by RABBI CHAIM FINK | July 21, 2026 5:29 pm
This coming Wednesday night and Thursday, we observe the saddest day in the Jewish calendar, Tisha Ba’av, the 9th day of the month of Av. Let’s go back to the origin of this day marked for Jewish tragedy and suffering:
The Jews were in the desert under the leadership of Moshe. They were about to enter into the promised land, which God had assured them was a blessed land flowing with milk and honey. But the people were not so sure. They wished to send spies to determine for themselves if it was truly a good land. After 40 days of touring the land, the 12 spies returned from their mission. Ten out of the 12 men had terrible things to say about the land of Israel. They describe it as a land inhabited by giants, well fortified, and incapable of being conquered. They claim that it is a land plagued by pandemic, with a large percentage of its inhabitants dying each day. Two of the spies, Caleb and Joshua, try to encourage the people, telling them that the land is good, and that if God promised them success in possessing the land, they are certain to succeed. But the nation believes the 10 over the 2, and that night the entire people weep bitter tears over their perceived fate. They believe that an attempt to conquer the land will end in a complete massacre, rendering their children orphans and their wives widows.
God is greatly displeased with the nation’s lack of faith on that night when the spies returned. What was the calendar date that night? It was the 9th day of Av- Tisha Ba’av. God declared that because they cried for nothing that night, this will become a night of warranted crying throughout the generations. Tisha Ba’av will become the greatest day of Jewish tragedy. Just to name some of those tragedies: Both the first and Second Temples were destroyed on Tisha Ba’av. In 1492, the Jews were expelled from Spain, and the day they had to be out by was Tisha Ba’av. WWI, which historians view as the prelude to WWII, began in 1914 on Tisha Ba’av.
Let us take a look at the actual sources from the Torah and Midrash:
Numbers 14:1
The entire assembly raised up and issued its voice; the people wept that night.
במדבר פרק יד פסוק א
וַתִּשָּׂא֙ כָּל־הָ֣עֵדָ֔ה וַֽיִּתְּנ֖וּ אֶת־קוֹלָ֑ם וַיִּבְכּ֥וּ הָעָ֖ם בַּלַּ֥יְלָה הַהֽוּא:
Midrash Aggadah
The people wept that night: It was the night of Tisha B’av. The Holy One Blessed is He said to them, “You have cried a crying of naught, I will establish it (a night of crying) for the generations.
מדרש אגדה (בובר) במדבר פרשת שלח פרק יד
[א] ויבכו העם בלילה ההוא. ליל תשעה באב הי’, אמר להם הקדוש ברוך הוא אתם בכיתם בכייה של חנם, אני אקבענה לדורות:
Question: Why is so much emphasis placed on the fact that they cried? Besides for crying, they also said that they wished to appoint a different leader than Moshe and go back to Egypt. This is an outright rebellion! They were also prepared to stone Joshua and Caleb, the two spies who spoke well of the land, and were only stopped by Divine intervention. Yet, what God states as the cause for centuries of suffering to come is the fact that they cried on that night. What is so significant about their crying?
There is something very significant about tears. The Talmud teaches us the following about tears:
Babylonian Talmud Baba Metziah 59a
Rabbi Elazar said: From the day that the Temple was destroyed, the gates of prayer have been locked, but even though they are locked, the gates of tears have not been locked.
תלמוד בבלי מסכת בבא מציעא דף נט עמוד א
אמר רבי אלעזר: מיום שנחרב בית המקדש ננעלו שערי תפילה, …ואף על פי ששערי תפילה ננעלו שערי דמעות לא ננעלו
The gates of tears are never sealed. They come from a really deep and real place in a person. It means that you are really feeling something. And that is why even if the gates of heaven may be closed to prayers, they are never closed to the sincerity of tears. The world sees tears as a sign of weakness. They say that a true man doesn’t cry. This is not the case. Tears are a sign of sincerity. When someone chokes up, it means that they really care. Tears express the realest and truest parts of ourselves.
Let’s go back for a moment to the story of Joseph, the leader of the mightiest country in the world, the man with the calculated foresight to provide for all mankind and sustain them throughout an international famine. We find him to be one who is so sensitive that he cries again and again. Throughout the entire conversation between Joseph and his brothers, he cries repeatedly. When he reveals himself to them, he cries. He cries upon the neck of his brother Benjamin and once again when he is reunited with his father. A leader is someone who is very much in touch with his human side. A man is someone who allows himself to feel.
When you go to a wedding, and everyone is full of joy, dancing and singing, you can’t really tell who are the people closest to the bride and groom. Everyone has a huge smile. But when you go to a funeral you can tell who was closest to the deceased. Those people will sit there with tears trickling down their cheeks.
If crying is so real, then what does it mean that the Jews in the desert cried for nothing? They really felt frightened and betrayed, certain that they and their families would die at the hands of the mighty Canaanites? Imagine families with small children tasked with conquering a land they believe they can’t. They think they will all die, so they cry. Why was God so upset with them?
