Miryam's Space

The Tenth of Av

Yesterday was Tisha B’Av, the 9th of Av. I have come to the conclusion that the reason Eicha, Lamentations is an alphabetic acrostic is to lead us from sorrow, out of the pits of despair and into love. The ninth of the Hebrew month Av always comes in the height of the summer, in oppressive heat, made worse these days by climate change. It is a day in which Jews give themselves permission to mourn the sadness in the world by reading a book from the writings called Lamentations, which is probably written by the prophet Jeremiah. I have written before on the character of Sadness in the animated movie Inside Out, and how crucial it is to honor Sadness in order for joy to “come in the Morning” (psalm 30) for Reily, the main character. Love this movie! So three things:

1. Lamentations is the saddest book of awful things that happen to people in war; this described the pain suffered by women raped, and men killed, and cannibalism, in a poetic acrostic! Jerusalem is personified, and she argues back (at times) that she doesn’t deserve this fate. All these terrible things still happen in the world, unfortunately, and so are relevant for our sense of empathy and mourning man’s inhumanity to man. However it reflects a harsh, judgemental view of God as meeting out punishment that I cannot abide – G!d as a murderer, rapist, this is something that has no reality for me. I have read this translation and commentary of Eicha for the past three years by Rabbi David Mevorach Siedenberg of Neochasid.org.
2. There are two basic ways to approach the writings in the Bible, and I am not the only one by a long shot that holds both of these, sometimes conflicting approaches at the same time. And perhaps to not wrestle with and consider both leads to a form of intolerance and extremism! So back to my comment on Lamentations above, I can take the words of lamentations on many levels, and look to the text as permission to mourn the awfulness in the world sometimes, without literally having to accept that God intentionally punished Jerusalem and made people suffer because they worshiped idols. I can apply modern feminist text study to show the unfairness of the implication that women deserve violence for unfaithfulness, even though this was a prophetic male attitude of the times. I can take personal hope from the hopeful verses found in Lamentations about repentance and the power of forgiveness in the universe, and in each other. I have found this journey to be profoundly healing. My thanks to R’ Shulamit Sapir for these and more insights
3. And finally, out of the catstrophy of the destruction of the Second Temple, the prophets could have said, “that’s it, God has abandoned the People”, they did not. Instead they ushered in, with the help of the Rabbis of the 1st century, a re-imagined future, creating a Judaism based upon study, righteous acts, and prayer. It is very hopeful for me in this world challenged by climate change, by oppression of people of color, by the threats of war, nuclear and otherwise, that we can similarly, out of the madness and suffering of our times, believe in the power of God’s forgiveness, and the strength and goodness of the righteous in humanity and usher in a more just and loving world. And so on the full moon in four days, it is a time to celebrate love, as Lamentations is an acrostic to lead us out of despair and into love.