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Divrei
Rabbi Jerry
Rabbi
Jerry Seidler
TempleSinai
Summer Sadness? No. Summer Love? Yes.
I think I learned that there was a summer Jewish holiday from the Allan Sherman joke-folk song "My Zelda." My father really liked Allan Sherman's Catskill humor, so I have many of his songs memorized from childhood . Oddly, my daughters found an old cassette tape of the album "My Son the Folk Singer" several years ago, and they came to enjoy his stuff as well -- go figure. Anyway, there was a funny line about Zelda who ran off with a tailor: "Why did she go and fall in love? I haven’t seen her since Tisha B’Av." Well, I had no idea what Tisha B'Av was. I did not learn about it in Temple or religious school or even the Jewish day camp I went to as a boy. I would bet that today, most Jews really don't know what it is, either, and I want to say that that is probably all right with me.
Tisha B'Av, The Ninth of Av, this year from sundown August 2 through sundown August 3, is a major fast day. It commemorates not only the destruction of both ancient Temples by Babylonia in 586 BCE and Rome in 70 CE, but also all disasters that have befallen the Jewish people until the Holocaust. To prepare for such a heavy day of spiritual sadness and mourning, tradition set aside the three weeks immediately preceding Tisha B'Av as a time of reflection without celebration, from Tamuz 17, itself a minor fast day bemoaning Babylonia's breaching the walls of Jerusalem, until Av 9. Hence it is a custom not to be married, for example, during this time.
I say that we Jews have had to endure too much sorrow caused by the animus, greed, cruelty, hate and ignorance of others. The grief we need to express as a people on Tisha B'Av we can come to express during Judaism's four annual Yizkor services as well as on Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Memorial Day) and Yom HaZikaron (Israel Memorial Day). This would free us to reconstruct a summer Jewish spirituality in keeping with our heritage and our contemporary sensibilities, both of which acknowledge summer as a time of joy and not of misery.
Since antiquity, Jews have had another summer holiday, a holiday of love and happiness to celebrate our intimate human relationships. Tu B'Av, Av 15, is mentioned as a day of joy and dance and merriment in Mishnah Ta'anit 4:8. The Mishnah was compiled and initially redacted in the early Third Century CE. Though Tu B'Av fell out of favor for many centuries, it has experienced a renaissance in Israel and in some quarters in America as something of a Jewish Valentine's Day for lovers.
This year, Tu B'Av falls on Wednesday, August 9. Set that day aside to celebrate all of your loving relationships and relationships of intimacy. Celebrate a husband or a wife, celebrate a life partner or someone with whom you have made a loving commitment, celebrate family members, celebrate friends. We at Temple Sinai will kick off the Jewish love season with our second Yachad Get Together Barbeque Shabbat, Friday evening August 4 (see the flyer for details). The theme of the Barbeque will be "Celebrate Love" and I am sure we all will.
I hope everyone is enjoying a wonderful summer of happiness, rest and lots
Reconstructionist Judaism Makes
the Heart Joyful, Sharpens the
Mind, Brings Peace to the World.
A Teaching from Rabbi Jerry
Blessings,
Rabbi
Jerry
Rabbi
Jerry H. Seidler
Temple
Sinai
50 Alberta Drive
Amherst
, NY
14221
(716) 834-0708
www.jrf.org/templesinai
Updated:
Monday, July 31, 2006
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