The Three Weeks

There is a tendency, on fast days, for people to concentrate upon the calamities of the past and on the stages that led up to the destruction of the Temple. People reflect on the distant past when they aught - says the Rambam - consider the present.

The Tree of Knowledge contained a mixture of elements - both good and evil. This, then, was Adam's sin: He ate from the tree, and this caused existence to fall to a level whereupon there existed a mixture of both good and evil.

: In mourning over the Temple, we refuse to come to terms with the destruction. We begin with a life in which the Temple plays no role, and, in stages, return to the feeling of "one's dead lying before him."

If, as we know to be the case, during the period of the Second Commonwealth Jews busied themselves studying Torah, doing Mitzvoth, and performing acts of kindness, why was the Holy Temple destroyed? Answer: Because of groundless hatred.

The number ten symbolizes the peak of completeness and community, the height of sanctity. The destruction of the Temple began on the ninth, but it was on the tenth of Av that it reached its fiery peak. On that day, the Savior of Israel was born.