From the seventeenth of Tamuz until the ninth of Av, the House of Israel practices mourning customs in remembrance of the suffering and destruction that befell the Jewish People. The purpose of these fasts and mourning customs is:
To arouse the hearts to take charge of repentance. It is meant to remind us of our evil deeds and the deeds of our ancestors, which were like our own deeds now, until they caused both them and us the same suffering. By remembering these things, we can return to the good path. Therefore, every person must take all this to heart during those days, and he must examine his deeds and repent for them.... On the seventeenth of Tammuz, five calamities occurred: the tablets were broken when Moses descended from Mount Sinai; the Tamid daily offering was cancelled during the First Temple period; the walls around Jerusalem were breeched during the Second Temple period; Epistemos burnt the Torah and placed an idol in the Sanctuary. (Orach Chaim 549, Mishnah Berurah)
The manifold causes of the suffering that beset us in the past still exist in our own generation, and we must repent for them. That is, we must rectify them both on the national level and on the personal level.



The Broken Tablets



Moses broke the tablets because of the sin of the Golden Calf. Every generation has its own Golden Calf, our own included. Today, the "Golden Calf" means the worship of money, materialism and hedonism, for some view these things as the purpose of everything. This leads people to forget their values, ideals and ethics, and also leads to their distancing themselves and cutting themselves off from Jewish tradition, from the Jewish People and from Eretz Yisrael. We have to nullify the present-day Golden Calf by returning to ourselves, returning to our roots and to Jewish tradition. By such means we will become reconnected to ourselves, to our people and to our land.



The Tamid



The Tamid daily offering, a communal offering, alludes to our drawing near as one man, with one heart, to our Father in Heaven. In our generation, as well, we have to find a way to unite all of Israel and to bring Israel, all together, closer to G-d, through increasing the love and faith so needed in our generation.



The Walls of Jerusalem



Jerusalem is the tangible expression of the assembly of Israel, of Jewish unity. Jerusalem's walls serve to defend Jerusalem and Israel. Unfortunately, in our day, the walls of Jerusalem are being breeched by way of all restrictions being breeched, all values being trampled and morality being nullified. So far have we deteriorated that there is going to be a march of "Gay pride" - or calumny - in the very heart of the Eternal City. The lack of an identity and the absence of roots has brought those people to confusion and destructive personal decline, to the collapse of the family unit. By returning to our essential, human and Jewish identity, we will buttress the walls of Jerusalem.



The Burnt Torah



The burning of the Torah in the past is, unfortunately, recurring today before our very eyes, through the children and adults of Israel being distanced from Torah study. We must once more learn and teach our holy Torah with love and faith.



The Idol in the Sanctuary



As is well-known, a man's heart is likened to his own Temple. The idol in the sanctuary of the heart of a man in our generation consists of his anger, lusts and drives, and his evil thoughts. We must "purify the sanctuary," our heart, by removing the idol from it.



By carrying out these improvements, we will be privileged to see the fulfillment of the prophet's words:



"Thus said the L-rd of hosts: The fasts of the fourth month, fifth month, seventh month and eighth month shall be to the house of Judah joy and gladness, and cheerful seasons. Therefore, love truth and peace." (Zechariah 8:19)