(5) Her adversaries have become the head, her enemies are at ease; for the Lord has afflicted her because of the multitude of her sins; her young children went into captivity before the enemy. (6) And gone is from the daughter of Zion all her splendor; her princes were like harts who did not find pasture and they departed without strength before [their] pursuer. (7) Jerusalem recalls the days of her poverty and her miseries, [and] all her precious things that were from days of old; when her people fell into the hand of the adversary, and there was none to help her; the enemies gazed, gloating on her desolation. (8) Jerusalem sinned grievously, therefore she became a wanderer; all who honored her despised her, for they have seen her shame; moreover, she herself sighed and turned away. (9) Her uncleanliness is in her skirts, she was not mindful of her end, and she fell astonishingly with none to comfort her. 'Behold, O Lord, my affliction, for the enemy has magnified himself.'
(א) עַ֥ל נַהֲר֨וֹת ׀ בָּבֶ֗ל שָׁ֣ם יָ֭שַׁבְנוּ גַּם־בָּכִ֑ינוּ בְּ֝זָכְרֵ֗נוּ אֶת־צִיּֽוֹן׃ (ב) עַֽל־עֲרָבִ֥ים בְּתוֹכָ֑הּ תָּ֝לִ֗ינוּ כִּנֹּרוֹתֵֽינוּ׃ (ג) כִּ֤י שָׁ֨ם שְֽׁאֵל֪וּנוּ שׁוֹבֵ֡ינוּ דִּבְרֵי־שִׁ֭יר וְתוֹלָלֵ֣ינוּ שִׂמְחָ֑ה שִׁ֥ירוּ לָ֝֗נוּ מִשִּׁ֥יר צִיּֽוֹן׃ (ד) אֵ֗יךְ נָשִׁ֥יר אֶת־שִׁיר־יְהוָ֑ה עַ֝֗ל אַדְמַ֥ת נֵכָֽר׃ (ה) אִֽם־אֶשְׁכָּחֵ֥ךְ יְֽרוּשָׁלִָ֗ם תִּשְׁכַּ֥ח יְמִינִֽי׃
(1) By the rivers of Babylon, There we sat down, yea, we wept, When we remembered Zion. (2) Upon the willows in the midst thereof We hanged up our harps. (3) For there they that led us captive asked of us words of song, And our tormentors asked of us mirth: ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion.' (4) How shall we sing the LORD’S song In a foreign land? (5) If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, Let my right hand forget her cunning.
The Temple's fall, more than any other loss, signaled to the Jews the final failure of the revolt. The Talmud speaks of Jews who went into a permanent state of depression, who "became ascetics, binding themselves neither to eat meat nor drink wine. Rabbi Joshua got into a conversation with them and said to them: 'My sons, why do you not eat meat nor drink wine?' They replied: 'Shall we eat meat which used to be brought as an offering on the altar, now that the altar is no more? Shall we drink wine which used to be poured as a libation on the altar, but now no longer.' He said to them: 'If that is so, we should not eat bread either, because the meal offerings have ceased.' They said: 'That is correct, and we will manage with fruit.' 'We should not eat fruit either, Rabbi Joshua said, because there is no longer an offering of firstfruits.' The ascetics responded that they would manage with other fruits. Rabbi Joshua said, 'But we should not drink water because there is no longer any ceremony of water libation.' To this they had no answer, where-upon the pragmatic Rabbi Joshua advised them: "My sons, come and listen to me. Not to mourn at all is impossible, because the blow has fallen. To mourn overmuch is also impossible, because we do not impose on the community a hardship which the majority cannot endure." He therefore suggested three ways the Jews should mourn for the Temple's destruction. "A man may stucco his house, but he should leave a little bare...A man can prepare a full-course banquet, but he should leave out an item or two...A woman can put on all her ornaments, but leave off one or two."
The mountain air is clear as wine
And the scent of pines
Is carried on the breeze of twilight
With the sound of bells.
And in the slumber of tree and stone
Captured in her dream
The city that sits solitary
And in its midst is a wall.
Jerusalem of gold,
and of bronze, and of light
Behold I am a violin for all your songs.
We have returned to the cisterns
To the market and to the market-place
A ram’s horn (shofar) calls out
(i.e. is being heard) on the Temple Mount
In the Old City.
And in the caves in the mountain
Thousands of suns shine -
We will once again descend to the Dead Sea
By way of Jericho!
Jerusalem of gold,
and of bronze and of light
Behold I am a violin for all your songs.
But as I come to sing to you today,
And to adorn crowns to you (i.e. to tell your praise)
I am the smallest of the youngest
of your children (i.e. the least worthy of doing so)
And of the last poet (i.e. of all the poets born).
For your name scorches the lips
Like the kiss of a seraph
If I forget thee, Jerusalem,
Which is all gold…
Jerusalem of gold,
and of bronze, and of light
Behold I am a violin for all your songs.
"This Tisha B’Av, instead of fighting against the images of female humiliation and victimhood, I am inviting myself and others to enter into the pain that these texts evoke for us, and in fact use them as an opportunity to explore our own lived experience of this breach of the feminine, and to allow ourselves to be with it inside our own bodies and experience. This includes allowing ourselves to grieve and mourn it, and then to let that mourning connect us back up to the destruction of Jerusalem and the breach of the Jewish people.
This year, as we connect to the imagery of the violation and humiliation of the feminine that comes up in Lamentations, let is bring us to more awareness both how we carry inside us the violation of the feminine, and also get us activated against the real time violations happening right now in sexual trafficking, child sexual abuse, incest, sexual slavery, rape, pornography, and women's impoverishment."
ר' חזקיה ר' כהן בשם רב עתיד אדם ליתן דין וחשבון על כל מה שראת עינו ולא אכל
R. Chizkiyah said in the name of Rav: You will one day give reckoning for everything your eyes saw which, although permissible, you did not enjoy.
For me, accessing this darkness and pain, is the rightful venue for the mourning of Tisha B’Av. But we don’t live in Tisha B’Av and there are correct limits to our mourning. The mourning and devastation of Tisha B’Av is only one aspect of our story. The mourning of Tisha B’Av is all the more poignant because we are not engaged in it throughout the year. Moving away from a stance of mourning in the presence of pain can be a courageous journey where one places trust in something that one does not yet fully know. We may trust that things can be different but we don’t yet know what that looks and feels like. Our bigggest hurts and breaches happened in relationships – and it is through relationships that they can also be repaired.
The journey that incorporates both pain and healing in relationships is brought into fuller relief through referencing Tu B’Av, the 15th day of Av, celebrated in modern Israel as the Jewish love festival and emanating from the Second Temple period as a time of matchmaking.
To be fully alive means that we need to feel our pain and our joy alike. To be alive means that we can’t exercise preferences about which parts of experience we are willing to accept. Feeling our pain expands our capacity to feel joy and to feel the fullness of life in all its dimensions.