Mourning came early this year.

The Three Weeks are approaching and as I write this column and our brethren in many parts of Eretz Yisrael are in bomb shelters, missiles are raining down from Gaza, sirens are going off. The shivah for the three kidnapped boys, Hy’d, has just finished and r’l six Jewish boys are in custody for confessing to the murder of an Arab youth.

Now, more than ever, we need the Torah to help us find a path in the darkness; to guide us to the meaning in our mourning. And when a Jew needs to find that path – he turns to halachah.

For tens of thousands of readers, Rabbi Simcha Bunim Cohen‘s books of halachah, Jewish law, are synonymous with extraordinary clarity.

In The Laws of Daily Living: The Three Weeks, Tisha B’Av, and Other Fasts Rabbi Cohen examines the laws of all the fast days (with the exception of Yom Kippur), the restrictions of the Three Weeks, the heightened sense of loss that builds up as we approach the Nine Days, and the climactic mourning of the Tishah B’Av fast.

The book is enriched and deepened by a discussion of the historical background of the momentous events that led to the Temple’s destruction, based on the teachings of the author’s grandfather, the renowned Rabbi Avigdor Miller zt’l. This adds a new and important dimension to the way we mark this period. Rabbi Miller’s thought provides a moving and profound discussion of the Beis HaMikdash, its role in our lives, and the all-consuming loss that the Jewish People suffered with its destruction.

Those who truly mourn the loss of the Temple, say our Sages, are destined to rejoice in its rebuilding. As we study and learn to properly follow the laws of these sad weeks, we bring that long-awaited moment ever closer.

Yes, mourning came early this year. As we mark the Three Weeks, Nine Days, and Tisha B’Av, we pray that in the merit of our mourning, geulah will come early as well.

Click here to purchase The Laws of Daily Living: The Three Weeks, Tisha B’Av, and Other Fasts