Five local congregations will gather Saturday night, July 28, at the Temple, Congregation B’nai Jehudah to commemorate Tisha b’Av. Joining B’nai Jehudah are Beth Shalom, Kol Ami, Ohev Sholom and Temple Israel. The service is set to begin at 8:15 p.m. and conclude approximately 10:15 p.m.

Rabbi Alexandria Shuval-Weiner, B’nai Jehudah’s assistant rabbi, said Beth Shalom, Ohev Sholom and B’nai Jehudah have marked erev Tisha b’Av together for the past three years with learning, prayer and the reading of Lamentations.

“This year our circle of congregations is expanding as Kol Ami and Temple Israel will also participate. We will continue to explore ways to share our gifts with one another,” she said.

Rabbi Shuval-Weiner explained that B’nai Jehudah is hosting this service on behalf of Beth Shalom, “since they are in the midst of their rabbinic transition.” Along with B’nai Jehudah’s clergy, Rabbis Jonathan Rudnick, Doug Alpert, David Glickman and Jacques Cukierkorn are expected to participate. Members of the participating congregations will be involved in reading selections from Eicha (Lamentations). The service is open to anyone in the community.

The service will include the traditional Hebrew reading along with teachings in between each chapter.

“We will talk about the theme of each chapter and then we will draw out strands of what’s going on,” Rabbi Shuval-Weiner said. “We use a siddur that has the English next to the Hebrew. That way even if people don’t understand Hebrew, when they hear the lilt of the sound they can follow along in the English as they hear the wailing and the crying as it comes out of the text.”

The Reform rabbi explained that in the traditional world, Tisha b’Av is very significant.

“Other than Yom Kippur, it is the second most important fast day on the Jewish calendar,” she said.

A major difference between Yom Kippur and Tisha b’Av, the rabbi explained, is that Jews take a more internal look at themselves on Yom Kippur, while Tisha b’Av is more communal.

“On Yom Kippur you stand before God and look at all of the ways you’ve not lived up to your full sense of potential in order to make light and return to your highest sense of self,” Rabbi Shuval-Weiner said.

On Tisha b’Av, she said, as a community Jews look at their low points.

“We look at where we have allowed ourselves to be vulnerable and weak that these terrible things potentially might have fallen upon us. That’s the traditional way of looking at it. How do we, as a community, recalibrate that,” she said.

That’s why Rabbi Shuval-Weiner said it is traditional to read the book of Lamentations.

“This is Jeremiah’s expression of lament following the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Historically these are the days that are the most heart wrenching for us as a Jewish people,” she said.

Even the tune that is used in chanting Lamentations, Rabbi Shuval-Weiner said, is in the sound of a lament.

“It’s really the crying out, the heart of the people, crying out how could these horrific things happen to us,” she said.

For many years Reform congregations steered away from Tisha b’Av and Rabbi Shuval-Weiner said it begs the question, “Why would we want to be part of all this?”

She explained that, coming from a psycho-social-spiritual place, if on Yom Kippur we look at ourselves as individuals, how can we look at ourselves as a community?

“How do we rise above tragedy? How do we reach out our hands to one another so that we are strong? How do we rise out of despair and live beyond that and live to be a people, as it says in the book of Esther, who are full of joy and hope and purpose?” Rabbi Shuval-Weiner continued to say that “we live in a world that is very broken, that destroys and consumes one another. To look at that, we have to go through the cathartic experience in order to be renewed and do the work of building, to be the antithesis of destruction.”

To continue to illustrate the importance of Tisha b’Av, she points to a story in the Talmud that discusses how Jerusalem could have been destroyed. She said it teaches the lesson that Jerusalem was destroyed because of senat chinam, senseless or baseless hatred.

“The idea was that the community had lost its moral compass and that individuals were treating each other disrespectfully, and that ill treatment of one another in essence caused a snowball to go downhill. All of the actions that happen because of an interchange between two people who didn’t treat each other with a sense of humanity initially led to that which would cause our community to fall.

“So really the lesson that anyone can take away from Tisha b’Av, whether you are traditional or liberal, is the idea that we are sacred human beings who are put in this world as co-partners with God to be builders of the world. But when we turn to our more base ways of engaging with one another, that’s what causes the kind of hatred, indifference, ignorance that leads to things like the Shoah, like Darfur, like the creation of terrorists and bombers. We as human beings have the ability to bring paradise to this world. We also have the ability to destroy it. So we have to go into that place of remembering what it’s like to be the one who has been the victim, the one who has had violence perpetrated on us in order for us to have that empathy to turn back into the world and say we will not be those destroyers.”

Tisha b’Av

Tisha b’Av (the 9th of Av) is a time of mourning within Jewish tradition, Rabbi Arthur Nemitoff noted in his Bisseleh Bytes email to members of The Temple, Congregation B’nai Jehudah.

“According to our best historical evidence, the First Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians on the Hebrew calendar date of the 9th of Av, in the year 586 BCE. Almost 600 years later, the Romans burned the Second Temple down, also on Tisha b’Av, 70 CE. More than a dozen other horrific events in the life of the Jewish people — moments of oppression and destruction — occurred on the 9th of Av. Whether by fate or happenstance, this date has become synonymous with Jewish pain and suffering.”

In synagogue, the book of Lamentations is read and mourning prayers are recited. The ark is draped in black.

On Tisha b’Av itself Jewish people follow the same constraints as Yom Kippur. In addition to fasting many activities are prohibited including bathing, wearing leather shoes and marital relations. There are additional traditions to sit low to the ground just like a mourner does, not to greet people, and — because Torah study is always considered joyful, one is enjoined to only learn material that is connected to the tragic events of the day or other somber material.

Most congregations in the area will commemorate the 9th of Av. Besides the service at The Temple, Congregation B’nai Jehudah on Saturday night, July 28, which includes B’nai Jehudah, Beth Shalom, Kol Ami, Ohev Sholom and Temple Israel, the following congregations have planned commemorations that evening: Beth Torah, BIAV, Chabad House Center, KU Chabad, Torah Learning Center and Kehilath Israel. Additional worship is planned on Sunday, June 29, at BIAV, K.I., Chabad House, Beth Shalom, Ohev Sholom and TLC. For more information, contact the individual congregations.