This Shabbat we will bless the upcoming month of Tammuz, which begins on Tuesday. And for the Rabbis, it is in the month of Tammuz that we begin the calendrical climb towards the High Holidays.
From a historical standpoint, the middle of Tammuz (the 17th) is when the Romans breached the walls of the Temple in Jerusalem, beginning the fall of the Second Temple. This is a time of chaos and desperation in the lives of the Jews, when sects fought against each other, when the centerpiece of their Jewish world came crumbling down, when they went into exile. But despite the tragedy of the destruction, something beautiful happened: Judaism changed. The way that we practiced as a people changed. This shift propelled Judaism away from a Temple focus and towards a community dedicated to prayer, learning, and mitzvot. While certainly it happened with pain and difficulty, the people - our people - rose.
The rabbis also teach that the biblical character of Joseph was born on the first of Tammuz. Joseph has a particularly tragic story. Just when we thought one of our ancestors - Jacob, his father - had enough children to build a nation, they tear each other apart. Joseph is thrown down into a pit, sold into slavery, accused of adultery with his master’s wife, and thrown into jail. And then, miraculously, he rises. He becomes a leader in Egypt and ultimately it is because of his work that the Israelites - his very brothers - survive a famine and thrive, finally becoming a community, a nation.
The rabbis teach of a concept called yeridah l’tzorech aliya - descending in order to rise. It’s the understanding that sometimes we need to break things apart, dismantling them, in order to reorient them and put them back together, such that they can be better. Yeridah l’tzorech aliya teaches, like the phoenix, that sometimes growth, beauty, and new beginnings can come from difficulty. It’s a way of honoring and acknowledging the pain and challenge that come with life, alongside the way we emerge from it and grow, without discounting either side.
Tammuz, in this way, asks us to pay attention to the full experience of life. Pay attention to the heartbreak and pain and the lowest of lows, and also, pay attention to the growth, the new things that develop, the beautiful moments. And sometimes, we are meant to weave both together. In Tammuz we are asked to imagine what, perhaps, we might need to break apart, so that we can build anew. How might we intentionally craft yeridah l’tzorech aliya - doing the hard work that feels complicated and painful, so that we can rise? This is the charge of Tammuz, knowing that each of us can grow and change - even if the path to get there is hard - and that regardless of where we are in life, that we each have the capacity to rise.
