Every evening, the priest would kindle the seven lights of the menorah in the Holy Temple. Miraculously, although six of the seven candles would burn out, the western lamp would remain lit until the following evening. (See link below for the exact identity of the western lamp.)
During the reign of the idolatrous King Ahaz (father of the pious King Hezekiah), this miracle discontinued. The first time the western lamp was found to have extinguished was on 18 Menachem Av (or, according to other versions, 17 Menachem Av). (Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 580:2)
Link: Spiritual Space
Sixty-seven Jewish men, women and children were slaughtered, and scores wounded, raped and maimed, by their Arab neighbors in the city of Hebron, who rioted for three days amid cries of "Slaughter the Jews." The killings began on Friday afternoon, 17 Av, and most of the victims lost their lives on Shabbat, 18 Av. The survivors were forced to evacuate to Jerusalem, and the ancient Jewish community of Hebron, which had lived in relative peace in the city for hundreds of years, was not revived until after Israel's capture of Hebron in the 1967 Six Day war.
Link: The Hebron Massacre
He made you hungry, He made you starve, He fed you manna… (Deut. 8:3)
Torah could only be given to people who had consumed manna. (Midrash Tanchuma 20:2)
It wasn’t that manna didn’t satisfy hunger. Manna was food, nourishing food. But it was food that caused you to feel dissatisfied. That was its nourishment.
Your manna might have tasted to you like a succulent grilled steak. But it was a spiritual, not a tangible experience—and that left you yearning for something beyond that experience, something a physical body could never really have.
This was crucial to the plan. As the rabbis taught, “The secrets of Torah can be transmitted only to one whose heart troubles him incessantly from inside.”
That is, after all, the experience of studying the hidden wisdom of Torah—the experience of always feeling “this is not yet it.” The perpetual sense that the truth lies just beyond.
Yearn, always yearn to know. Never be satisfied. Then you have true life.