Join us for Tisha b’Av on July 31

Dear Congregation Beth Israel members and friends,

On July 31 at 8pm join us for our observance of Tisha b’Av. Join us for a poignant and solemn evening service, featuring excerpts from Lamentations and contemporary poetry of loss and brokenness.

Tisha b’Av is the low point of the spiritual year, our communal and calendrical opportunity to delve deep into brokenness and exile — and it’s also the springboard that launches us into the High Holiday season.

From this low point, we begin the journey upward. This is what the Hasidic masters called “descent for the sake of ascent.” They knew that sometimes we first need to fall and grieve before we can be ready to heal and to rise.

For more on this holiday, why we celebrate it, and how it begins our journey toward the Days of Awe, here are words about this season in our liturgical year: Entering Av. (Rosh Chodesh Av, the new moon of Av, falls on July 24.)

I hope to see you at 8pm on July 31 for Tisha b’Av at CBI.

Wishing you blessings as we continue to move through the Three Weeks leading up to Tisha b’Av —

Rabbi Rachel

Days of closeness, days when God feels far away

The Jewish calendar is filled with moadim. Usually that word is translated as “festivals,” though it literally means “appointed times.” Each year we have moadim of closeness to God, and also moadim of distance from God. The Days of Awe and Sukkot are moadei shel keruv, appointed-times of closeness with God. The Three Weeks and Tisha b’Av are moadei shel richuk, appointed-times of distance from God.

That teaching comes from R’ Shlomo Wolbe, whose work Alei Shur I studied recently with R’ Jeff Fox as part of a week of “Rabbi (and Hazzan) Recharge” organized by The Jewish Studio. With R’ Jeff we also studied a text from R’ Shmuel Eidels (a.k.a. the Maharsha) that speaks of the Three Weeks as a period of growth toward fruition. Just as it takes 21 days for an almond tree to blossom, says the Maharsha, so we can understand the 21 days between 17 Tammuz and Tisha b’Av as a period of preparing for flowering-forth.

I don’t usually think of Tisha b’Av — that date of destruction and shattering — as a time of fruition or flowering. But the Alei Shur reminds us that it is natural (maybe even good?) for our relationships with the Holy One of Blessing to have an ebb and a flow, to have times of intimacy and times of distance. (Indeed: distance is often what awakens in our hearts our yearning to reconnect.) And from the Maharsha we learn that even destruction can have a silver lining, and can spark the blossoming of something new.

Today is the 17th of Tammuz, the beginning of the period known as The Three Weeks (also called Bein Ha-Meitzarim, “In the Narrow Places.”) Today is the anniversary of the ancient breach of Jerusalem’s city walls. In three weeks, on Tisha b’Av, we’ll re-experience the destruction of the Temples, our people’s quintessential experience of shattering and distance from our Source. (Join us for Tisha b’Av evening services at 8pm on Monday, July 31.)

In the Alei Shur’s language, these weeks are a moed of distance. They’re balanced by the three weeks from Rosh Hashanah to Shemini Atzeret, a moed of closeness and drawing-near. Three bitter weeks, and three sweet ones. We need to experience them both. The soul gets “out of whack” otherwise, if we marinate only in sorrow or if we allow ourselves only to feel joy.

What does it mean to say that this is appointed-time of distance from God? For me, it’s an opportunity to notice where and when and how I already feel that distance. Maybe my sorrows are causing me to feel distant from God: maybe I’m grieving so hard I can’t find God. Or maybe my joys are serving that function this year, if I let myself fall into the trap of spiritual bypassing — maybe I’m over-focusing on the positive so I don’t have to face what’s difficult in my life. Either way, distance from God ensues.

The Alei Shur teaches that distance from God isn’t, in and of itself, the worst thing. (Far worse is when we have fallen so out of alignment that we no longer even notice the distance.) He sees the distance as part of a natural cycle of being close and being far away — a ratzo v’shov, as it were. When I notice that I’m distant from a beloved, and let my heart feel the ache of that distance, the ache impels me to reach out and be close to my loved one again. As with a human beloved, so with the divine Beloved.

Where do you feel distant: from your beloveds, from the Beloved, from your traditions, from your Source? What are the patterns and habits that contribute to that distance? What are the excuses you make to yourself for why it’s okay to be disconnected, and what feels “at stake” when you imagine reconnecting — what are you afraid of when you imagine letting yourself reconnect?

