Monday, August 5, 2024. Apologies for the delayed post – it’s been quite a month. Tisha B’Av is past, and we are in the seven weeks of consolation that lead us to Rosh Hashanah. Summer is in its final days, still warm and flowering. We have one more week of Av, and so a few thoughts worth considering.
On the 17th of Tammuz, we began our way down into the depths of despair, intensifying on the first day of Av, and culminating on the 9th of Av, or Tisha B’Av, the nadir of of our journey of loss and alienation from G-d. This is the saddest day of the Jewish year, commemorating the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the first and second Temples. The Temple represents the Divine presence in our world – and so the loss of it becomes a representation of all of our personal and communal losses, and we experience a sense of alienation and aloneness in the face of tragedy. We sit on the floor and weep.
Rabbi Waskow, in his book “Seasons of Our Joy”[1], draws parallels to Adam/Eve story, and their banishment from Eden and the divine presence. There is a sense of profound loss, and an awareness of our complicity in banishment from divine. “Adam’s was the first exile, the first alienation, the archetype of all loss ever since: the separation of the human psyche from G-d, the loss of utterly harmonious love.”
What was the complicity that caused the destruction? What causes any destruction? – our sages say: hatred toward one another, conflict and judgment.
So we are advised to find ways to root that out: forgiveness, making peace, becoming more giving and finding ways to love unconditionally. According to Waskow, we experience this alienation from the Divine as a burning thirst, so fiercely that we “learn the way to the wellsprings”. And so, we will spend the next 7 weeks, leading up to Rosh Hashana, the wellspring from which was created the world, finding our way. May we be comforted in our journey, and may it be fruitful! Chodesh tov! – K. Miriam
Our next walking meditation will honor the month of Elul, Wednesday, September 4, 8:30 am. Contact us for location.
[1] See Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Seasons of Our Joy, A Modern Guide to the Jewish Holidays; Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1982, paperback edition 2012; p. 209.
Rosh Chodesh Cleveland 