Tisha B Av A Story for the Heart

Summer had passed its midpoint by a few days. On the shore sat an elderly man—not early in the morning anymore—and watched the world around him. It was hard to tell whether he was sad or smiling. His thoughts ran so deep that he didn’t notice his granddaughters approaching. The older one was named Tiya, and the younger, Marli.

They came quietly, standing on either side of him. Smiling at each other, they watched their grandfather’s face—it shifted from gentle smiles to serious thought. He was clearly lost in memories.

At some point, Marli quietly asked, “Grandpa, why do you sometimes smile and sometimes look so serious at the water?”

Tiya added, “And you didn’t have breakfast with us today… Are you okay, Grandpa?”

He slowly turned his head toward one, then the other, smiling with gratitude for their presence. He opened his arms wide and pulled them into a hug. After a pause, he said softly:

“Thank you, my dear ones… I feel something very particular today. Unusual. But I’m okay.”

The girls exchanged glances. The word “particular” seemed both curious and a bit strange to them.

Tiya looked into his eyes seriously. “What does ‘particular’ mean?”

He smiled. “It’s when you feel both sorrow and light at once. When you don’t want anything to change, but still wish to return to the past. When something in your heart trembles—not from fear, but from memory.

You see, today is a very special day for us Jews. It’s a day of memory... the day when the Second Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed.”

Marli looked up. “We didn’t know… what does that mean?”

Tiya added thoughtfully, “No one ever told us… Today? Who did it?”

Tiya looked straight into his face and nearly whispered, “Tell us about it. Because we don’t know anything, but we really want to. From you. Tell us—when and why it happened, and what it means to you… now, Grandpa.”

He lifted Marli onto his right knee. Tiya was already sitting across from him, her hands propping her cheeks, her wild red curls spread out freely. She smiled—calmly, with a kind of love that felt almost grown-up. Marli traced her finger along the collar of his shirt, completely ready to hear something like a bedtime story. Like the ones her parents used to read her when she was very small. Now, she also fell asleep with a book—but she read it herself. That’s how big she had grown.

And so, Grandpa began his story.