destruction of the Temple, but about learning to see the brokenness of the world itself. And why that grief was never meant to end in sadness. It was meant to become the beginning of hope, action, and redemption.

Key Questions

• Why would grief for a loss most people have never personally felt need to intensify as the day approaches, rather than ease?

• What does the Chief mean when he calls Tisha B'Av "sitting shiva for the world"?

• Why is fasting on Tisha B'Av treated as an act of repentance rather than an act of mourning?

• What actually changes at midday of Tisha B'Av, and why does the day work in two such different registers?

• If grief is only the doorway, what is it a doorway to?