For those interested, there is a live webcast of kinnos and shiurim given by Rabbi J. J. Schacter going on for a while today (I think it ends at 5:00 for mincha). You can also get there by the link on the YU website.
Have an easy and meaningful fast, everyone.
Showing posts with label tisha b'av. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tisha b'av. Show all posts
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Fire
(I wrote this in honor of Tisha b'Av. I sort of had this flash of emotion as I was putting my shoes on before going to shul to hear Eicha. I wanted to write this down afterwards before I lost it. The sad thing is, intense feeling like this will probably have all melted away by the time I wake up tomorrow, and then it will be just like any other Tisha b'Av - a lot more empty than it should be. I don't know why I suddenly felt so strongly tonight, but I'm glad I did, in a weird way. Seeing everyone in shul sitting on the floor helped, too. Also, I hope this isn't too intense for anyone. It was sort of intense for me, but I needed to write it and I felt it was powerful enough to post. At least, it was powerful for me. I can't say it will be for anyone else. But if it helps anyone at all, even in the tiniest way, relate to what today is all about, then I guess that's a good thing.)
I am a tiny, insignificant speck. All around me is darkness. Swirling, swirling. Echoing screams of the past rush by, but they're not really there. But I feel the heat. I feel the fire. I feel it.
The fire.
It quivers. It sparks. It erupts in brutal flames. The flames - intensity in its purest form. Red. Orange. Yellow. Orange. Red. They all dance together - a rambunctious dance, a provocative dance, a dance of profanity as they desecrate everything holy. I feel anger - indignant anger - well up as the flames roll and laugh, cackle and crackle and lick at the very foundation of life and light and good things. This is the fire of Darkness. This is the smog and fog and smoke that we choke on. Choke and cough and sputter until our eyes run with sooty tears. These are the unconstrained flames that wriggle and twist - they twist at my soul. And I cry. I cry and cry and cry. Because it hurts! It hurts to be yanked away from the warmth and light and closeness of God! It hurts to be thrown down, to be cast aside, to be pushed away! It stings to be exiled, to yearn for that love which you know you'll have to try so much harder to feel. And I want to be comforted, I need to be comforted - but there is no comfort. Is it possible to be comforted for this plight? Is it possible?
And I know that this - this which I feel - is only an echo of what was once felt. Only a tiny, infinitesimal echo - because how can I really know? How can I really understand? Me, who has never known such holiness, who has never been so close to God, who has never heard the singing of the Levi'im and who has never understood what it was like to see someone bring a korban? Me, of the Diaspora. Me, who has lived my entire life in exile, never knowing what it was like not to be in exile.
So I bury my face and shiver at the thought that the pain I feel now is happiness compared to the pain felt then. This scares me. An eerie coldness grips my soul and envelops my entire being, because here I am, a 21st century American Jewish girl, and I think I understand pain and sadness and anguish. And it terrifies me - that my feeble shadow of pain is only that. A shadow. That there was a time when people suffered so intensely. And that time was real. And I can't fathom such a thing. And that's why it scares me. That such a thing could have existed at all.
Fire
~ a stream-of-consciousness story~
~ a stream-of-consciousness story~
I am a tiny, insignificant speck. All around me is darkness. Swirling, swirling. Echoing screams of the past rush by, but they're not really there. But I feel the heat. I feel the fire. I feel it.
The fire.
It quivers. It sparks. It erupts in brutal flames. The flames - intensity in its purest form. Red. Orange. Yellow. Orange. Red. They all dance together - a rambunctious dance, a provocative dance, a dance of profanity as they desecrate everything holy. I feel anger - indignant anger - well up as the flames roll and laugh, cackle and crackle and lick at the very foundation of life and light and good things. This is the fire of Darkness. This is the smog and fog and smoke that we choke on. Choke and cough and sputter until our eyes run with sooty tears. These are the unconstrained flames that wriggle and twist - they twist at my soul. And I cry. I cry and cry and cry. Because it hurts! It hurts to be yanked away from the warmth and light and closeness of God! It hurts to be thrown down, to be cast aside, to be pushed away! It stings to be exiled, to yearn for that love which you know you'll have to try so much harder to feel. And I want to be comforted, I need to be comforted - but there is no comfort. Is it possible to be comforted for this plight? Is it possible?
And I know that this - this which I feel - is only an echo of what was once felt. Only a tiny, infinitesimal echo - because how can I really know? How can I really understand? Me, who has never known such holiness, who has never been so close to God, who has never heard the singing of the Levi'im and who has never understood what it was like to see someone bring a korban? Me, of the Diaspora. Me, who has lived my entire life in exile, never knowing what it was like not to be in exile.
