On this day, the spies came back from touring Israel. They brought a negative report, and the community cried over the seeming impossibility of conquering the Land of Israel. It was decreed that all adult male Jews of the generation would die in the desert in the upcoming forty years. The story here was that "You cried for nothing? You will have something to cry about." The Talmud calculates how the spies returned precisely on the ninth of Av.
Both the first and the second Temples were destroyed on the same calendar day, the ninth of Av.
The city of Bethar was conquered fifty-two years after the destruction of the Second Temple. All of its inhabitants were massacred. At this time, death was decreed on the leader, Rabban Gamliel. The Roman messenger appointed to bring about Raban Gamliel's execution was a secret admirer of him. The Roman tradition was that if the messenger dies, the decree is annulled. The messenger threw himself from the roof and died, thus saving Rabban Gamliel. The Heavenly voice announced: this Roman official has earned his share in the World to Come.
Art: The Death of Chatterton by Henry Walli
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