Tisha B’Av is sometimes referred to as the “saddest” day on the Jewish calendar, but its impetus is political. Tisha B’Av is a unique mirror of national mourning and collective self-recrimination marked by neither reconciliation nor atonement. Read at synagogue in the three weeks preceding the fast, the haftorahs of rebuke are troubled by the corruption of norms. Readings from the early chapters of Jeremiah and Isaiah, these ancient texts recall by way of projection the scenes of ruin suffered by the people of Israel under the rule of a rightwing religious government, the assault on the judiciary system and other democratic institutions, the violent and ongoing dispossession of Palestinian lands in the occupied West Bank, the massacres of October 7, the war in Gaza, and the threat of total war with Iran on the horizon. The prophets urge the people to take the side of the orphans and widows against government and religion. In the prophetic tradition, collective ruin is recognized as an act of self-destruction, while the modern State of Israel devours itself from the inside.

Haftorah Mattot; Jeremiah 1-2:3

In a vision, the prophet Jeremiah imagines the rod of an almond tree and a seething pot, its face pointed to the north from which the evil breaks out on the inhabitants of the Land.

Haftorah Masei; Jeremiah 2:4-28, 3:4, 4:1-2

The people have turned their hold in the Land, the heritage of God, into an abomination. Young camels moving quickly to do evil in the valleys. The people are led by corrupt judges, political leaders, false prophets; they become prey to lions who come from abroad to feed upon the crown of their own heads. Israel has become a degenerate plant and strange vine.

Haftorah Hazon, Isaiah 1:1-27

In his vision, the prophet Isaiah sees how the people continue to offend, every head ailing, every heart sick, from head to foot no spot is sound, full of bruises and welts, and festering sores. These are not pressed out, not bound up, not softened with oil. The desolate country is laid waste by floods, cities burnt down, the hands of the people stained with crime. The people will have to wash themselves clean, put evil doings away from God’s sight, learn to do good. They will need to devote themselves to justice, aid the wronged, uphold the rights of the orphan. Once full of justice, Israel has become a place of murderers, and thieves, leaders who take bribes and do not judge the fatherless or widow.