I wanted to have this written before or on Tisha B’Av but only toward the end of the fast did it actually hit me what to put up.
Tisha B’Av is the national mourning holiday for the Jews. A number of the major Jewish tragedies happened on this day and the day after, and fast on this day from sunset until the stars come out the next evening. Showering, wearing leather shoes, and being with your spouse are also off limits. Here is a quick rundown, though it is not an inclusive list:
The proclamation the Jews would wander in the desert for 40 years
The destruction of the Two Temples in Jerusalem
The expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492
The liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto during the Holocaust
The expulsion of the Jews from Gaza in 2005, many of whom still lack permanent housing
I don’t do well with fasts, and even after a very powerful class in the morning I still wasn’t feeling anything except hungry, tired, and cranky, all the way until the end of the fast. It was at afternoon services that I just was going over in my head the different things I had learned when I saw an old student of mine. Both of us lit up when we saw each other, but we only spoke afterward.
I was very happy to hear he’s taking the MCAT’s in a few weeks, and everyone should wish him luck. That’s a different story.
The only reason I mention is we both understood that as happy as we were to see each other was that it wasn’t the time then. You have to be able to compartmentalize, like the Byrd’s song goes (taken from the book of Kohelet/Ecclesiastics incidentally) “a time to live, a time to die”. So there was certainly time for us to talk, but there was also a time, a necessary time, to sit and reflect on what’s gone wrong in the past and what we plan to do in the future so that it doesn’t happen again. Tisha B’Av is that day, and now I fully plan on enjoying the rest of the summer, and checking up on a few of my students in the process.
Tags: G-d, jew, jewish, tisha b'av, Torah
