Having attended the ritual reading of the book of Lamentations at the Western Wall on the eve of Tisha b’Av—the fast day that commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Temples—Daniella Greenbaum shares her reflections:
I was overwhelmed when in a touching display of irony, a group of yeshiva boys began singing the somber tunes of Tisha B’av in the Roman ruins that catch the eye of so many tourists. They stood and swayed in a large oval, bracketed by the easily identifiable Roman columns. Rome had sacked Jerusalem, and destroyed the Temple—it was the reason I was fasting. And there, in the middle of Jerusalem, in the center of Israel’s capital, in Roman ruins, were the Jews, singing about faith and destruction and God’s mercy. . . .
There’s much to mourn [on this day], but sitting in a sovereign Israel, there’s also much to celebrate. What other people have been successful in reclaiming its homeland? The book of Lamentations begins: “How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! How is she become as a widow! She that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!” Last night the old city of Jerusalem was not empty, but packed with throngs of people who had come to pray at the Western Wall. The modern state of Israel, the start-up nation that has made the desert bloom, is no tributary, but once again great among the nations. With one breath we mourn, and with another we rejoice.
Read more on Commentary: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/middle-east/israel/reflections-on-tisha-bav-at-the-kotel-jerusalem/