Today is Tisha B'Av, the day set aside on the Jewish calendar to commemorate national tragedies such as the loss of the Temples in Jerusalem and the exile and scattering of the Jewish people. I took a look around the web to see what this day has people thinking about this year.  Here's what I found:

Jewschool featured a spoken word poet rhapsodizing on how ancient pain relates to contemporary lives, not just for Jews, but for all humanity.

The Velveteen Rabbi looks at the value of communal sorrow as a necessary stage of development, while cautioning us against forgetting the individual suffering that makes up communal tragedies. Chaim Steinmetz makes a similar argument, concluding "the art of mourning is to use tragic memories as a roadmap for fixing the world."

Anshel Pfeffer, writing in Israeli newspaper Haaretz, makes the Zionist argument that it's wrong to fast on Tisha B'Av now that the State of Israel has returned the Jews from exile. The Magnes Zionist responds with nine reasons a Zionist should fast on Tisha B'Av.

Finally, Jewlicious is live-streaming an English-language panel discussion taking place right now in Jerusalem about social and personal responsibility of the Jewish people.

Thanks to my Facebook friends for sharing some of these links with me. And no matter how you are observing this day, I hope it is meaningful for you.