The destruction of Jerusalem, in a 19th-century painting, the memory Tisha b'Av still carries today.
Why the world feels more tense right now,
and what to do about it
Sunset on July 22 to nightfall on July 23, São Paulo time. The time shifts from city to city, check the exact time for your area at myzmanim.com.
A water meditation before the fast ↓Before the fast begins, kabbalists teach a simple meditation with a cup of water, attributed to the Ari. It balances the body, which is mostly water, and helps carry the thirst through the day.
Prepare a full cup of water. Drink a hot tea and brush your teeth before you begin.
With each sip, turn the cup once counterclockwise and meditate on the combination:
On the ninth sip, drink the rest of the water and begin the fast.
A teaching from the Ari, via Daily Zohar. Read the original.
The Three Weeks don't ask us to fix the world. They ask us to repair what's actually within reach, our own reaction, our own choice, our own second of restriction.
This page is a free reading, not a translation, inspired by Billy Phillips' teaching on Bein haMetzarim, a Kabbalah student under Rav Berg and Karen Berg since 1989. His original 2013 piece is still worth reading: read "Negative Three Weeks" at kabbalahstudent.com. What changed here isn't the teaching, it's the headlines.
"The more ego we can lose, the less negativity in our lives." Billy Phillips, "Negative Three Weeks"
The twelve spies return from Canaan; ten bring a report of fear, and the people weep, the Talmud teaches that this pointless weeping "planted" the tears of every future Tisha b'Av.
Nebuchadnezzar's Babylonians destroy the First Temple in Jerusalem.
The Romans, under Titus, destroy the Second Temple.
Betar falls, the last stronghold of the Bar Kokhba revolt against Rome.
The deadline passes on the edict of expulsion of the Jews from Spain.
Germany declares war on Russia, opening World War I.
Mass deportations begin from the Warsaw Ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp.
"The Ninth of Av is the peak. This is the most negative day of the entire year, and it is also potentially the greatest day of the year, the day when the Messiah is born." Billy Phillips, "Negative Three Weeks"
Kabbalists teach that during Bein haMetzarim, an extraordinary amount of energy descends into the world, but without the spiritual filters that normally soften it. It's raw force, available to whoever receives it. The question was never "is this energy good or bad." The question is: who's receiving it, and with what consciousness?
In the hands of the ego, the same force that could heal turns into conflict. In the hands of someone who chooses to share, that same force becomes the year's greatest opportunity for growth.
If you want to see that unfiltered energy in action, you don't have to look far. Just check this very week's news:
None of these events "prove" Kabbalah. But they're a precise mirror of what kabbalists describe: a world receiving more energy than it can hold with consciousness, heat, pressure, and friction in every direction at once.
The good news is that this same read of the headlines can be an invitation, not a reason for panic. If the world out there feels hotter, more tense, more reactive, the question worth asking is: what about me?
Where, in my own week, did I feel that same heat rise, in traffic, in a hard conversation, in a thought that kept circling back? Bein haMetzarim doesn't ask us to fix the world. It asks that, faced with the same heat, we choose restriction over reaction, even just once, even for one second longer than yesterday.
Sources: teaching inspired by Billy Phillips, "Negative Three Weeks" (kabbalahstudent.com, 2013), read the original. The headlines cited reflect international coverage from the first week of July 2026 (CNN, Democracy Now, among other outlets).
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