from My Commonplace Book (buying tears)

Jews were forbidden on pain of death ever again to set foot in Jerusalem. Only on the ninth of Ab—the traditional anniversary of the destruction of the Temple—could Jews pay for the right to weep on the site of the old sanctuary. For centuries thereafter they “bought their tears,” weeping over the lost glories of the past, yet never abandoning the hope that some day, in God’s own way, a restoration would come and the Holy Land once again rise from the ruins, tenderly built up by Jewish hands.

—Abram L. Sachar, A History of the Jews (5th ed., 1964)