I am in mourning.
At least, I'm supposed to feel like I am. The past three weeks have been an extremely trying time throughout Jewish history, chock full of terrible attacks, destructions, genocides, and the like. We commemorate and memorialize all of the pain and death by going through a period of increasingly stringent and palpable mourning. For three weeks, we are told not to listen to live music, not to cut our hair, not to buy new clothing, and not to take showers for pure pleasure. Then, for the last 9 days, we up the ante by not wearing clean clothing and not eating meat or drinking wine. Finally, on the 9th day of the Jewish month of Av, (Tishah B'av in Hebrew,) we reach the culmination, the peak of our sorrows as a nation. We fast for 24 hours, do not bathe, do not wear leather, do not wear perfume, and do not sit on high chairs. We do not even greet eachother "hello". We literally go into a state of mourning. The 9th of Av was the day on which both Temples were destroyed (first by the Babylonians and then by the Romans, and by "destroyed" I mean that the entire city of Jerusalem was set on fire, thousands were murdered and starved to death, and everyone else was exiled). The 9th of Av was the day on which the Jews committed the sin of the spies who spoke slander about the land of Israel thousands of years ago. The 9th of Av was the day on which the entire city of Beitar was massacred long ago. The 9th of Av was the day when the Jews were exiled from Spain. The 9th of Av was the day when World War I officially broke out. The 9th of Av is the day on which we remember all of these things and more, when we concentrate all of our pain and sadness over the past and current sufferings of our people, when we consider what we have gone through, what we have lost, and what we are still missing to this very day. The 9th of Av will be this Thursday.
I decided to write this post because for the past 3 weeks, I have had to take on an extremely difficult task. I have had to try and force myself to concentrate on loss and destruction, during a time when I currently feel so content. Honestly, this summer has been wonderful (see previous posts). Everything feels like it's going right – I loved my Meor trip, I love my classes at Shearim, I love my friends here, I love my boyfriend, I love that I have a job waiting for me when I get home. I feel confident, I feel secure, and I feel self-aware. Most importantly, I have clarity, the same clarity that I've prayed for so many times before, that I've hoped for and striven for. It's finally here. I finally know what I want and where I want to go, and I finally have the courage to face life head-on, with the knowledge that plans are made to be broken, and I will end up just fine either way. And yet, with all this, I am literally commanded to not be all that happy right now. We are not, G-d forbid, told to be sad for three weeks. To the contrary, it is a mitzvah to always be happy, even as we mourn, which is interesting in itself. But we are certainly told to lessen that happiness, for the time being. And honestly, I'm having a pretty hard time doing that.
I tried focusing on all the things we are supposed to focus on. I've been learning the book of Eicha, or Lamentations, which is what we read on the night of Tishah B'av. It is the heart-wrenching, highly poetic prophecy/lament by Jeremiah, which chronicles the destruction of the Temple and all the terrible atrocities that came along with it. I certainly know a lot more about the graphic details than I did before – mothers eating their babies, babies sucking at the breasts of their dead mothers, things like that – but to be honest, after an hour a day of studying that, all I want to do is go out to dinner and forget about it. I want to exist in my happy state, get some pasta with Ezra on Ben Yehuda Street, watch an episode of Entourage on my computer, and fall asleep. I guess that's one response to tragedy, to try and get away from it. But I don't even think that's it. I think it's more that I can't relate to it in any real way. I'm not reading the stories of people I know and feel connected to. I'm reading the stories of people who were tortured and died long, long ago, back in a time which the modern world doubts most historical accounts of anyway. I'm learning about a Temple, a building, a time, that I have never seen with my own eyes, never experienced, and frankly, never really cared about. And I'm supposed to cry about that? I'm supposed to act the same way I would if my own family member passed away, G-d forbid? Please.
And yet, that's exactly what I'm supposed to do, somehow. What all of us are supposed to do, somehow. The Torah often tells us to feel things, even when we don't feel them naturally. We are told that if we have a wedding and a funeral on the same day, we must be happy at the wedding, and sad at the funeral. We are told that love is a choice, not something we "fall" into with no control over ourselves and our emotions. We are told to be happy during the month of Adar, and sad during the month of Av. We are told to feel as if we were leaving Egypt at the Seder table, and feel as if we were at the destruction on the 9th of Av. All of this, we are told to feel. Not just to think, or study, or act out. But feel. As if we could control our emotions with our minds. As if we could tell ourselves to feel something. Imagine that.
I mentioned over dinner last night with a couple of friends that we are somehow supposed to be feeling sad right now, even as we enjoy each other's company. It's something that still baffles me, so I've spoken with a few people about it. One of them responded, "yeah, but it's hard to mourn the loss of Jerusalem when we are sitting in the middle of it, and it's thriving. We have it now." I was a bit taken aback by her comment to be honest. It really made me think. Do we "have it"? I mean, yes, we have the state of Israel, thank G-d. We have relative freedom to do what we want (as long as America says it's OK, ) relative religious freedom (as long as it doesn't upset local politics too much,) and most importantly, freedom to live openly as Jews (as long as we are not in the wrong place at the wrong time). And I am thankful for all of that, as we should all be. But do we "have it" in the sense that we are meant to? Does a higher state of being than this one still exist within our grasp? Can we even contemplate what that would mean? Right now feels pretty wonderful to me, both on a personal level, as well as on a nationalistic and cultural one. So what, then, am I mourning exactly? Over this not being good enough?
