17th of Tammuz: Beseech G-d until we have the Holy Temple!
Jews begin their annual Three Weeks of mourning over the destruction of the first two Holy Temples with the prayer, “Do not give Him silence, until He establishes and until He makes Jerusalem a source of praise in the Land [Isaiah 62:7, quoting the translation from the Artscroll Stone Edition]. For with You is the source of life; in Your light we will see light [Psalms 36:10]. Our G-d, we are contrite over our actions, we are shamed because of our wrongdoing.”
In the Book of Isaiah, verses 62:6-7 give the context of this message which G-d Himself instructed the prophet Isaiah to tell to the Jewish People. Quoting the Artscroll Stone Edition, with my explanatory comments inserted in brackets:
[v6.] Upon your walls, O Jerusalem, have I [G-d] posted guardians; all the day and all the night, continuously, they will never be silent. [They call out to the Jewish People,] “You who remind G-d, be not silent! [v7.] Do not give Him silence, until He establishes and until He makes Jerusalem a source of praise in the Land.”
The meaning of this is that the Jews are told not to be be silent before G-d about Jerusalem. In all of their daily prayer services, every day, they are to include prayers [per G-d’s instructions] for the return of His revealed Divine Presence to their holy city of Jerusalem, within the eternal Third Temple that the true Messiah (Moshiach) will establish there when he comes, speedily in our days.
The “Three Weeks” of mourning
In most years, the “Three Weeks” begin on the 17th of Tammuz. That is the day when the walls of Jerusalem were breached by the Romans, before they destroyed the Second Temple. The date when the destruction began, three weeks later, is the 9th of Av. (The First Holy Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians on the same date.) In years when the 17th of Tammuz falls on the Jewish Sabbath, the period of mourning begins a day later, on the 18th of Tammuz.
Isaiah 56:7 informs us, “for My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations.” Therefore, Noahides also await the building of the Third Holy Temple.
– By Dr. Michael Schulman, Director of Ask Noah International