Today we remember the first breach in Jerusalem’s ancient city walls. Where is your heart cracked-open? In what realms do you feel broken-hearted? How do you deal with the vulnerability of being fragile and breakable? What seeds might be planted in your broken places, that over these three weeks could be silently preparing themselves (preparing you) to flower into something new?

 

Cross-posted to Velveteen Rabbi.

Shavua tov! Looking forward to Shabbat Devarim, and to Tisha b’Av.

Dear Congregation Beth Israel members and friends,

Shavua tov / a good week to all! Join us at 9:30am on Saturday morning for Shabbat morning services led by Rabbi Pam Wax, where we’ll read from parashat Devarim, the beginning of the book of Deuteronomy.

Join us also on Saturday evening for our observance of Tisha b’Av. (Contact the office to find out the time for that observance.)

If you’d like to read some commentaries on this week’s Torah portion, some links follow:

• 2008: Travelogue [Torah poem]
• 2009: Record [Torah poem]
• 2014: Listening to the holy space between

If you’d like to learn more about Tisha b’Av, here are a few resources:

• Almost Tisha b’Av (2015)
• Learning to greet collapse with joy (2014)
• Tisha b’Av begins tonight (2013)

And here’s the URJ’s compilation of commentaries on this week’s Torah portion: Dvarim at the URJ.

Many thanks to our shamashim, the members who host our Shabbat services each week. If you would like to join that group, please contact the office.

Entering Av: a “d’var Torah” about this moment on our holy calendar

This isn’t so much a “d’var Torah” as a “d’var calendar” — the text I’m exploring this morning is the unfolding of our calendrical year.

Last Friday, just before Shabbat, we entered into the lunar month of Av. Av contains the low point on our communal calendar: Tisha b’Av. Tisha b’Av is the day when we remember the destruction of the first Temple by Babylon in 586 BCE, the destruction of the second Temple by Rome in 70 CE, and countless other tragedies that have happened at this season in other years, from the beginning of the first Crusade, to the expulsion from the Warsaw Ghetto and the mass extermination that followed.

Tisha b’Av is a day for confronting brokenness. The brokenness of the world. The brokenness of our hearts. And yet tradition teaches that on the afternoon of Tisha b’Av, moshiach will be born. The beginnings of our redemption arise from this very darkest of places. It’s a little bit like the Greek myth of Pandora who opened the box containing war and destruction and famine and all manner of awful things — and at the bottom of the box, found hope. A tiny spark of light to counter the darkness.

It’s the height of our beautiful Berkshire summer. Why would we choose, as we move into Av, to delve into grief? Because if we don’t let ourselves feel what hurts, we can’t move beyond it. If we don’t let ourselves acknowledge what’s broken, we can’t mend. If we don’t let ourselves acknowledge what feels damaged, we can’t begin to repair it. Brokenness is part of the human condition, and the only way to transcend it is to let ourselves feel it fully. Feeling what hurts is the first step toward healing the hurt we feel.

According to the Mishna, on Tisha b’Av we mourn not only that long list of historical calamities, but also a psychospiritual one: the time when the scouts went into the Promised Land, and became afraid of what they saw, and returned to the children of Israel and said “we can’t go there, those people are giants, we must have looked to them like grasshoppers.” Av is a time for remembering how we diminish ourselves when we let go of faith for a better future and let our fear rule us instead.

Why would we want to look at the times when we’ve been afraid? Why would we want to examine our own complicity in the cycles of brokenness that are a part of every human life — how we keep bringing ourselves, over and over, back to the same issues, the same fears, the same hurts? Because in that examining, we strengthen our power to make different choices. We don’t have to repeat the mistake the scouts made. We don’t have to repeat our own mistakes. We can make teshuvah — we can turn.

Rabbi Alan Lew writes,

Tisha b’Av is the moment of turning, the moment when we turn away from denial and begin to face exile and alienation as they  manifest themselves in our own lives — in our alienation and estrangement from God, in our alienation from ourselves and from others.

This new lunar month invites us to recognize that our constructs — the narratives we’ve inherited or built to tell us who we are — are just that: constructed. And like everything else in this world of entropy, they fall apart. When our constructs are shattered, we feel shattered, too. But Tisha b’Av comes to teach us that even when the walls crumble, even when the Temple is destroyed, even when our constructs shatter and we feel adrift, something more lasting than all of these persists in us.

