Don't Fast, Eat Sweets

The Mukhtar of the Beduin village Dir A-Tin and Rabbi Arik Ascherman on Tisha B'Av

Dear friends,

The great disaster has finally passed. The people can gather once again. New leaders have emerged, new thinkers, new poets, new attitudes. They come together in the streets to see what the ancient wisdom has to offer. The language of the ancestors is chanted. Those who understand the words explain them to those who don’t. The dancers move their bodies to express the secrets hidden in the depths of the words. The musicians blow their horns and strum their lyres, grasping at the truths conveyed. The priests speak the people’s language, uncovering the layers of the ever-present past.

A feeling of gratitude overwhelms the crowd. We survived. Tears begin to well. They hear the words of the Torah and all they can do is cry. Despite everything, there is love. After all, we are loved.

The emotions are strong, for this love feels unwarranted, free, a love-gift in lieu of punishment. The poet speaks:

We deserve
what has befallen us
and worse.

Our ancestors lived lives of privilege.
Gifts came their way and they
Wolfed them up
Like pigs.
When they brought suffering on themselves they
Cried, repented, and
Repeated their offenses.
As soon as they were comfortable
They returned
To entitled ways.

And we are sad reflections of them.

She points to one eye:
עיני, My eye,
She points the other:
עיני, My eye,
She touches her tears:
ירדה מים, Drips water.

We pause our description of the 5th century BC scene in Jerusalem described by the biblical leader, Nehemiah to imagine a different brokenness. It was Tisha B’Av this past Sunday, the day we mourn the destruction of Jerusalem, and the temple. I spent the day with Rabbi Arik Ascherman and his flock moving from one spot of destruction to another. Taybe, Dir A Tin, Humsa, places where simple people are being forced out of already desolate places in the middle of nowhere for no apparent reason other than some bizarrely cruel instinct of domination. It was at Dir A-Tin, a tiny Beduin outpost in the Jordan valley where Rav Arik invited me to chant the second chapter of the Book of Lamentations, where we read these verses:

עיני עיני ירדה מים אין לי מנחם

My eye
My eye
Drips water
There is no one
to comfort me.

שִׁפְכִ֤י כַמַּ֙יִם֙ לִבֵּ֔ךְ נֹ֖כַח פְּנֵ֣י אֲדֹנָ֑י

Pour your heart out
Like water
In front of the
Vacant face of 
Your broken
God.

Over and over during the course of the day I heard the same message: we are inflicting brokenness upon ourselves. We returned to Zion after a disaster, just like Nehemiah, and are allowing our comfort to consume our sense of gratitude.

In the evening the fast ended, and I was with my family by the Mediterranean as the sun set on beautiful Tel Aviv, new Zion that it is, the first Hebrew city to be built in millennia. There I could hear Nehemiah’s answer to the tears, the self-criticism, the brokenness of his flock.

He stops the poet and speaks to the weepers:

Don’t mourn.
No more tears today.
Instead go
Eat some sweets
Drink something delicious
Send a meal to those have none -
For today is a day that belongs to our God of hope.
So release your sadness.
Let the care of your friend,
Your God
Be your fortress of peace,
and love.
(Nehemiah 8)

Shabbat shalom,

Rabbi Misha