The three-week period that commences with the fast of 17 Tammuz is a time of national mourning over the destruction of both batei mikdash (Jerusalem Temples). The first was destroyed at the hands of the Babylonians and the second was razed, centuries later, by the Romans.
(It should be noted that while 9 Av marks the exact anniversary of the commencement of both destructions – each began on the 9th before sunset and continued through the following day – Jerusalem’s walls were breached on different dates. The Babylonians breached the walls on 9 Tammuz, while the Romans broke through on 17 Tammuz. As we are in the second exile, we commemorate these events using the latter date.)
Both destructions resulted in exile, physical as well as spiritual. Our focus here will be on the first exile and the new reality it presented to the Jewish nation. (The term “Jewish” is used here to represent the southern Judean kingdom of Judah, Benjamin, and a portion of Levi that was defeated and exiled by Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylonian soldiers; the northern, Israelite kingdom had been defeated and exiled by the Assyrians some 160 years earlier.)
The exile took place over eighteen years and in three stages. They are known as galuyos (the respective exiles of) Yehoyakim, Yechanya, and Tzidkiyahu. It was during Tzidkiyahu’s reign that Jerusalem’s walls were breached and the Temple destroyed. (The year depends on which system one uses: our oral tradition tells us 423 BCE; secular scholars say 586 BCE.)
Most Jews were forced to go to Babylonia (Bavel). Some remained in Judah, while a small group fled to Egypt. We will detail the experience of the Babylonian exiles.
No words capture the exiles’ initial sense of loss and despair better than those of the psalmist:
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, and we wept, when we remembered Zion…. For there they who carried us away captive asked us for a song, saying. “Sing us one of the songs of Zion.” How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand lose its cunning. If I do not remember you, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth. — Psalm 137: 1, 3-6
As they made their way on the long, arduous trek from Judah to Babylonia, the b’nei golah (children of the exile) were pained by a troubling awareness. Their resounding defeat and exile seemed to suggest that their faith in God was misplaced. This thought naturally elicited feelings of profound despair, and a desire to forsake their special role as Jews. “But what enters your mind shall not come about, what you say, “Let us be like the nations, like the families of the lands, to serve wood and stone” (Yechezkel 20:32).
Remarkably, the Jews emerged swiftly from their depressed state and adjusted to their new lives. Under the direction of the prophet Yechezkel they came to realize that God never desired their defeat and exile. Had they only sought forgiveness, all of the pain and destruction would have been averted. God told the prophet, “I do not wish for the death of the wicked, but for the wicked to repent of his way so that he may live” (Yechezkel 33:11). It was they who had betrayed God, not the other way around. This realization helped the exiled Jewish community come to grips with its new reality. All was not lost. They were still His Chosen Nation.
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The Jews now looked to start over in Babylon. While they certainly longed for a return to their homeland, in the meantime they settled in the land of their captivity. They were well aware of Yirmiyahu’s prediction of a seventy-year exile that would precede the building of the second Temple. Accordingly, they adhered to his instructions (Yirmiyahu 29:5-7) to “Build houses and dwell in them. Plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters, and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to men, and they shall bear sons and daughters, and multiply there and be not diminished. And seek the peace of the city where I have exiled you and pray for it to the Lord, for in its peace you shall have peace.”
