Originally published August 15, 2024
On Tuesday, Jewish communities around the globe commemorated the solemn day of Tisha B’Av, the 9th of Av. Most years, this day is about remembering the atrocities borne by our people in the past. We read kinot, elegiac poems written about the destruction of the Temple and Am Yisrael’s subsequent exile, about the massacres of the Middle Ages, and attempt to relate to these ancient stories of suffering. This year though, we were in it. The suffering is not ancient, the trauma is not past. It is our very present. And even so, Tisha B’Av came to an end at sundown, and we are meant to transition out of a period of somber mourning into something else – perhaps joy, perhaps preparation for the upcoming fall High Holidays. Most years, this transition is the easy part. It’s the mourning in summer that can feel out of place, and it seems like a relief to return to Popsicles and vacations and cottages, and eventually (but not too soon!) preparations for the return to school. This year, it’s harder – we know that our loved ones in Israel are still sitting in the anxiety and waiting of what will happen, and that a negotiation to bring the hostages home seems even more out of reach. But our calendar, as always, has some tools to help us. This Shabbat is called Shabbat Nachamu, named after the haftarah reading for the Shabbat after Tisha B’Av – a reading from the book of Isaiah that describes comforting the people of Israel from our suffering. And just after that we have an even lesser known Jewish holiday called Tu B’Av, which in Israel has morphed into something of a Jewish Valentine’s Day. In rabbinic times, Tu B’Av was a time for matchmaking, for seeking to make the world better by bringing young people together in love.
As Jews, we know that joy and suffering often go hand in hand – we can’t tease them out to be entirely separate from each other. Jewish joy is something that I’ve been seeking these past several months – from the moment I picked up the Torah to dance on Simchat Torah nearly a year ago, my heart breaking and the tears falling even as we danced and sang. I’ve sensed that joy as we’ve stood together to name babies, as I’ve been at the beit din and the mikveh with some of you and your families to welcome you to the Jewish people, or as we’ve sat together and studied Torah. Each of these has provided me with a taste of Jewish joy, a reminder of why Judaism has survived all of these years.
No spoilers here (you’ll have to come to the High Holidays to learn more!), but we’ll be exploring this theme of Jewish Joy a lot more in the coming months. To that end, I’d love to invite you to share with me your moments of Jewish joy. Maybe it was at a special lifecycle moment for yourself or a loved one, maybe it was preparing a special holiday meal decades ago with a grandparent (or last week with a grandchild!), maybe it was at Jewish summer camp or youth group, or maybe it was merely a beautiful Shabbat at Temple Shalom. Together, we can weave together a new story, a story that transcends our collective suffering and brings us hope for the future.
I came across a poem from Mary Oliver earlier this week, entitled “We Shake with Joy”:
We shake with joy, we shake with grief.
What a time they have, these two
housed as they are in the same body.
This is what it means to be Jewish: to hold our joy and our grief in the same body, the same collective body of our people.
Don’t forget to click through to share your moments of Jewish joy!