So I bury my face and shiver at the thought that the pain I feel now is happiness compared to the pain felt then. This scares me. An eerie coldness grips my soul and envelops my entire being, because here I am, a 21st century American Jewish girl, and I think I understand pain and sadness and anguish. And it terrifies me - that my feeble shadow of pain is only that. A shadow. That there was a time when people suffered so intensely. And that time was real. And I can't fathom such a thing. And that's why it scares me. That such a thing could have existed at all.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Transition
It's raining outside and I sit here in my house in New York, USA, thinking about how soon it will be Shabbos. The funny thing is that the onset of Shabbos also means Tisha b'Av is almost here.
It's a weird dichotomy, having Shabbos and Tisha b'Av right next to each other. It's almost like the transition from Yom Hazikaron to Yom Ha'Atzmaut, only backwards. Shabbos is a day where we're not supposed to show signs of mourning. We're supposed to be b'simcha - having three meals and wine, etc. We're not allowed to fast on Shabbos. Shabbos trumps all fast days except Yom Kippur (and Yom Kippur is not a sad day or a day of mourning). And yet as soon as Shabbos ends, we go immediately into Tisha b'Av.
I think transition plays a huge role in Judaism. We are constantly transitioning between different levels of kedusha, different kinds of relationships with God, kodesh to chol, chol to kodesh, celebration to mourning, mourning to celebration...
We have to be able to cope with all these transitions. We have sad times, we have happy times, and often they're one right after the other. Not so long after Tisha b'Av, we have Tu b'Av, which is a much happier day.
Transitions like these keep us active participants in our religion and in our relationship with God. Constant change means we have to constantly be focusing our mindset on different emotions. And a transition like going from Shabbos straight into Tisha b'Av really brings out the stark difference between the two. Shabbos - a day of three meals, lechem mishna, kiddush, singing. Tisha b'Av - a day of fasting, mourning, kinos. And maybe it'll make Tisha b'Av even more real, because we'll still have the taste of Shabbos lingering - but gone - while we step into such a sad day. And it'll be much easier to feel the sadness of Tisha b'Av because of that.
It's hard to mourn over something we've never experienced. But going from Shabbos to Tisha b'Av might help the imagination and stir up feelings of real mourning over an intense relationship with God that we once had.
And hopefully the full geulah will come soon so that by next year, we won't be able to say we don't know what it feels like to have a Beis Hamikdash.
It's a weird dichotomy, having Shabbos and Tisha b'Av right next to each other. It's almost like the transition from Yom Hazikaron to Yom Ha'Atzmaut, only backwards. Shabbos is a day where we're not supposed to show signs of mourning. We're supposed to be b'simcha - having three meals and wine, etc. We're not allowed to fast on Shabbos. Shabbos trumps all fast days except Yom Kippur (and Yom Kippur is not a sad day or a day of mourning). And yet as soon as Shabbos ends, we go immediately into Tisha b'Av.
I think transition plays a huge role in Judaism. We are constantly transitioning between different levels of kedusha, different kinds of relationships with God, kodesh to chol, chol to kodesh, celebration to mourning, mourning to celebration...
We have to be able to cope with all these transitions. We have sad times, we have happy times, and often they're one right after the other. Not so long after Tisha b'Av, we have Tu b'Av, which is a much happier day.
Transitions like these keep us active participants in our religion and in our relationship with God. Constant change means we have to constantly be focusing our mindset on different emotions. And a transition like going from Shabbos straight into Tisha b'Av really brings out the stark difference between the two. Shabbos - a day of three meals, lechem mishna, kiddush, singing. Tisha b'Av - a day of fasting, mourning, kinos. And maybe it'll make Tisha b'Av even more real, because we'll still have the taste of Shabbos lingering - but gone - while we step into such a sad day. And it'll be much easier to feel the sadness of Tisha b'Av because of that.
It's hard to mourn over something we've never experienced. But going from Shabbos to Tisha b'Av might help the imagination and stir up feelings of real mourning over an intense relationship with God that we once had.
And hopefully the full geulah will come soon so that by next year, we won't be able to say we don't know what it feels like to have a Beis Hamikdash.
Monday, July 23, 2007
A day of bitterness
Tisha B'av has just begun. I came back from hearing Aicha a short while ago and I thought, it's so easy to lose focus on fast days - any fast day. People concentrate so much on not eating, on counting down when it will be over, on trying to distract themselves. Tomorrow, I have to go to my internship in the city and I know it's going to be weird, it's going to take away from that Tisha B'av atmosphere I've felt nearly all my childhood in summer camp. So how can I make Tisha B'av meaningful, even if I have to treat it like a normal, regular day?
