On Tisha B’Av Today

Tonight we enter what might be the most emotionally challenging days of the Hebrew calendar, Tisha B’Av. Though Yom Kippur is a fair contender in this category, it is at its root a day of positivity and hope that we can do better and turn things around. Tisha B’Av, on the other hand, is the day when we call to mind all those moments in our history when we did not turn things around, when circumstances reached a point beyond our control and our worlds fell apart. 

Tisha B’Av is the singular day in the Hebrew calendar fully dedicated to grief and devastation, recalling the major calamities that have befallen our people– the destruction of the first and second temples, the fall of Betar, the expulsion from Spain, etc. In recent years, given the scale and impact on us, the Holocaust was added to this awful litany, and this year, October 7. 

We recognize, tonight, that there are times when there are no silver linings, when the soul yearns and needs to cry out in anguish. Once a year, Judaism teaches us that we must let these feelings out, revisit them, and remember. 

We remember not only the events and the feelings, but that which led to them. Most significantly, for these times, we remember why the second temple was destroyed. Sinat chinam. Senseless, baseless hatred. 

Destruction came from outside our people (the Romans, in that case) because we could not live together as a people, because we let our differences overwhelm our common ties. While this is not the only factor that led to October 7, it certainly weakened Israel’s ability to handle external adversity. With concern, we watch as the flames of hatred are fanned at all ends of our own society and other democracies throughout the world. 

May we be reminded, this Tisha B’Av, of what is truly at stake should we not learn from our past. May we be reminded of exactly what our people have gone through, of what it feels like when everything crumbles. 

And then, tomorrow night, at sundown, we’ll find that hope, as we begin the approach to the High Holy Days, that while we cannot change what has passed, with the future comes opportunity for t’shuvah—making things right.

Join us this evening, at 8:30 PM, here at Temple B’nai Abraham, for a meaningful Tisha B’Av observance.