Q&A: Mourning for the Destruction of the Temple
Mourning for the Destruction of the Temple
Question
Hello Rabbi!
1. In your opinion, isn’t it a bit excessive to mourn for 3 weeks over a national destruction after 2,000 years? More than that:
there is no longer any destruction, and the State of Israel has been established. Don’t you think there is room to be lenient and shorten the mourning period?
2. Why is laundering forbidden during the Nine Days? Does doing laundry create joy?
Answer
1. The mourning is primarily over the destruction of the Temple. And even regarding the national destruction, you’ve gone a bit too far. We do not have sovereign Jewish rule and institutions like the Sanhedrin.
In any case, these are events whose consequences still exist to this day. In any event, this is Jewish law that was established, and its rationale has not lapsed. I do not see a reason or a possibility to change it.
2. About the prohibition on laundering, I was asked about this here a few days ago. The prohibition on wearing a freshly laundered garment is rooted in distress, and the instruction is to reduce comforts and display mourning. But the act of laundering itself involves distraction from the mourning. I said there that indeed the situation has changed from what it once was in this regard: laundering no longer distracts a person from anything, since it is a one-minute action (not like it used to be). Wearing a freshly laundered garment is now just a basic standard. In general, these mourning practices are indeed problematic, and today their status is mainly that of custom (preserving what used to be). It is possible that there is room to change them (subject to the rules governing when a rationale has lapsed).
Discussion on Answer
Questioner, isn’t this connected to Zechariah 7?
I wanted to suggest another possible basis for the prohibition on laundering:
The act of laundering in the days of the Sages was done much less frequently than in our time (say, once a month). Also, the number of clothes people owned was very small (say, one or two garments), so people wore the same garment many times between washings. After laundering, there was a kind of festive feeling, like the renewal of a new garment. As proof, there is a commandment to wash clothes before the holiday, and so that people would not be negligent about this, the Sages forbade laundering during the intermediate days of a festival. During the Nine Days one must distance oneself from festivity, and therefore laundering is avoided (and haircuts too, which also carry a festive quality). According to this reasoning, nowadays, when laundering has lost its festive character, it seems that the obligation to wash before the holiday and the prohibition on laundering during the Nine Days have somewhat lost their meaning.