On the surface, nothing changes. The fast continues. The kinot linger. The Beit HaMikdash is still in ruins. But something unexpected – and difficult to define – begins to stir. As the shadows lengthen on Tisha B’Av, we rise from the floor. We don tefillin. We soften our silence. And although the laws remain in place until nightfall, something inside us begins to shift. What is that shift? Why does the mood soften while the fast continues? Why, in the midst of mourning, does something else begin to emerge?
Over the generations, halachic authorities consistently maintained that Tisha B’Av must be fully observed until the day’s end. Rav Hai Gaon rejected the Egyptian custom of wearing leather shoes in the afternoon. The Beit Yosef called early relaxation of mourning practices a davar tamuah, an inappropriate response to the gravity of the day. Yet even these authorities acknowledged a qualitative shift in the day’s second half. Why?
We find clues in the practice of delaying tallit and tefillin until Mincha. We sit on low stools until midday, then rise to regular chairs. We add the prayer “Nachem” only at Mincha. Until chatzot, we are like an onen – one whose deceased loved one lies before them, too raw for comfort. After midday, it is as if we are beginning shiva. The grief remains, but we begin to breathe.
The Mishnah Berura quotes a tradition that even as the fire destroying the Beit HaMikdash raged in the afternoon, from its flames came a revelation: “And your iniquity is complete, O daughter of Zion” (Eicha 4:22) – Hashem poured His anger upon wood and stone, not upon us. Even in the punishment, there was mercy. The relationship was not severed.
This idea – that our very suffering signals Hashem’s ongoing involvement – is deeply counterintuitive, yet it sits at the core of our national theology. Rav Yonatan Eybeschutz explained that there is no greater comfort than knowing that Hashem still holds the reins. When suffering appears random, when tragedy strikes without rhyme or reason, we feel adrift. But when we recognize that the pain is part of a divine plan, however mysterious, we also sense His nearness.
The Gemara in Berachot (7b) tells us something jarring: when David fled from his son Avshalom, he composed a mizmor – a song. It seems absurd. Shouldn’t he have written a kinah, a lament? His own son was leading a rebellion to kill him. But the Gemara explains that David had lived with a lingering fear ever since Natan HaNavi told him, in the aftermath of the incident with Batsheva, that consequences would come. Would they arrive in the form of a senseless tragedy? A blow from the outside? That kind of suffering is terrifying – not only because of the pain, but because of the distance, the fear that Hashem has turned away. But when David saw that the pain came from within – exactly how Natan had foreseen – he recognized Hashem’s hand. Crushing as it was, it meant he had not been abandoned. Hashem was still present, just and engaged. And from within that clarity – not of comfort, but of connection – he sang.
This paradox – that devastation can itself bring comfort – is one we know intimately in our times. On October 7, we experienced loss beyond description, yet in the aftermath we also witnessed divine intervention and survival where there should have been none. It is impossible to ignore the pain, but equally impossible to deny Hashem’s presence. We have felt this dissonance ourselves – walking from kinot to Kabbalat Shabbat, and sensing, almost despite ourselves, a flicker of hope.
The Beit HaLevi captures this idea through a halachic lens. If someone throws a wallet into the street, it becomes hefker – ownerless. But if someone throws a glass vessel off a roof, it remains theirs until it shatters. They are not abandoning it; they are breaking it deliberately. So too, the suffering of the Jewish people is not a sign of abandonment. It is evidence that we are still His. We are not hefker. We are shivrei kelim – shattered vessels, not yet whole, but not discarded. We are not happy – we are shivrei kelim. But we are still His.
This explains the quiet comfort that stirs on Tisha B’Av afternoon. We are still fasting and mourning. The losses of the morning are not reversed. The destruction remains. But as we rise from the floor, we do so not because anything has changed, but because we have changed. We understand that we are not alone in our suffering. We are still in a relationship. Still seen. Still held. The shift is in us.
May the nechama of Tisha B’Av deepen – not because our sorrow disappears, but because we come to see it differently. May we feel Hashem’s presence not only in our redemption, but even in our breaking. And may the day soon come when the mourning light gives way to full light, when Yerushalayim is rebuilt, and when consolation no longer needs to emerge from pain.
Rabbi Larry Rothwachs, LCSW, serves as the senior rabbi of Congregation Beth Aaron in Teaneck, NJ and founding rabbi of Meromei Shemesh in Ramat Beit Shemesh.