Why do we celebrate the Jewish Holidays? What are the deeper meanings of each holiday?
The Nine Days are part of a larger period of time known as The Three Weeks, which begin with the public fast day of the Seventeenth of Tammuz — commemorated in Judaism for the time when the forces of Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia finally broke through the defensive walls surrounding Jerusalem, generally accepted as happening in 586 BCE — and end with the public fast day of Tisha B’Av — when the Babylonians finally destroyed the First Temple in 597 BCE and when the Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE. During the entire Three Weeks, certain activities are forbidden to Jews by Jewish law in order to decrease joy and inspire mourning over the destruction of Temple.
