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  Shabbat Fridays in July

We’re welcoming Shabbat all month long with Friday night services and a dairy dessert potluck Oneg.

Bring a dish, bring a friend, or just bring your spirit — there’s a seat waiting for you.

  Fridays, July 11, 18 & 25 at 7:00 PM

 Meaningful services  Singing  Dairy dessert potluck Oneg after each service

 Congregation Bayt Shalom  All are welcome — come as you are.

Moadim b’Av  The Jewish Holidays (?) While I’m Away

  Someone recently asked me why we don’t celebrate Tisha B’av here at CBS.   It’s a hard question for me to answer.  For one thing, it comes mid-summer so very little is happening at the temple already.  In fact, so far it has fallen during my summer vacation so I’m not here for it.   Primarily focused on the destructions of the First and Second Temples, outside of Orthodoxy, American Jews have had  “ambivalent and complicated” relationship to this day of sorrow and fasting.  Classical Reform, all too ready to distance itself from our primitive, cultic past, doesn’t even acknowledge it.  Finally, celebrate is not exactly the word we would us if we did observe it, even though the Hebrew word Moed is often translated as Holiday. 

            All this seems very odd, because our Tradition affords it the greatest significance.  According to Jewish Law, observance begins with three weeks of mourning preceding the actual day, the 9th of Av, or, this year sundown Aug. 2 to three stars Aug. 3.  The last meal before the fast includes a hardboiled egg and bread that are both dipped in ashes.  The laws of the awesome fast as the same as for Yom Kippur—no food or water, no washing or fine clothes or levity.  The primary ritual is the chanting of the Book of Lamentations with everyone sitting on low stools or the floor.  It is all stark, sad, and dramatic.

            I’m not trained as a cantor and I don’t know the specific chant for Lamentations.  It is full of pain and mourning.  There is a beautiful video of the whole book chanted by different people in a community here.             

EICHA: A Reading of Lamentations - YouTube

              I have a memory of Tisha B’av that I would like to share:  Sitting on the floor of an old synagogue in Brooklyn, I heard Lamentations—the tortured description of the destruction of Jerusalem and starvation of its inhabitants--chanted by candlelight.  I didn’t follow the Hebrew, but the meaning was there, and the horror and tragedy and sorrow seeped into me and mixed with my own.  It was as if my unique sorrows joined with all sorrow and loss through time.  I was deeply moved and even, I think, changed.    

            Tisha B’av is a Moed, an appointed time, but more than that, it is an opportunity to experience both personal and Our People’s (and all peoples’) suffering and loss and sorrow, as overwhelming that it can be, humbly perhaps shattered on the floor.  Then there is the equally profound moment when the lament is over, and we rise stiffly (some of us, painfully) to our feet and slowly make our way home.

            And that’s the message:  All of that suffering and sorrow.  We give a time to rule us, and then we rise and continue to live.  It comes every year.  

           And then, amazingly, the mournful month of Av becomes a celebration.

            The 15th of Av (this year Aug. 9th), with the coming of the full moon, is a Festival of Hope and Redemption.  With only 45 days to Rosh Hashanah, past sorrow is behind us.  The future generations are insured and celebrated, as Said Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel: There were no greater festivals for Israel than the 15th of Av and Yom Kippur. On these days the daughters of Jerusalem would go out... and dance in the vineyards. And what would they say? "Young man, raise your eyes and see which you select for yourself..." (Talmud, Taanit 26b)

            The grief and sorrow and pain of our personal lives and that of our People has a place in our calendar.  So does hope, renewal and joy.  Tisha B’av is an opportunity to embrace, feel and honor our histories. Three stars at the end of the Moed is a moment to experience rising up again. 

Tisha B’av begins Aug 2 at sundown and ends Aug. 3 with three stars.  It is certainly possible to read Lamentations yourself or with others.  And remember:   From there on out, its increasing hope and joy clear through to Rosh Hashanah, Sept 22/23.     

I will be on summer vacation July 12-Aug. 14.  Friday night services will continue, just like Shabbat, faithfully every week.  That is just one of the miracles of Bayt Shalom here in Eastern North Carolina.

 Everyone have a safe and cool summer.  Use that sunscreen.  Drink lots of water.  Come to Temple Fridays for 70 degrees, lovely song and prayer, friends old and new, maybe a bissel of Manischewitz and cake.  If there is an emergency, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me, though I may not be able to be there in person right away.

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