It is important to note that even though crying is a display of a true and deep emotion, it is not a result of the intellect. A person can cry from watching a sad movie. They know it’s not real and yet, they are moved and they cry. What they are feeling is a true feeling, but it is unwarranted, it is not coming from any real concern.
The crying we did that first night of Tisha B’av was real, but it was misplaced. After having witnessed the open miracles in Egypt with the 10 plagues and the splitting of the Sea, and then the many miracles and gifts that God gave us in the desert, we should have known better. We woke up that morning to the miraculous manna falling from heaven to sustain us. We should have made our intellect prevail over our emotion. If God was capable of the many miracles we personally experienced, then surely He could have us prevail over the Canaanite giants. That is why our crying was so problematic. It came from a deep place of feeling. A feeling of despair, despite the guarantees that God had made to us.
Crying in the Torah
In order to fully explore the topic of crying, let’s take a look at some of the episodes in the Torah where people cry, in an attempt to shed more light on the subject:
Hagar Cries Incorrectly
The first time the Torah records someone crying is in the story of Hagar. Hagar was a servant in the home of Abraham and Sara. When Sara was unable to conceive, she encouraged Abraham to also marry Hagar and have a child with her. Ishmael is born to them. When Abrham and Sara have a son of their own, Isaac, Sara is concerned that Ishmael is having a negative influence on Isaac, and asks Abraham to send them away. Abraham packs them up with supplies and sends them off. Hagar gets lost travelling in the wilderness and Ishmael takes ill. He is burning up with a fever and their water is depleted. She believes that her son Ishmael is going to die and she cries out. Here is the source:
Genesis 21:16
She went and sat herself down at a distance, some bowshots away, for she said, “Let me not see the death of the child.” And she sat at a distance, lifted her voice and wept
בראשית פרק כא פסוק טז
וַתֵּלֶךְ֩ וַתֵּ֨שֶׁב לָ֜הּ מִנֶּ֗גֶד הַרְחֵק֙ כִּמְטַחֲוֵ֣י קֶ֔שֶׁת כִּ֣י אָֽמְרָ֔ה אַל־אֶרְאֶ֖ה בְּמ֣וֹת הַיָּ֑לֶד וַתֵּ֣שֶׁב מִנֶּ֔גֶד וַתִּשָּׂ֥א אֶת־קֹלָ֖הּ וַתֵּֽבְךְּ:
She does not stand next to the ailing child in an attempt to comfort him and alleviate his suffering, but she goes off to the side and indulges her own feelings of pain by crying. Crying can be a selfish thing, wallowing in your own self pity. There are times when we must be strong and can’t give in to our urge to cry.
I was 5 years old when I first experienced death. My mother’s father passed away during the holiday of Sukkos. It was over Shabbos in the middle of the holiday. My mother had been with her father all day in the hospital. When she returned home Saturday night, my parents were trying to make funeral arrangements, and there I was bawling. They needed to remain composed to plan all of the details and my loud crying was evoking their emotions that were already on the brink of explosion. That was not a time for me to cry.
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Here is another case where it is best not to cry: When you are visiting a loved one who is very ill, they are dying, and by crying at their bedside, you can cause them to realize just how dire their situation is. This can cause them to despair and hasten their demise. Or when one needs to give a eulogy of a great person who may be very close to the heart of the eulogizer, the words must be spoken clearly and emotions must be put aside.
Abraham mourning over his wife Sara.
Genesis 23:2
Sarah died in Kiriath-Arba which is Hebron in the land of Canaan; and Abraham came to eulogize Sarah and to weep for her.
בראשית פרק כג פסוק ב
וַתָּ֣מָת שָׂרָ֗ה בְּקִרְיַ֥ת אַרְבַּ֛ע הִ֥וא חֶבְר֖וֹן בְּאֶ֣רֶץ כְּנָ֑עַן וַיָּבֹא֙ אַבְרָהָ֔ם לִסְפֹּ֥ד לְשָׂרָ֖ה וְלִבְכֹּתָֽהּ:
Abraham just lost the woman that he built a life with. They shared the mission of bringing Godliness into the world, and suddenly she is gone. He is bereft of his wife, and realizing what he has lost he cries. Crying in mourning over losing someone we love is a clear indication of how much we loved that person. ·
The crying of Eisav
The day that the twin brothers, Eisav and Jacob, lost their grandfather Abraham, was a fateful day for the both of them. After the funeral, Jacob cooked a pot of lentil stew to give to his father Isaac, who was mourning his father’s loss. (It is customary for mourners to eat round foods as their first meal after the burial, which symbolizes that mourning rolls around and visits everyone at some point.) Eisav returns from the fields, where he had spent the day hunting. He is famished and sees the red stew. He sells his right to the firstborn blessing to his brother Jacob for a bowl of the stew.
