Tisha B'Av

Rabbi David Seidenberg

Tisha B’Av (the 9th day of the month of Av - an annual fast day in the Jewish tradition) can be a meditation on hunger, and even more so on thirst, coming as it does in the heat of summer. Though fasting is not famine, it brings me one small step closer in my body and imagination to what it might have been like during the siege of Jerusalem, or even to what it is like now, when famine strikes the victims and refugees of war.

The book we read on Tisha B’Av, Lamentations or Eikhah, is filled with images of hunger and famine, along with all other kinds of tragedy. I first got into Eikhah in a special way. It was shortly after a break-up, and I was aching so much I could hardly stand it. I was doing anything I could to distract myself (even jogging, which is not exactly my thing), but on Tisha B’Av you’re not allowed to be distracted by music or movies, or even by regular Torah study, and exercise on a no-water summer fast isn’t a smart idea. So I decided I would try to translate Lamentations. That led me to many years of engagement with the text, and to composing a powerful translation that I now distribute through my website.

Dear friends,

Each hot mid-summer, we see again how Jewish theology and practice is one (not the only) microcosm for universal experience.

 In this case, it is our sorrow for our burning earth, for our own hearts burning with acts of personal and social self-destruction -- and our yearning for new hope and transformation. (See two litanies of sorrow and yearning, below.)

 In mid-summer, when scorching winds heated by the Arabian desert sweep across what today are Jordan, Palestine, and Israel, Jewish tradition observes a day of sorrow for the Destruction -- the burning -- of both ancient Holy Temples in Jerusalem, first by the Babylonian and then by the Roman Empire.

Rabbi Arthur Waskow

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We usually see Tisha B'Av as the quintessential day of Jewish mourning: two Temples in Jerusalem destroyed, the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain, so many pogroms and disasters.

But some of the ancient rabbis connected this day and this alienation and this lament with which we bewailed our loss of our own sense of rightful place and honor in the universe, with that experience in all human beings.

We read in Midrash Rabbah about the word that gives its name to the holy book we read on Tisha B'Av, Eikha, or Lamentations:

Jewish Leaders Invoke Tisha B'Av in Philadelphia, Respond to Arrests

This statement was issued Thursday, Tisha B'Av, at a press conference held at the National Museum of American Jewish History (in Philadelphia). For further information ca

Shabbat Nachamu & Scorpions on parade

What is the comfort that comes from the Shabbat after Tisha B'Av, the anniversary of the Destruction of the Temple? What does it have to do with feeling comfortable, and what does it have to do with sco

The following is made available as a passage of "Kinot" (lamentations) for use on Tisha B'Av. — AW

WHEN A TEMPLE OF LIBERTY IS SHATTERED

When a society severs itself from justice and decency, disaster follows.

Last Shabbat the Jewish c

Rabbi Arthur Waskow

Smoke and Ashes: Tisha B'Av

I have thrown love into the flames; my heart is scorched and burning.

I gasp its smoke, my throat rattles: I cannot breathe the Breath of Life.

My work, my holy work! Gone in a flash of light

Rabbi Arthur Waskow

The Burning Issues: Tisha B'Av
Rabbi Arthur Waskow *

Tisha B'Av: The Temples burn. No surprise: the Holy Temple is a microcosm of our universe, so it burns in searing dry midsummer when there is no rain, when the chamsin

Rabbi Arthur Waskow

Three Weeks Before Tisha B'Av: Breaking Down the Wall
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For the three weeks from 17 Tammuz to 9 Av, we remember that in Tammuz the Babylonians broke through the walls that protected Jerusaalem. After three weeks of uncertainty, that breakthrough turned into destruction.

May we create a 17th of Tammuz in which the walls between peoples and betweenpersons are broken down -- and then the breakdown is used not fordestruction, but for creating new loving connections between us.