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July 26, 2024
The Jewish calendar has an emotional arc to it. Rooted in the cycles of the moon (it is a lunar calendar), the cycles of seasons (many of our festivals have agricultural roots) but also rooted in history, our sacred calendar invites us to remember where we have been and what we have experienced as a people, bringing that awareness into our individual lives and the present day.
These days, it is easy to think, as the tongue-in-cheek internet memes say: “can’t we have a precedented event for once?” “Can we live in, perhaps less interesting times?” It is hard to keep up with all of the momentous events through which we are living, seemingly all at once. Just as it can soothe the mind and soul to go out into nature and remind ourselves that we are connected to something much bigger than this historical moment, it can also be grounding and centering to take notice of the Jewish calendar and to remember that our people has been through many unthinkable and unprecedented moments; to draw strength from the way our tradition guides us to make our way, continuing to find and create blessings in our lives and in our world, no matter how challenging the circumstances.
These weeks in the Jewish calendar, beginning this past Tuesday (the 17th of the month of Tammuz), are a period of mourning for the destruction of our people’s ancient sacred centers, the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem. These three weeks lead up to Tisha B’Av (the 9th of Av), which has come to commemorate that and other historical catastrophes and losses for the Jewish people. Our tradition gives us the gift of making space for grief – remembered and present. In order to live fully, we must experience and integrate our individual and communal losses. We are asked not to turn away from the pain, but to acknowledge it, to honor it as a part of who we are. The losses we experience are a part of the holy wholeness that is a life fully lived. If you would like to delve deeper into this time in the Jewish calendar, here is a beautiful teaching about the 17th of Tammuz by Rabbi Avi Strausberg of the Hadar Institute in New York City.
It is a painful moment in Jewish history in which we find ourselves, but also one in which hope lives, as it always has. We are commanded to seek out that hope, to create reasons for hope, and to amplify reasons for hope. With that spirit, knowing that we are in a present moment as well as a moment in the Jewish calendar which asks us to make space for tears, I share with you a video of the Jerusalem Youth Chorus, Israeli and Palestinian teenagers singing on “America’s Got Talent,” and winning the opportunity to advance on the show, which aired on July 16th.
May we remember and acknowledge the pain of past and present, and may we make space for tears and for hope, both of which are necessary for strength, for continuity, and for building anew.
Rabbi Audrey Marcus Berkman
