There is a holiday in the month of Av (July/August) called Tisha B’Av. It’s traditionally a holiday of mourning because pretty much everything bad that’s ever happened to Jews as a people happened on that day, factually or mythically.
In 2023 (5783) it begins at sundown on Wednesday, July 26.
I think there can be a lot of power in a day of collective mourning, but I really find that my thoughts about the central element of Tisha B’Av, the fall of the Temple, are very different than the inherited narrative.
Here’s the thing…
On Tisha B’Av we’re supposed to be mourning the exile of the Shekhinah. So the story goes, when the Temple was destroyed in ~70 CE, which was the “home” of the Shekhinah, she was exiled out into the world. But that just doesn’t make sense to me. I see her as being freed to infuse the whole world now.
The fall of the Temple was a calamity, because it forced a huge change and a reckoning. And because endings can be incredibly hard. Exile and forced migration is terrible. But with the vantage point of thousands of years, it makes me wonder. Yes, the destruction of the Temple and Diaspora have been challenging, but that’s made us who we are as a people today — as have those who remained in that contested land throughout the millennia.
It’s just like the “exile” from Eden. I don’t see it as an exile. It was time for Adam and Chava to grow up and move out on their own. Chava chose knowledge and wisdom — to move out of innocence.
Life changes. We go through different phases of life, and some can be very painful and we have to mourn what is lost as we embrace what is new. Growing up can suck. Moving out on your own is more than a little challenging, but the other option is to remain a child your entire life.
I’ve been thinking more about how we’ve grown as a people and a spiritual path since the fall of the Temple. While we may have nostalgia for the “good old days,” how many of us really would go back if we could?
Do we really want to see a return to the Temple cult, with its privileged priestly class and animal sacrifice?
Really?
Let’s honor the past, but embrace the future. Remember. Release. Transform.
My barn having burned down, I can now see the moon.
Mizuta Masahide, 17th Century Japanese Poet
Change is the natural state of things. That’s why the Divine introduced themself to Moses as “Eyeh Asher Eyeyh” — “I am Becoming what I am Becoming.”
One of my favorite teachers on working with change as an active force is the writer Octavia Butler who wrote:
To survive Let the past Teach you-- Past customs, Struggles, Leaders and Thinkers. Let These Help you. Let them inspire you, Warn you, Give you strength, But beware: God is Change. Past is Past. What was Cannot Come again. To survive, Know the past. Let it touch you. Then let The past Go.
As we spiral through time, things will change — as will we. Things we thought we couldn’t live without will disappear, and we will go on. New offerings, structures, formations will grow in the soil where we buried our beloved dead.
If we’re going to mourn past destruction and devastation, then let’s use that to ensure that others don’t continually experience the same thing. Let’s use it to embrace our pain to be more clear about personal and communal situations now. And let’s remember that just following Tisha b’Av is Tu b’Av — a holiday of celebrating the future.
Let’s free Shekhinah from her from the myth of exile and allow that to transform our understanding of the role of Diaspora transforming from exiles to a people who move as the stars move, as the earth moves, and the clouds, oceans, winds and so many other species do. May we become what we are becoming - star trails that trace patterns in the night sky when seen through the lens of time.
Learn more about Tisha B’Av
Wow, I think this may totally transform how I think about Tisha B'Av. Not an ending, but a beginning, painful though it may be as many beginnings are. Thank you!
Really thoughtful and beautiful. I like the idea of the Shekhinah being free