The Babylonian armies of King Nebuchadnezzar breached the walls of Jerusalem on the 9th of Tammuz in the year 3338 from creation (423 BCE); King Ziddikiahu of Judah was captured and taken to Babylon (Jeremiah 39:5. A month later, the capture of Jerusalem was completed with the destruction of the Holy Temple and the exile of all but a small number of Jews to Babylon). Tammuz 9 was observed as a fast day until the second breaching of Jerusalem's walls (by the Romans) on the 17th of Tammuz, 3829 (69 CE), at which time the fast was moved to that date. (Talmud, Rosh Hashanah and Tur Orach Chaim 549)
Links:
thethreeweeks.com
The Destruction
Twenty-four wagonloads of Talmudic volumes were publicly burned by Christian church officials in Paris. Many works of Jewish scholarship were forever lost as a result, amd some fast on Friday in the week of Chukat to lament this tragedy.
Link:
Burning the Talmud
Born in Poland in 1905, he became the rabbi of the congregation in Klausenburg, Romania, in 1930. During the Holocaust, he and his family were separated, and he was subjected to forced labor in various camps, tragically losing his wife and nine of his children. He relocated to the United States and established his court in Brooklyn in 1946. He married Chaya Nechama Ungar and fathered seven children. His notable contributions include founding the Kiryat Sanz community in Israel and the Laniado Hospital. Upon his passing in 1994, his sons Zvi Elimelech and Shmuel Dovid assumed leadership of the Sanzer Hasidim in Netanya and Brooklyn, respectively.
Links:
More Than a Donation
Sanz-Klausenburg Rebbetzin Chaya Nechama Halberstam, 96
Louder
You murmured in your tents, saying, '"Because G‑d hates us, He took us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to exterminate us." (Deuteronomy 1:27)
Really, He loves you, but you despised Him. As the common saying goes, “Whatever is in your heart towards your friend, you imagine he feels towards you.” (Rashi)
Often we justify our own feelings by projecting them on others, twisting the entire relationship backward and upside-down.
We can’t get our way, so we say, “I’m doing everything to accommodate them, and they’re being so stubborn.”
And they say, “But it’s just the opposite! You won't give an inch!”
We don’t want to be around people, so we feel, “I’m trying to be nice to them, but they don’t want me around.”
And they say, “We would love to have you around, but you don’t seem to want to be here with us.”
In just the same way, we project our own feelings on the One who made us, attempting to twist truth inside-out.
We become absorbed with our own little world and can’t find room for G‑d within it, so we feel, “All I am to G-d is just an ugly little cockroach messing up His universe.”
How does G‑d feel?
There, with G‑d, is the true reality.
That He gives you life and all things He knows are good for you and awaits the time you will recognize how good it all is.
That He showers you with love, and awaits the time that you will return that love to Him.
That He eagerly awaits every word of your prayers, treasures every mitzvah you might do, kisses every word of Torah that comes from your lips—but you have no idea how precious you are to Him.
You may push back. You may run away. But just one small turn, and He’s there waiting.
Run from your delusions. Embrace reality. Reality is love.