The MJTI Rabbinical School is inaugurating an annual Summer Seminar to bring together our rabbinical students and advanced graduate students to study together. Several months ago, as I was putting together the schedule for this summer, I realized that the Seminar is taking place just before the Ninth of Av.

The Ninth of Av (called Tisha b’Av in Hebrew) is an annual Jewish fast day to commemorate and mourn the destruction of the First and Second Temple in Jerusalem. The Temples were destroyed about 656 years apart, but on the same day of the Hebrew calendar, the Ninth of Av. Other calamities that have befallen the Jewish people over the centuries are mourned on the same day. And beyond the calamities is the exile of the Jewish people. Even now, with Israel established, most Jews live elsewhere. This is yet another cause for mourning.