I want to take some time to mention certain tragedies I associate with Tisha B'av. These are tragedies that I've experienced, that I remember, that help me feel the power of the day so that I can truly begin to understand, in an infinitesimal way, what it is like to lose a Temple, a Beit Hamikdash.
1. When I was nine years old, my grandmother passed away. Her yartzeit is quite close to Tisha B'av. Although I was very young at the time, I do remember her well.
2. A few years ago, I was at summer camp and a counselor for a different division died without warning the day before Tisha B'av. That night, when we read Aicha, it was with a kavana that I think probably most of us had never felt before. Though I never knew this counselor, and though many in the camp never knew him, we were all affected by the tragedy.
3. My teacher, Dr. Schwebel, who just passed away about two weeks ago. Even then I thought, wow, during the three weeks, too. There is something about tragedies during the three weeks and nine days. It is almost like God is recognizing that these people are extremely important, that they mean so much, and yet He takes them away, just as we, as a people, have lost so much throughout the centuries at this time of year.
These three people, these three tragedies, I will always think about on Tisha B'av. They make my Tisha B'av more meaningful and more personal. I wish, I truly do wish, I knew how to properly mourn the Beit Hamikdash. But, unfortunately, though I have an excellent imagination for stories, I cannot bring myself to feel the proper emotions for a Beit Hamikdash I never personally knew. It makes me sad that I am so removed from it and also guilty, in a way, because I am a Jew and I should be devastated that we lost the Beit Hamikdash, that we no longer have it today, that it has not yet been built. And perhaps I am devastated, in my own way, because I have never known it. Because there was a golden period of Jewish history that I missed, that I never experienced. But all that is too far removed for me. I really do try.
So I feel Tisha B'av in my own way, through tragedies that I really do feel, through sadness that I really did experience. I hope this is not wrong of me, but I don't think it is. I think, in a way, that is what we are supposed to do. Tisha B'av is a day of general sadness - a day where we mourn anything and everything we have lost. And if that means connecting more to events in this lifetime as opposed to events 2000 years ago, than I think that's okay. I think it's alright.
Everyone deals with days of sadness in their own way. This is how I deal with it. I think of people I have personally lost, or who people near to me have lost. The most recent tragedy, Dr. Schwebel, is, of course, on the forefront of my mind. I still cannot believe she is being mourned, instead of joining us in mourning on this day. It is truly a day of bitterness.
I want to take some time to mention certain tragedies I associate with Tisha B'av. These are tragedies that I've experienced, that I remember, that help me feel the power of the day so that I can truly begin to understand, in an infinitesimal way, what it is like to lose a Temple, a Beit Hamikdash.
1. When I was nine years old, my grandmother passed away. Her yartzeit is quite close to Tisha B'av. Although I was very young at the time, I do remember her well.
2. A few years ago, I was at summer camp and a counselor for a different division died without warning the day before Tisha B'av. That night, when we read Aicha, it was with a kavana that I think probably most of us had never felt before. Though I never knew this counselor, and though many in the camp never knew him, we were all affected by the tragedy.
3. My teacher, Dr. Schwebel, who just passed away about two weeks ago. Even then I thought, wow, during the three weeks, too. There is something about tragedies during the three weeks and nine days. It is almost like God is recognizing that these people are extremely important, that they mean so much, and yet He takes them away, just as we, as a people, have lost so much throughout the centuries at this time of year.
These three people, these three tragedies, I will always think about on Tisha B'av. They make my Tisha B'av more meaningful and more personal. I wish, I truly do wish, I knew how to properly mourn the Beit Hamikdash. But, unfortunately, though I have an excellent imagination for stories, I cannot bring myself to feel the proper emotions for a Beit Hamikdash I never personally knew. It makes me sad that I am so removed from it and also guilty, in a way, because I am a Jew and I should be devastated that we lost the Beit Hamikdash, that we no longer have it today, that it has not yet been built. And perhaps I am devastated, in my own way, because I have never known it. Because there was a golden period of Jewish history that I missed, that I never experienced. But all that is too far removed for me. I really do try.
So I feel Tisha B'av in my own way, through tragedies that I really do feel, through sadness that I really did experience. I hope this is not wrong of me, but I don't think it is. I think, in a way, that is what we are supposed to do. Tisha B'av is a day of general sadness - a day where we mourn anything and everything we have lost. And if that means connecting more to events in this lifetime as opposed to events 2000 years ago, than I think that's okay. I think it's alright.
Everyone deals with days of sadness in their own way. This is how I deal with it. I think of people I have personally lost, or who people near to me have lost. The most recent tragedy, Dr. Schwebel, is, of course, on the forefront of my mind. I still cannot believe she is being mourned, instead of joining us in mourning on this day. It is truly a day of bitterness.
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