This Wednesday night and Thursday is Tisha B’Av, the 9th of Av, the national fast day of mourning for all the tragedies that have befallen our people over the centuries.
At CMT, we are marking this powerful day in three ways. On Tuesday night, July 28, Alan Morinis, the master Mussar teacher, will speak on The Role of Sadness from a Mussar Perspective. How can sadness be useful? Thursday afternoon July 30, we are co-sponsoring a gathering to support Jews of colour in Brookline, at 5.30. Finally, to end Tisha B’Av together, as a community, on Thursday evening at 7.30, Rabbi Dr. Michael Shire will lead us in a ‘deep dive’ text study of the book of Lamentations.
Why are we focusing so much on Tisha B’av this year? Perhaps because on this Tisha B’av, we are suffering. Illness and fear have fallen upon us like a blizzard in summer. Our society is weeping because of broken promises and injustices. God’s children are in mourning for lost lives and lost dreams.
This year, on Tisha B’Av, we hope that we will be inspired to repair our broken hearts and renew the covenant God made with all humanity--that never again would God allow humanity to be destroyed by anger. Part of the Tisha B’Av service includes the prayer Hashiveinu--Return us O God to you, and make us new like in days of old. We suffer when we turn away from God. We find hope and strength when we turn toward God, the source of awe, wonder, faith and renewal. Below is a poem based on this prayer.
This Shabbat I hope we all find rejuvenation, and renewed faith in the future.
Hashiveinu: Return Us, by Kohenet Ilana Joy Streit
Return us to ourselves
Return us to each other
Return us to the earth
Return us to our Land: the land beneath our feet
Return us to This Moment
Return us to our knowing
remembering that we know
Return us to our rhythms
Return us to our drums
Return us to sleep in the middle of the night
Return us to our deepest desires
our shared loves
our clear visions
Return us to our bodies
to our breath
to breathing easily
Return us to knowing
how beautiful we are
Return us to ourselves
Return us to each other
Return us to our good questions
our bare feet
our brilliant minds
our singing voices
Return us to falling in love
with ourselves
and each other
Return us to our Shrines
and to our shrine-keeping
Return us to our places of peacemaking
Return us to trusting each other
and ourselves
Return us
turn us
and we will dance and be held
and behold that we are whole
and be in harmony with You
Return us
keep turning us
for everything is within us
for Torah will keep coming out of us
for sweetness is
within us
and longs to return to You
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Marcia Plumb
