Today (the day this posts) is the most important day on the Hebrew calendar.
Today is the 9th of Av, Tisha B’Av, a holy day completely devoted to grieving.
Jews sit with our grief whenever it arises (hence the term “sitting” shiva), and a portion of our Day of Atonement is set aside to remember our loved ones, but the 9th of Av is different: it is not about the memory of loss, it is about feeling loss itself.
It is the calendar day upon which many calamities of history befell the Jewish people, and if you observe the holiday in a traditional manner, those memories will be likely be at the center of your practice. But if those disasters are too far removed for you to feel, there is plenty of destruction and loss to grieve right now:
The grief we feel over the destruction of Gaza and the havoc it has wrought here and abroad.
The moral putrescence of the American President and those who control him.
The annual return of increasingly worse and more catastrophic natural disasters around the planet.
We can never go back. We can never return from here. We are past that point, the Rubicon fading in the rearview. And that is sad. No, it is tragic. We need to feel that. Not to walk past it. Not to ignore it. Not to chalk it up to anything that could be considered “normal.”
Tisha B’Av is observed by fasting, rending your garments, sitting on the floor, and reciting the book of Lamentations. If any of that works for you, do it.
Otherwise, try this:
Get yourself to a safe and sound place, in your home, in a park, with a friend, and get as low to the ground as you are able.
Take 3 deep breaths (this part is not optional).
Once you’re listening to the sound of your own breath, call to mind the memory of a loss. Try not to trigger memory of a trauma, if you can avoid it, but rather how you felt in the aftermath of a loss that changed life forever.
Hopefully (and I mean this with all of the compassion and sincerity in my heart) it makes you cry.
Let yourself cry. It will likely only last a minute or two - but if it takes longer than that, it’s ok. You are safe.
Comfort yourself (chocolate is my preferred means of comfort, but simply drinking a glass of water or a cup of tea could do the trick.)
Repeat as needed.
There’s a lot to feel sad about. On the global stage but also, I’d wager, in your own life. Who are you missing? What possible futures will never be? What happens when you give yourself over to grief and let it move you?
The reason that it is so important to connect with your grief is that it moves you, wether you like it or not. Grief can move you to compassion, if you let it move through you, but if you bottle it up, it moves you towards anger, and this is not a time to dwell in anger.
Rabbi Alan Lew (z’’l) in his book, This is Real & You Are Completely Unprepared says that the 9th of Av, not Rosh Hashanah, is the beginning of the High Holy Days. It is the lowest point of the calendar year, when we are asked to sit down with the heaviness of loss, to be brought low by the grief in our hearts, and to be hollowed out by it all. Only from that place can we begin our ascent to the top of a brand New Year. Only from emptiness can we begin to refill with intention. “[The High Holy Days begins with] Tisha B’Av - the day when we mourn the destruction of the Temple … and ends with Sukkot… when we erect a house that is not really a house… a time when we seem to have come to the end of a journey only to begin it again.” (p. 21)
We are always starting over. We are always journeying towards a moving target, and we can’t experience the biggest joys without also feeling the biggest sorrows. In fact, the latter makes way for the former. And aren’t we all trying to make it through this thing called life with more joy and compassion and goodness? For all?
Being human is about be-ing, which means feel-ing, which can sometimes make us uncomfortable. That’s ok. It’s good. It’s important. We do more harm than good if we don’t. And there’s so much good that we can do.