Next to the Shoah, the greatest catastrophe ever to befall the Jewish people was the destructions of the Temples along with Jerusalem, and the subsequent loss of life on a mass scale along with a devastating exile of our people. We observe Tisha B’Av as a national day of mourning. We sit on the floor, we light candles, we chant from the Book of Lamentations, and we sing songs of sadness. According to rabbinic tradition, God allowed this destruction to happen not just on account of our idolatries, but also because of the evils that can arise when we allow our hatreds to overcome our love of one another as a society. We continue to mourn the Temple for many reasons, but high on our list should be our awareness that hatred is still very much alive in our world, in Israel, and in our society as well. We will join together to acknowledge that we mourn not just for past loss, but the continued loss, suffering, and exiles that are being perpetrated in our time of pandemic in the name of hatred and bigotry. Please come and remember our history, and to affirm together that our work of repairing this world is not yet done.
The order for the evening is as follows:
-Opening Nigun (Shomer Yisrael-Carlebach)
-Brief intro. to Tisha B’av
-Maariv
-Eicha reading: Chapter 1: Sharon Spiegel
Chapter 2: Shula and Alan Elsner
Chapter 3: Sally Heckelman
Chapter 4: Randi Abramson
Chapter 5: Lew Schrager
-Kinot- Eli Tziyon
-By the waters of Babylon