Today is Tisha B'Av: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tisha_B'Av
It's also known as the black fast. It's a sad Jewish holiday [we died and we don't eat and then we eat]. It's possibly the sadest of the Jewish holidays and that's saying something.
Two temples down, kicked out of Spain, and a few other pretty nasty things befell us on this day in varying years. I hope that I have made it clear through tangents and b-log posts and my general nature that I don't care that we don't have a Temple. I like not killing animals and I like being dispersed in the Diaspora. I think it's GOOD for Judaism.
That being said, I've read a lot of things about how we can't overlook this day: if it weren't for this day, Judaism would not be the Judaism that I love. The events that have fallen on this day are not minor assaults, they're rocketing tragedies.
Today is supposed to be a fast day but I have a life in the summer, like most folk and as a Reform-Jew, can't really FEEL this holiday. There's no holy transformation like on Yom Kippur, there's just kind of a lame, half-lingered sadness.
So I ate food. But my food is bad and in a direct G-d smite, I don't feel really good. FINE. BLACK FAST.
Then I read The Book of Lamentations. I like cycle reading. I like linking up our stories with our year. They become the seasons as much as a falling leaf, or a morning frost.
It's such a linguistically pretty book. However, it's a horrific soul-crush. As I like to express my life through crayons, I colored this.
I'm not quite done yet but I feel I've grasped the severity of the holiday.
That being said, why don't I care more? Last year I commented on a discussion about how a lot of people don't like Tisha B Av because we spend too much time rolling around in our tragedy. When you have a national memory, that's just life I suppose. But my point is the reason this holiday doesn't stick to a lot of us is because much like Judaism, or Spain, or people, we move on. There's no choice but to move on. And look at Israel now: NO there is no Third Temple, but there's hummos and shwarma and a notable decrease in suicide bombings. The Old City Gates flood with people again.
So I'm waiting 'til sunset to let my stomach settle, but not to move on:
COMMEMORATING DESTRUCTION
Hark!
Reborn sits
What once was ravaged
In the dust of our mourning
The ashes fertilize
The regrowth
Of all that burned
Even in our failing
The sun rises behind
Plumes of fallen Temples
Of expelled exiles
Of crematoriums
We rise like a flower
To feel the sun
Once more warm our faces
And dancing rays dry
The tears that streak
Through layers of dirt
Caked on skin
Fresh springs bathe away
The miasmas of the past
And wounds heal to scars
Because skin cannot forget
Maidens and youths
Dance in fields where
Cities once stood
And G-d's wrath
Fades to love
Also, I totally added a picture today. I'm like a blog-master.
