The Three Weeks 143 articles

Rabbi Koenigsberg is a Rosh Yeshiva at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary of Yeshiva University, and the editor of two volumes of the Shiurei HaRav series, an annotated collection of...

The prophet Jeremiah spent years warning his people that they repent and stop insisting that the Temple would protect them. To his chagrin, the Jews honored the Temple more in spectacle...

At the end of “Masechet Makot,” the volume of the Talmud called “Makot,” on pages 24a and 24b, there are two similar stories. In each, the same group of great scholars...

“The replacement for Vespasian, the newly crowned Emperor, was the wicked Titus, from whose mouth the verse ‘Where is their G-d, the Rock in Whom they trusted?’ seemed to come. For...

The setting is Jerusalem, approximately in the year 70 C.E.; the city is in the grip of a terrible famine, and it is surrounded by powerful Roman legions, under the command...

The Enemy Approaches, and Famine in Yerushalayim When the Roman Emperor was convinced by Bar-Kamtza that the Jews were indeed mounting a rebellion, he sent against Yerushalayim the great general, Nero....

The “Beit HaMikdash” of the “Mashiach” According to Jewish Tradition, the Mashiach is born on Tisha B’Av. According to the RAMBAM, it is the Mashiach who will lead the Jewish People...

The End of Prophecy – The Formulation of the Mishnah The Prophet Yirmiyahu had received a prophecy that the “exile” following the destruction of the First Temple would be relatively “short”...

The First Beit HaMikdash was actually built in the time of Shlomo HaMelech, King Solomon. Shlomo was the son of King David, who had conceived the idea of building a Temple...

“…But look, ‘Here am I, Sitting in a House of Cedar…’ ” (Shmuel II, 7:2) “David HaMelech, “ King David, had finally succeeded in bringing the Ark of the L-rd to...