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I stand at a podium in the center of a pop-up tent. People are all around me, sitting on the hot Philadelphia pavement, masks on, eyes downcast. It is Tisha B’Av, 2021, a day to commemorate a destruction thousands of years old, that blurs time to commemorate the interconnectedness of all destructions throughout all times, in a time of its own destruction. I sing:

אֵיכָ֣ה ׀ יָשְׁבָ֣ה בָדָ֗ד הָעִיר֙ רַבָּ֣תִי עָ֔ם הָיְתָ֖ה כְּאַלְמָנָ֑ה רַבָּ֣תִי בַגּוֹיִ֗ם שָׂרָ֙תִי֙ בַּמְּדִינ֔וֹת הָיְתָ֖ה לָמַֽס׃

Eicha, the city lies deserted, once so full of people! She has become a widow… she who was queen has been brutalized and tormented. 

As I sing, a small rumbling is heard in the distance. The wind begins to pick up.

I continue:

בָּכ֨וֹ תִבְכֶּ֜ה בַּלַּ֗יְלָה וְדִמְעָתָהּ֙ עַ֣ל לֶֽחֱיָ֔הּ אֵֽין־לָ֥הּ מְנַחֵ֖ם מִכׇּל־אֹהֲבֶ֑יהָ

In agony, she weeps in the night, her cheeks are soaked through with tears. There are none to comfort her.

Light raindrops against tent fabric are added to the soundscape. Lightning begins to streak across the sky.

דַּרְכֵ֨י צִיּ֜וֹן אֲבֵל֗וֹת מִבְּלִי֙ בָּאֵ֣י מוֹעֵ֔ד כׇּל־שְׁעָרֶ֙יהָ֙ שֽׁוֹמֵמִ֔ין כֹּהֲנֶ֖יהָ נֶאֱנָחִ֑ים בְּתוּלֹתֶ֥יהָ נּוּג֖וֹת וְהִ֥יא מַר־לָֽהּ׃
 
The roads of the Holy Land are in mourning,
Empty of joyous visitors
All her gates are deserted.
Her priests sigh,
Her maidens are unhappy—
She is utterly filled with bitterness

The rain begins falling in sheets, wind whipping it into the tent, flooding out the area. Thunder and lightning from every direction. As I finish singing, someone rushes forward and slams shut the computer livestreaming the whole event and throws their body over it to protect it from the flood. We all run through rivers of water in the street to relative safety indoors.

Never before has the commemoration of destruction felt so visceral.

We find ourselves, at present,  in a Jewish period of time called the three weeks of mourning, commemorating the time between when Jerusalem’s walls were first breached by the Roman army, and the eventual destruction of the city by those invaders three weeks later (Tisha B’Av–the 9th of Av). We also find ourselves on Shabbat Mevarchim HaChodesh Av, the Shabbat that welcomes in the month of Av– the month in which we commemorate this destruction.

Jewish time is what we often refer to as “spirulinear.” Neither just a cycle nor just a linear progression, time loops and circles back in on itself, moving forward while also repeating. It is said that many of the great destructions that occurred for the Jewish people, such as the expulsion of Jews from Spain and deportation from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka– not to mention the destruction of both Temples –, occurred during the month of Av. There is a potency to this time which calls us to attention. We find that inside one instance of destruction is every destruction throughout time and space. We experience it all at once. The grief saturates us through.

During this particular spiral through the three weeks thus far, we have witnessed many a destruction. A missile strike killed 12 Druze children in the village of Majdal Shams. Ismail Haniyeh, a complicated figure but, for better or for worse, a leading negotiator for ceasefire negotiations on behalf of Hamas, was assassinated in Iran. Israel and different wings of its military and police seem to have gone to war with themselves over accusations of abuse against Palestinian prisoners inside Israeli detention centers. And more people, both Palestinian civilians and Israeli soldiers, continue to be killed daily in Gaza.

Destruction weighs on us, heavy.

The Hebrew word for heavy is kaved– it has a connotation of being weighed down. But it is the same verbal root as kavod, meaning glory or honor, and often used when referring to the heightened presence of Divinity– of godliness and goodness– in the earthly realm. Kaved and kavod are two sides of the same coin.

Through allowing ourselves to truly feel and experience destruction, rather than trying to turn away, through allowing ourselves to be weighed down by the pain of it all, we are able to experience the glory of the divine, which to me is the visceral sensation of knowing the sanctity of all life. Tisha B’av and this period of collective mourning calls on us to not turn away. It calls upon us to feel as the primary mandate toward the healing of the world. For if we cannot feel the world’s pain, we have no motivation to end it.

Therefore, during the three weeks of mourning. We must allow the storm of grief to wash over us. We must allow the thunder and lightning to wake us up to collective action.

This past week, I allowed the grief of the moment to carry me to Washington D.C., where I gathered with an interfaith coalition for multifaith religious ritual and action in opposition to Christians United for Israel (CUFI), a Christian nationalist organization that believes all Jews must be in-gathered in the land of Israel not for their own wellbeing, but in order to bring about the second-coming of Jesus, at which point all the Jews and all other non-Christians must convert or be annihilated.

At the same time that CUFI’s founder, John Hagee, was calling for the wrath of God to annihilate all of Israel’s enemies, our interfaith coalition was gathered, chanting the book of lamentations and engaging in a practice of collective kriyah– the ritual of tearing fabric and wearing that tear to symbolize grief and mourning. I helped hundreds of hands– hands of Jews, of Christians, of Muslims, of Buddhists, of Hindus– tear a banner that stated “Christian nationalism kills,” and pin its remnants to themselves as a reminder that our religious traditions should bring us together in the pursuit of life, rather than tear us apart in the pursuit of death.

In this next spirulinear cycle, may we pursue life.

Tisha B’av is actually seen as the opening of the High Holiday season. At the end of the book of Eicha, we read the words:

Hashivenu adonai elecha v’nashuva chadesh yameinu k’kedem
Return us to you, and we shall return as in days of old

This phrase is the rallying cry of the high holidays season– it teaches us that feeling our grief allows us to return to the heart of that which is true– the heart of goodness and mercy, of love for all of creation, no matter how broken.

It can be hard to love a broken world. But if there is anything we are taught during this time of destruction and mourning, love it we must. For only love can transform our heaviness – our kaved – into kavod – a world of not only peace, but imminent and abundant splendor.