I tried to think of an analogy for myself, to help put it in clearer terms. Imagine someone holds out 2 envelopes, and tells me to choose one. I pick the one on the right, open it up, and to my joyful surprise, I find $100 inside! They tell me to keep it, use it on whatever I want. I feel great. I just got a free gift of a hundred bucks, and can finally afford those books I've been dying to buy (once a nerd, always a nerd). But before skipping off to the bookstore, out of curiosity, I ask what was in the other envelope. They open it up to reveal $10,000. Oof. My $100 doesn't seem quite as amazing anymore. I'm still happy to have it, but I leave with a slightly bitter taste in my mouth, knowing that I could have had so much more if I had just chosen the other envelope. By this analogy, I guess maybe the state we are in is that we don't even realize there is $10,000 to be had. We are so enamored with our $100 bucks that we skip around joyfully, completely oblivious to the existence of the other envelope, an envelope we could easily attain were we to do the right things. And then, to take it a step further – imagine that same person comes running after me as I am paying for my books, and snatches even that first 100 out of my hands. Now I am left with nothing but the memory of that which I had, and that which I could have had. Now, unless I convince myself that I am better off without any of it, I cannot be happy. So is that what we've all done? Convinced ourselves that we are better off with what we have now, which apparently is "nothing" compared to what we could be and have as a nation?
Just to throw a little confusion into the mix, we are also taught: "who is rich? He who is happy with his lot." So how on earth are we supposed to be happy with our collective "lot" as a Jewish nation, while simultaneously mourning our losses and lackings? Shouldn't we be happy with our lot of $100, or our lot of nothing as the case may be, rather than coveting after the $1000 all the time? We are literally CONSTANTLY remembering the fact that we have no Temple, and that G-d's immediate presence has left Jerusalem, and that we are in exile. We remember it every day, we mention it in every prayer and every time we eat and every Shabbat and every holiday, we remember it in our happiest moments, such as at weddings when the groom breaks the glass (everyone yells mazal tov then because they figure it marks the conclusion of the ceremony, which, if you think about it, is quite a perversion of the actual point of breaking the glass). And of course, we remember it right now, in these 3 weeks, 9 days, and finally the 9th of Av itself. We certainly are not happy with our lots. Is this not a contradiction in terms?
But maybe I can answer my own question here. Throughout the year, we do mention the destruction constantly. But we don't focus on it in a negative way, we don't go through our lives feeling empty and sad. On the contrary, we are told to always live happily. We exist on two levels: one of reminiscence and one of living for the present. We "never forget," as we say about the Holocaust, but we also keep the commandment to "be happy always." We are human beings, and we are nuanced and multifaceted and complicated enough souls to be able to handle this constantly contradictory existence. Except for right now. Right now, we do focus on one side of it: the negative, the pain, and the loss. We do lament the lack, and we consider what we could be if we were to have true glory again. We recognize that we only have the envelope with $100 and maybe not even that. We recognize that while it may feel nice and happy right now, we are still not where we could or should be, and we could still be so much more. We think about the pain of our people, and we relate it to our own lives. And then, after we mourn, we get right back up again and celebrate life. The happiest day of the year is the 15th of Av – a mere 6 days later. Weddings start up again immediately, music is played in the streets, and we rise from our mourning like phoenixes, renewed and ready to rejoice with full hearts. So maybe it's all about having a structure for our sadness. The entire concept of Jewish mourning when someone passes away is to have a comfort for the living. To allow yourself the time and space to mourn so that after Shiva ends, you can get back up again and reenter the world. Earlier this year, I wrote about my friend's mother who sat shiva here for the first time when her mother passed away. She said that it was an incredible experience. People who never really take the time to feel the pain and sadness of loss will never really be able to move on from it. So maybe these weeks are a time for us as a nation to do just that. Take all of our suffering and persecution, which we have way too much of, and compact the pain into a 3 week, 9 day, 1 day period. And more than that, to force ourselves, just once a year, to recognize the state we are in. To understand the loss we should feel deep down, even if it is not apparent to us in our daily lives. To notice that our people have been oppressed, and killed, and persecuted so often and so brutally, and to force ourselves never to forget their suffering. To take a step back from our happy go lucky lives, and feel like we are a part of something greater, a family that needs us, a history that yearns for our attention, and a future that begs for our input.
Last week, a three year old girl fell into an uncovered manhole near a playground in Jerusalem. A passerby saw her fall, and without hesitation he jumped in to save her. But the hole had been filled with garbage over the past several years, and the poisonous methane gasses had grown strong within it. She was dead before he could reach her.
A story like that hits you hard, somewhere between your throat and your stomach. But it hits you even harder when you get to school the next day and find out one of your teachers is missing because that little girl was her great-niece. When you think about your own little niece, and how much you love her and how empty the world would feel were anything to happen to her, G-d forbid. And a story like that forces you to mourn, even if just for a few minutes, over the pain of another person you never met. If that's possible, then maybe it's also possible to take that feeling, and extend it to the thousands, the millions of others who have gone through such indescribable loss, such inexplicable and irrational suffering. Maybe this Thursday, it will be possible for me to sit on the ground, and cry. Maybe.
May all of you only know simchas and happiness your entire lives. And should you encounter pain, may you feel connected enough to your family and your nation to know that everyone else will feel your pain with you, and that no one will ever forget it. Until the time comes when everything makes sense, and when the 9th of Av switches from a day of mourning to a day of rejoicing, may we all have the strength and clarity to make it through our most trying times, as individuals, as families, and as a people.
Love, Shira
