The Nine Days of Av

The Nine Days of Av: When the Mourning Deepens and the Heart Turns Toward Home

There is a moment, each summer, when the mourning of the season stops being a feeling and starts being a way of living. The Nine Days of Av begin on Rosh Chodesh Av and run until Tisha B’Av, and in them the restraint of the weeks before turns into something a family feels at its own table: the meat and wine set aside, the music gone quiet, the laundry left for another time. Our Sages taught, “When Av enters, we diminish in joy,” and the Nine Days are where that teaching takes hold of daily life. The reason is not gloom for its own sake; we put down the foods of celebration precisely because the place that was the source of our greatest celebration, the Beis HaMikdash, still lies in ruins.

This is a season that draws the heart toward what we have lost and toward those who still suffer, which is why caring for the poor of Eretz Yisroel through tzedakah to Rabbi Meir Baal Haness Charities fits so naturally inside the Nine Days. In what follows we will lay out where these days come from, what we read and do, and the laws that shape them, so that the mourning is kept with clarity and with dignity. Step into the Nine Days with us, and see how restraint becomes a kind of return.

Understanding the Nine Days of Av

The Nine Days of Av are the period from the first of Av, Rosh Chodesh Av, through the ninth of Av, Tisha B’Av. They form the most intense stage of the broader mourning of the Three Weeks, and they exist to bring the grief for the Churban from the level of awareness down into the everyday choices of food, dress, and pleasure. The observances apply across Klal Yisroel, men and women alike, and they are largely accepted customs that carry binding force, anchored in the law of the Mishnah and developed by the poskim.

The gateway into the Nine Days is the teaching of the Mishnah, “Mishenichnas Av memaatin b’simchah” — “When Av enters, we diminish in joy” (Taanis 26b). From that principle flow the specific restrictions: refraining from meat and wine, from laundering and wearing freshly laundered clothes, from haircuts and new garments, from bathing for pleasure, and from joyous building and planting.

The central halachic source is the Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 551, with the Mishnah Berurah and other Acharonim mapping the details. A newcomer learns here exactly what the Nine Days require and why; one who keeps them yearly will still find depth in how the law turns the loss of the Mikdash into the texture of a single week.

The History and Origins of the Nine Days

The roots of the Nine Days lie in the same Mishnah that frames the whole season. The Mishnah in Taanis (4:6, Taanis 26b) records the calamities of the ninth of Av and, alongside them, the principle that joy is reduced once the month of Av begins. The Gemara that follows (Taanis 29b) extends the caution of the month into practical life, teaching that a Jew should be wary in his affairs during this period, when the mazal of Israel is at a low ebb — for example, distancing himself from disputes and risky undertakings.

The custom of refraining from meat and wine during the Nine Days is an expression of mourning for the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash. A central explanation is that meat and wine were closely tied to the Temple service, so setting them aside helps mark the loss of that avodah. There is also a broader connection to simchah, which is why these foods are especially fitting to avoid during a period of communal mourning.

When it comes to the restrictions of the Nine Days, the mesorah of Ashkenaz and Sefarad diverge in detail while sharing the same heart. For laundering, the Mechaber records that it is forbidden in the week in which Tisha B’Av falls, while the Rema records the Ashkenazi practice to be strict from Rosh Chodesh Av until after the fast (Orach Chaim 551:3). For meat and wine, the Mechaber records several community customs — some refraining only in that week, some from Rosh Chodesh, some from the seventeenth of Tammuz — while the Rema records the Ashkenazi custom from Rosh Chodesh (Orach Chaim 551:9). Each practice was transmitted faithfully, and a person follows the mesorah of their own kehillah.

The Prayers, Readings and Customs of the Nine Days

Within the Nine Days falls Shabbos Chazon, the Shabbos before Tisha B’Av, named for the haftarah that opens the navi Yeshayahu, the vision (chazon) of rebuke that prepares the heart for the fast. On Shabbos itself there is no public mourning, for the honor of Shabbos overrides it, yet the haftarah and the nearness of Tisha B’Av give the day its solemn weight.

One custom of the Nine Days is especially telling. When meat and wine are otherwise set aside, they are permitted at a seudas mitzvah — the meal of a bris, a pidyon haben, or the completion of a tractate of Talmud, a siyum. Because of this, there is a widespread minhag to arrange a siyum during the Nine Days so that the joy of completing Torah may permit a festive meal.

The restraints that shape these days — music silenced and clothes left unwashed — are themselves a form of avodah. We carry them with dignity, not misery, because the purpose of the Nine Days is not to crush the spirit, but to focus it on the home we are still waiting to rebuild.

What the Nine Days Mean: A Deeper Look

The Nine Days are more than a list of things we do not do. The Sages who shaped them embedded a way of understanding loss, restraint, and the relationship that survives even mourning. Four of their ideas deserve a closer look.

“Mishenichnas Av memaatin b’simchah” — we diminish joy. The Mishnah says that when Av enters, we diminish joy (Taanis 26b). In practice, halacha channels this into concrete forms of restraint rather than ordinary celebration — the Nine Days call for restraint, not despair, and a Jew is never asked to extinguish his inner hope even in the depths of Av. Jewish mourning is never endless, because even at the darkest moment a Jew grieves within the larger trust that Hashem’s plan still moves toward meaning and ultimate good. For the reader carrying a heavy season, this is the difference between mourning and giving up, and the Nine Days insist on the first.

