God's Great Love For Israel: Forgiveness

15 Menachem Av 5786 

The celebration of TU b'Av began even before we first entered the Land of Israel...

...regarding the 600,000 Jews who were subjected to the penalty of in this wilderness you shall be destroyed (Bemidbar 14:29), fifteen thousand would die every Tisha b'Av.  On the last Tisha b'Av in the wilderness, fifteen thousand men dug their own graves and waited.  But God granted them a reprieve and they survived.

However, when they arose on the morning of that Tisha b'Av, they did not know that they had been spared.  Instead, they concluded that they must have been mistaken in calculating the date.  They therefore lay down in the graves every night for the followiing five nights.  When the fifteenth of Av arrived and they saw the full moon, they knew that their calculations had been correct and realized that since Tisha b'Av had passed, the decree must have been rescinded.  They therefore observed the date as a day of celebration.  (The Book of Our Heritage)

~ And So May We All Be Forgiven ~