Years later, when it is time for Isaac to bless his sons (thinking that his death may be imminent) he instructs his older son Eisav to go out and catch some game meat, prepare a meal for him, and then he will bless him with the firstborn blessings. (Isaac must not have known that Eisav had sold them to Jacob.) While Eisav is out, Jacob is urged by his mother to impersonate his older brother and get the blessings that are rightfully his. The plan works, and when Eisav returns, Jacob had already secured the blessings. Eisavs asks his father for the blessing, but Isaac tells him that his brother had already taken it. The Torah tells us that the fully grown and hardened Eisav raises his voice and weeps. This is a cry from the depths of his soul. It comes as he realizes the mistakes he made that are no longer fixable. Eisav lived a life of complete materialism, filled with hedonistic pleasures. He had no interest in anything spiritual. Just think back to the day of his grandfather’s funeral. The man recognized by all as a spiritual prince among men passes away. The funeral is attended by many, but Eisav can’t be bothered to go to his own grandfather;s funeral. Instead he is out in the fields hunting. But now, at this moment in his life, when he loses the blessings, he comes to the realization that his whole life has been lived wrong, but it’s too late to fix it. He was willing to sell his firstborn rights for a pot of red stew. But now the truth dawned on him. He asks himself, “What have I done? What have I forfeited?” He raises his voice and cries real tears of agony.
The Crying of Yitzchak- Crying for another’s pain
Our forefather Jacob believed that his beloved son Joseph was dead. He had seen his son’s colorful tunic ripped and spattered in blood, and to Jacob that meant that Joseph had been devoured by a wild beast. The reality was that Joseph was alive, but had been kidnapped and sold off as a slave to Egypt. The Torah tells us that Jacob was inconsolable. The Talmud explains that God gave the gift of consolation to the world. But this only applies to a case where we lose someone we love, and that person is actually deceased. Only then, with time, can we heal from our grief. But in the case of Joseph, who was presumed dead by his father, but was still alive, then there can be no closure; no healing. The Torah tells us the following:
Genesis 37:35
All his sons and all his daughters arose to comfort him, but he refused to comfort himself, and said, “For I will go down to the grave mourning for my son.” And his father bewailed him.
בראשית פרק לז פסוק לה
וַיָּקֻמוּ֩ כָל־בָּנָ֨יו וְכָל־בְּנֹתָ֜יו לְנַחֲמ֗וֹ וַיְמָאֵן֙ לְהִתְנַחֵ֔ם וַיֹּ֕אמֶר כִּֽי־אֵרֵ֧ד אֶל־בְּנִ֛י אָבֵ֖ל שְׁאֹ֑לָה וַיֵּ֥בְךְּ אֹת֖וֹ אָבִֽיו:
The end of this verse, which states that his father bewailed him, is perplexing. We were already told that Jacob cried for his son Joseph. What then is the Torah telling us in this line? The Talmud explains that it is not referring to Jacob crying over Joseph. Instead, it is telling us that Isaac was crying for the pain of his son Jacob. At the time that Joseph was sold into slavery, Isaac was still alive. And through Divine inspiration, he found out the fate of Joseph. But Issac thought that if God hadn’t revealed the truth to Jacob, then he wasn’t meant to either. So he witnessed the suffering of his son Jacob, but couldn’t do anything about it. He did not mourn over the episode of Joseph, because he knew the truth, that Joseph was alive and well, but he cried. He cried for the pain of another. He cried in empathy, feeling the pain of his son Jacob.
Here we see a new kind of crying. Feeling the pain of someone else. Even though Isaac knew that there was no reason to cry- Joseph was alive- but Jacob was in pain, and Isaac shared that pain and cried.
Crying is a very powerful display of emotion. Back in the desert, we cried for the wrong reasons. Now, we look to make amends for that mistake, and we try to cry for the right reasons. We cry for the long suffering of the Jewish people. We cry over the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temples. We believe that through crying, through our display of just how much we care, God will one day restore Jerusalem to its former glory and rebuild our Temple.
There is a discipline of Torah study called “Gematria”. It involves tallying the numeric value of Hebrew words, and deriving meaning from them. Each letter in the Hebrew alphabet has a corresponding number. Aleph is 1, and Bet is 2, and so on. The word for the tears we cry is דמעה. It has the numeric value of 119. In the rules of Gematria, there are some words where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. The concept of crying is one of those words. It is so deep. And this allows us to add one more digit to the number, where 119 is turned into 120. There is a higher purpose that gives meaning to all of the details, and that higher purpose adds one more digit.
When we think of a life lived at its fullest, we think of the number 120. That is what we wish people, “May you live to 120”. A life lived to its fullest will have plenty of tears. Tears of joy, and tears of sadness. Tears where we cry for ourselves, and tears where we cry for others.
There is another Hebrew word that also has the numeric value of 120, and that is מועד, which means a holiday. We believe that through the tears we cry on Tisha Ba’av, all for the right reason, then this day of tragedy will be transformed into a holiday of celebration. May that happen speedily in our days.
Source URL: https://partnersjewishlife.org/crying-tisha-baav/
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