Reflections on Tisha B'Av

by Rabbi Arie Hasit, Ramah Poconos alum, longtime Ramah Israel leader, and founding rabbi of the Masorti community in Mazkeret Batya

It's hard for me to feel Tisha B’Av this year. I don't need a break from weddings because there are no weddings. I stopped eating meat a few months ago, and I rarely drink wine except on Shabbat anyway. I don’t go to any concerts or other social events. And in fact, over the past four months I haven't shaved more than once every few weeks, so what does it matter to abstain for nine days.

And yet, precisely this year, I need Tisha B’Av.

Shortly after the pandemic began, a friend shared an article with me with the message that many of us now are experiencing a feeling of grief - about the routine we have lost, and about the relative uncertainty in our life; about life as we knew it.

However, on the personal level, I have no reason to grieve. I haven't lost any friends or relatives to Coronavirus. My family continues to make ends meet. Even as congregational rabbinic work has changed, our community continues to thrive, and my work still brings me immense personal satisfaction.

And now Tisha B’Av comes and reminds me that all around us there is real destruction. The ground for so many people all over the world has been taken out from under them. And sadly, for many people, there is no light at the end of this tunnel, no vision of how this ends and how their lives will start over.

So indeed, I need Tisha B’av. I need the opportunity to afflict my soul, to identify with the loss of the present alongside the painful losses of our past. To give an expression to my sadness, to force myself to acknowledge destruction, and also to remind myself that my world was not destroyed, and that even with all the difficulties, my life is good. Very good.

And I can't, nor do I want to, do it alone. Spending my summers with Ramah for nearly twenty years, Tisha B’av has always been a significant day for me, acknowledging this day together with hundreds of people in my community. This year it will be different. But we don't need to be alone.

This year, take the time to join in community, to connect with the feeling of national mourning over the disasters that plagued the people of Israel in the past, to connect spiritually to those who are truly suffering today, and to remember that it's always darkest before the dawn.