Yesterday was Tisha b’Av, the 9th of Av, considered the saddest day on the Jewish calendar. We commemorate all sorts of calamities that have afflicted the Jewish people, including the fall of the Temple in Jerusalem (twice) and the beginning of the Jewish exile. We are meant to grieve, to mourn losses to our communities on a grand scale, to acknowledge what is no longer. Tisha b’Av serves as a container for pain and sadness, giving us a space to really delve into grief.
Only six days after the saddest day, the Mishna teaches that the 15th of Av is one of the most joyous days on the calendar. It might not be a holiday that many of us celebrate, but it’s considered the Jewish celebration of love. The tradition says that on this day, single folks would go out into the fields to find their partners. They would pair up, building families, planting roots for the future. Only six days after the saddest day on the calendar is the day that gives us tremendous hope about the future. It’s a day of imagining what’s possible in our world.
In this short span, less than a week, we are asked to hold such a vast spectrum of emotions. We are asked to fully feel pain and difficulty, allowing ourselves to grieve communal losses, and we are asked to feel true unbridled joy, only a few days later.
It is during this week that the liturgical calendar changes to guide us towards Rosh Hashanah, orienting us to High Holidays and the spiritual work that is meant to accompany their arrival. Judaism asks us to balance the fullness of what this life offers. We are meant to hold the spectrum of human experiences – the sadness and the joy, the triumphs and the challenges, the beauty and the devastation. We are meant to begin our preparation for the High Holidays as a whole person, with everything we experience and with all parts of ourselves.
Sandwiched between the saddest day on the Jewish calendar and the most joyous one, this Shabbat represents that balance. It’s a time to begin collecting all the parts of ourselves. It’s a time to pay attention to the fullness of who we are, not judging any element but noticing and acknowledging. With everything that we are, with everything that we feel, we hope to show up for ourselves, for each other, and for God.