You can call that something “God.” You can call that something “Love.” You can call that something “Transformation.”

Av is our month of greatest sorrow — and in that greatest sorrow, we find an opening to joy. In facing what’s falling down, we find a way for our spirits to rise up. In facing our fear and our complicity in succumbing to that fear, we find an opening into a future of promise. In facing our feelings of helplessness, we find strength. In facing the darkness, we find light. Kein yehi ratzon.

 

These are the remarks that Rabbi Rachel offered at CBI yesterday morning (cross-posted to Velveteen Rabbi.)

You might also find useful this set of resources for Tisha b’Av 5776 on Kol ALEPH, the blog of ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal.

Shavua tov; looking forward to Shabbat Devarim and to Tisha b’Av

Shavua tov – a  good week to you!

This week we’re reading the Torah portion known as D’varim, the first portion the book of D’varim (“Words,” e.g. Deuteronomy.)

If you’d like to read some commentaries on this week’s Torah portion, some links follow:

• 2008: Travelogue [Torah poem]
• 2009: Record [Torah poem]
• 2014: Listening to the holy space between

And here’s the URJ’s compilation of commentaries on this week’s Torah portion: Dvarim | URJ.

This coming Shabbat morning, services will be led by Rabbi Pam Wax.

This coming Saturday evening, July 25, Rabbi Pam Wax will lead our community’s Tisha b’Av observance. We’ll begin with a short a study session “Joy and Sorrow in Jewish Practice and Tradition”, followed by a short service and the reading of a selection from the book of Lamentations, led by Rabbi Pam Wax. The service will take place by candlelight. Those who are comfortable doing so are invited to sit on the floor, as a sign of mourning. Please bring a cushion and a flashlight to read by. By the way, those who have seen the animated Pixar movie “Inside Out” in which Joy and Sadness are major characters, will have much to add to our conversation! (It may still be playing in North Adams.)

Tisha B’Av is commemorated as a day of mourning for the destruction of both the first and second Temples, as well as other tragedies befalling the Jewish community. Kindly RSVP to the office by noon on Thursday, July 23 if you plan to attend, so that we can plan for seating and xeroxing needs. All are welcome.

Many thanks to our shamashim, the members who host our Shabbat services each week. If you would like to join that group, please contact Pattie Lipman.

We hope to see you soon at CBI!

Tisha b’Av: Monday, August 4 at 8pm

Dear Congregation Beth Israel members and friends,

On Monday evening (August 4) at 8pm we will observe Tisha b’Av at CBI with an evening service which will feature poetry both classical and contemporary, psalms and prayers, lamentations and hope.

Tisha b’Av is the anniversary of the destruction of the first Temple in 586 BCE, and the destruction of the second Temple in 70 CE. In our own day, Tisha b’Av beckons us into the darkness of inner exile, so we can emerge into the Season of Teshuvah. Enfolded in community, we invoke the depth of Tisha b’Av for the purpose of rising anew.

This year we will use a renewed liturgy for Tisha b’Av. Excerpts from the Biblical book Eicha (Lamentations) will be interwoven with contemporary poetry (by Toge Sankichi, Yehuda Amichai, Mark Nazimova, Hannah Stein, and others) and with a simple evening service.

The service is brief, but hopefully its emotional impact will linger — and will become the springboard from which we will ascend upwards toward the Days of Awe. Please join us.

Blessings to all,

Rabbi Rachel

Tisha b’Av Date Correction

Dear CBI members and friends,

I’m writing to correct the dates of Tisha b’Av; the announcements which went out this week contained a date error, for which I most sincerely apologize! The days of the week were correct (Monday night, Tuesday afternoon) and the Hebrew dates were correct, but the Gregorian calendar dates were off by one day.

We will indeed be meeting for our evening service at 8pm on Monday — which is July 15th, not the 14th as was in the original announcements. And we will gather for afternoon study at 3pm on Tuesday — which is July 16th, not the 15th as was in the original announcements.

All are welcome to attend one or both of these observances, regardless of whether or not you are fasting. On Monday night we will read the book of Lamentations in English, hear a little bit of it in the mournful melody unique to this day of the year, and immerse in some poetry designed to open us to the loss and grief of the day. On Tuesday afternoon we will study texts about repentance and fasting as the day takes a turn from despair toward hope.

Wishing everyone a sweet Shabbat —

Rabbi Rachel