The foods of a lost celebration. Why meat and wine in particular? Because, as the meforshim explain, these were the substance of joy in the Beis HaMikdash, where the korbanos were eaten and the wine was poured. We abstain from them as an honest admission: the deepest source of our celebration is gone, and we will practice mourning while it lies in ruins. There is something profoundly healthy in this for any grief — the refusal to cover over a real loss with ordinary pleasures, and the willingness to let the absence be felt.

“Av” — the Father within the mourning. The very name of the month, Av, means “father.” A later homiletic reading finds comfort hidden in the calendar: the month of our deepest mourning is named with the word for the One who remains our Father even as He judges, so that the grief of the Nine Days is always the grief of children who know they are still loved. For anyone who has wondered whether suffering means abandonment, the name of the month answers quietly that it does not.

The Laws and Customs of the Nine Days of Av

The practices of the Nine Days are best understood category by category, all flowing from the principle of diminished joy. The Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 551) is the central source, with the Rema recording Ashkenazi custom and the Mishnah Berurah filling in the details.

Meat and wine. In Ashkenazi practice we refrain from eating meat and drinking wine from Rosh Chodesh Av through the fast, the chief exceptions being Shabbos, on which meat and wine are eaten in full, and a genuine seudas mitzvah. Many also use wine for Havdalah after Shabbos Chazon, with various community customs about who drinks it. Sephardi custom on meat and wine varies, and a person follows their own minhag.

Laundry and clothing. We do not launder clothes during this period, nor wear freshly laundered garments, which is why the custom is to prepare and lightly wear clothing before Rosh Chodesh so that it is not “fresh.” Buying or wearing new garments is set aside as well. In common Sephardi practice the laundry restriction begins primarily in the week of Tisha B’Av, per the Mechaber.

Bathing, haircuts, and grooming. Bathing for pleasure is restricted, with the details and leniencies varying by custom and by need, and the prohibition on haircuts continues from the Three Weeks. Here again the Ashkenazi and Sephardi mesoros differ on exactly when each restriction begins, and the guidance of one’s own rav governs.

Building, planting, and business of joy. We refrain from construction and planting undertaken for pleasure or expansion rather than need, and we reduce joyous business and celebration. Following the Gemara in Taanis 29b, many are careful to avoid risky or contentious matters during the month.

The erev Tisha B’Av meal, the seudah hamafsekes, and the laws of the fast itself belong to the day of Tisha B’Av, which we treat in its own article; the Nine Days lead a person right up to its threshold.

The Spiritual Power of Tefillah and Tzedakah

The Gemara in Bava Basra 10a teaches that tzedakah saves from death, citing the words of Shlomo HaMelech, “tzedakah tatzil mimaves” (Mishlei 10:2), and Chazal further teach (Rosh Hashanah 16b) that tzedakah is among the things that tear up a harsh decree. In the Nine Days, when we are most aware of all that was lost, these words point toward what can still be built.

In this season we mourn a Mikdash whose loss our Sages tie to the broken bonds between Jews, and we abstain from the foods of celebration because the heart of our joy is gone — and the most fitting response is to fill the gap with chesed, sending sustenance to the widows, orphans, and Torah scholars of Eretz Yisroel who feel the absence of that joy most acutely.

When we give in the merit of Rabbi Meir Baal Haness, who intercedes in Heaven for those who care for the needy of the Holy Land in his memory, the restraint of the Nine Days turns outward into an act that reaches the poor of the land we are mourning for. The diminished joy of the table becomes the increased joy of someone else’s, and that is itself a step toward the rebuilding.

Give Tzedakah in the Merit of Rabbi Meir Baal Haness

In the Nine Days we set aside our own celebration because the Mikdash lies in ruins. A gift to the poor of Eretz Yisroel, in the merit of Rabbi Meir Baal Haness, turns that restraint outward, bringing relief to those who feel the loss most and hastening the day of rebuilding.

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About Rabbi Meir Baal Haness Charities

Rabbi Meir Baal Haness Charities, founded in 1799, is one of the oldest and most trusted tzedakah organizations serving the poor of Eretz Yisroel, upholding Rabbi Meir Baal Haness’s legacy that those who give to the needy in his memory find heavenly intercession in their time of need. Through every generation Jews have leaned on this zechus in their hardest hours, and the chain of giving has never broken.

Today the organization distributes funds to Torah scholars, widows, orphans, and needy families throughout Eretz Yisroel, an unbroken chain of compassion that is a zechus for the giver and for their family. In the Nine Days, when the heart turns toward Yerushalayim and her loss, that giving becomes a way of holding the land close until the day of comfort arrives.

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Frequently Asked Questions About the Nine Days of Av

Closing

The Nine Days teach us to let a loss be real. We set aside the meat and the wine, the music and the new clothes, not to punish ourselves but to keep faith with a House that has not yet been rebuilt, and we turn that restraint outward by giving to the poor of Zion in the merit of Rabbi Meir Baal Haness. May the diminished joy of these days be returned to us in full and doubled in gladness, and may we merit to see the fasts of Av transformed into festivals of rejoicing, with the rebuilding of the Beis HaMikdash, speedily and in our days.