Tisha B’Av

Dear Friends,

Monday night marks the saddest day on the Jewish calendar—the commemorative holiday of Tisha B’Av, a day of mourning for the destruction of the ancient First and Second Temples as well as for the loss of independence and sovereignty at the hands of the Babylonian and the Roman Empires.

For most of the time that I have been a Rabbi, the questions that I have been asked about Tisha B’Av have mostly expressed a sense of distance from the holiday. “Why should we mourn today for the Temples of 2,000 and 2,500 of years ago?” some would ask. Or “do we really mourn for Temples whose ritual practice was animal sacrifice, a practice we would never want to restore?”

These are good questions, but for me the holiday was never about the Temples themselves. It was always about communal grief. And there were times in Jewish history, from the Crusades to the Expulsion from Spain and to the holocaust, when Tisha B’Av spoke directly to our people’s grief and trauma. This year feels like such a time. With our experience of October 7th and its aftermath, grief is too close for distance to be an option. This year, Tisha B’Av is a day that is tragically relevant. We can feel in our bones what it is about. And looking at the biblical book of Lamentations that we chant on that day, and which some years seem like ancient poetry about a distant past, this year we see something all too recognizable—the murders witnessed, the brutality endured, the hunger, the trauma and the fury.

We are all holding feelings of tremendous grief, fear, and uncertainty. We carry the grief for the shocking murders and violence committed by Hamas on October 7th. We carry the nightmare of Israeli children, parents, and grandparents taken hostage, and women sexually abused and assaulted. We carry the worry for the safety of family and friends serving in the Israeli army in defense of Israel, and the worry for the future of our people in Israel and around the world.

The grief does not stop there. Many in our community are also carrying grief over the ongoing response to October 7th. There is grief for Palestinians who are suffering from widespread hunger and disease in Gaza. And there is a grief that a Jewish State would take actions to obstruct humanitarian aid, and carry out a course of war that is so far from what they see as the moral core of Judaism. Of course, none of this would have happened without the attack of October 7th. And yet, none of this needed to happen after October 7th. There are always choices, intensely difficult and imperfect as they are, in responses to violence. No matter where you stand, there is grief.

In families, grief sometimes brings people together. It can also drive people apart. And this sad fact is something that the Talmud addresses in its comments on Tisha B’Av. Why, the Talmud asks, did the destruction of the Second Temple happen? You would expect the answer to be something about the Romans, who truly were a brutal empire. But the Talmud answers, in its iconoclastic wisdom, that it was because of sinat hinam, internal hatred within the Jewish community. In other words, the fear and grief of the community were turned toward their fellow Jews. Today, as in the terrible times of the destruction of the First and Second Temple, we have sometimes expressed our grief and fear by hurting each other.

This Tisha B’Av, I want to express the hope that we can all be gentle with each other in our shared grief. That we can comfort each other for the many losses we are mourning. Tisha B’Av teaches us that the resilience and hope that we need to carry on can indeed emerge in a community experiencing disagreement, but not in a community that engages in hatred toward each other. The Talmud’s warning about sinat hinam is that we need to talk to one another with kindness and humility. That is not a luxury. It is essential.

For our own grieving community, I am deeply committed to a Jewish space that is supportive to each other in all of our grief. A community that is safe and open to a conversation that includes all of what we hold in our hearts. The enormity of the challenge requires an enormity of good will toward each other—especially towards our fellow Jews we disagree with. I am proud of what we have done in this regard, and I am deeply committed to doing whatever is humanly possible to continue to make that a reality. I believe that our safety and thriving as a people depend on it.

If you have a friend or a family member that you feel estranged from, this Tisha B’Av is the time to reach out. This is the time to tell them you love them, and that your love for them does not depend on their opinions. Maybe even tell them, if you can, that you want to learn from them. Our tradition is clear. Of all the things we can do to help our people in difficult times, this is among the most important.

As tradition teaches, Tisha B’Av is not only a day of mourning, it is also a day of hope, a day when the Messiah will be born. What can each of us do on this day to open that space for hope just a little wider? We can start by softening our hearts, and expanding our circle of empathy. May God help us in our pain reach out to others with kindness. May it be so.