Alter Feuerman approaches the relevance of Tisha b’Av from a different perspective. Instead of focusing on the millennia of historic tragedies, he considers the personal aspect – people need an opportunity to express their grief and emotions, whether for a lost Temple, or deceased relatives, or any other loss or fear.
Rabbi Sacks addresses 3 questions: a) Why does the book of Devarim have the structure – a mix of history and law, recollection and anticipation? b) Why is it a “second law”? c) Why is this book included in the Torah?
Rabbi Sacks wrote this article 10 years ago, yet the circumstances have commonality with the current situation. He asks the question: is Tisha b’Av relevant to our post-Holocaust generation? He writes that in the Torah, freedom without order was the world before the Flood, every person against every person. We see this anarchy in Syria, Iraq, and Somalia. The alternative world of order without freedom was the world of Egypt of the Pharaohs, who achieved greatness at the cost of turning humanity into slaves.