Three weeks is a long time when you’re waiting for an email. But take all the pain and torment, all the sins and sorrows of a 4,000-year-old nation and squeeze them into a space of three weeks – and three weeks are a narrow space indeed.
“Between the strictures” is Jeremiah’s description of the period between the 17th of Tammuz, the day the walls of Jerusalem were breached, and the 9th of Av, when the Temple was destroyed and our exile commenced.
The narrow strait, however, is not a roadblock; on the contrary, it is a mechanism for increased productivity. Ask a gardener what happens when you pinch a garden hose. Ask a laser engineer what happens when a beam of light is focused on a singular point. Ask a historian what happens when the pent-up passions of a people channel through the person of a charismatic leader. Ask a rocket scientist what happens when a million pounds of thrust are squeezed through a nuzzle.
Ask our Sages: they will tell you that Moshiach was born on the Ninth of Av. They will tell you that it’s our generation’s task to squeeze four thousand years of yearning and striving through the narrow straight of galut and blast our world into a higher orbit – into the state of divine goodness and perfection promised by the Jeremiah the prophet.
