As the sun sets this evening, we enter Av, the saddest month of the Jewish year. The first days of Av are the heaviest leading up to the 9th of the month, the day on which, according to tradition, both the First and Second Temples were destroyed.
It’s a time of collective mourning, a time when—strangely—we lament the loss of something we never personally really had. The Second Temple was destroyed almost two thousand years ago.
This time of communal mourning is an invitation to feel more deeply what it means to be part of a tribe, a mishpacha (family), a People that shares triumphs and tribulations not just across space but across time as well. We are connected to other Jews across oceans and continents and across the centuries, too.
It is both a joy and sometimes a pain. We’ve got enough tsuris in our own day-to-day existence. There are plenty of personal losses and disappointments to mourn. Must we really take on the anguish of three thousand years as well?
It is the price—I believe—of the meaning and purpose that comes with being part of such a People that remembers continually, ever deepening our understanding of life in the process. And it is, I believe, a small price to pay for such a precious gift.
There is heaviness in this duty to carry the past, to remember, and to mourn. There is beauty—great beauty—as well.
In the darkness and in the light, may we find meaning in remembering together as a family—a mishpacha—that is there for one another through the ages.
Join us tonight as Rabbi Sari and Cantorial Intern, Sara Anderson, bring in the month of Av with joy and reflection.
— Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback
