A community-wide virtual Tisha b’Av observance and service will take place on Wednesday, July 29. The evening begins at 8:30 p.m. with a Tisha b’Av Ma’ariv service and will be followed by a D’var Torah and reading of Eicha. Participants can choose to participate in either the Hebrew or English reading from the Book of Lamentations, which details the destruction of Jerusalem through song and poems.
This is a meaningful service with beautiful, mournful melodies, some engaging teaching and a time for communal reflection on both painful times of our past and hope for our future. Participating in this observance are Rabbis David Glickman, Mark Levin, Beryl Padorr, Jonathan Rudnick and Hazzan Tahl Ben-Yehuda.
Rabbi Rudnick, JFS Community Chaplain and rabbinic coordinator for this year’s Tisha b’Av observance states: “Our forbearers, the Rabbis, saw baseless hatred internally as the main cause that led to such utter devastation (darkness, death, and destruction of our holy Temple and Jerusalem) of our People and collective spiritual life in the year 70 C.E. Given the recent and present grappling with prejudice and discrimination (including the worst mistreatment, killing) based on skin color in our American society, how can we Jews, who are still here 1,950 years later, in Kansas City, not take this opportunity to look inside of our local Jewish community and listen to diverse voices of personal experience with respect to inclusion and exclusion in/of our community?
“This is our lowest calendrical point as a People, paralleling a similarly low point as a society with respect to racial bias and mistreatment in our country, and we feel the intense sadness and pain, and yet we know we as a People have come through the devastation and back to life even more resilient.
“From Tisha b’Av, we start a seven-week process of comfort, consolation and rebuilding toward a new year, Rosh Hashanah. Paradoxically, preparation for Rosh Hashanah starts with Tisha b’Av. So we gather together as a community, especially on this day of all days, for communal introspection as a unified Jewish People, to stand for unity, because we are one People and every Jew is part of this whole.”
The virtual community Tisha b’Av observance will continue on Thursday, July 30, beginning at 6 p.m. The program will address “Diversity and Inclusion in the Jewish Community: A Candid Conversation.” The fast concludes at 9:04 pm. Rabbi Moshe Grussgott is the rabbinic coordinator for Thursday’s program.
These observances are sponsored by the Rabbinical Association of Greater Kansas City.
To indicate your attendance at both observances, register online at kcrabbi.org; click on the Tisha b’Av registration link www.kcrabbi.org/event/tisha-bav-observance-2020/.
Or access the registration link directly at: www.forms.gle/qTF5rVUZ1HeyVBuY6.
Links to connect via zoom for each event will be sent a couple of days in advance.
For more information, visit www.kcrabbi.org or contact Annette Fish, Rabbinical Association administrator/program director, , 913-327-4622.