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What Are We Mourning?

Tonight, Jews of all stripes will observe TIsha B’av, the saddest day in the Jewish calendar, a day of fasting and mourning over the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. What are they mourning?

G-d decreed that the Jewish people should be in exile. We say in our prayers, “Because of our sins we were exiled from our land.” Exile means not having Jewish sovereignty, as the Gemara says, “There is no difference between the current era and the Messianic era except for our subjugation to the nations” (Shabbos 63a). A Jew living in Eretz Yisroel under Turkish or British rule was considered to be in exile, his/her immediate geography notwithstanding.