SONGS OF THE MONTH – AUGUST 2011 / AV 5771
The song for this month is a setting of the penultimate line from the book of Eicha (Lamentations) which we read on Tisha b’Av. Tisha b’Av is a day of mourning, and Lamentations is a mournful book — but there’s a tradition of always closing with this penultimate line of the book, which offers hope.
The words are “Hashivenu, hashivenu, Adonai Eloheinu / v’nashuva, v’nashuva / chadesh, chadesh yameinu k’kedem,” and they mean “Return us to You, return us to You, Adonai our God / and we will return, we will return / renew, renew our days as of old!” Here’s the audio:
Hashivenu: http://velveteenrabbi.com/cbimusic/hashivenu.mp3
The two Shabbatot when I’m leading services this month are both Shabbatot when we’ll be celebrating b’not mitzvah — and they’re both after 9 Av, when our mood will have shifted from mourning into the celebratory anticipation of the journey toward the Days of Awe. So we probably won’t use this melody in services — though we will sing it at Tisha b’Av. Join us at 8pm on Monday, August 8.
[...] Whether or not you have ever experienced Tisha b’Av — whether or not you can easily relate to the notion of mourning for the fall of the Temple nearly two thousand years ago — I hope you will join us at 8pm on Saturday, July 28 to observe Tisha b’Av. We will hear some of Eicha (Lamentations) sung to its mournful melody; we will also sing the penultimate line of the book, with its message of hope and redemption. You can listen to the melody we will use, if you like — it was the song for the month of Av last year. [...]