Tisha b'Av

[cellio]

Last week when my rabbi and I met, he asked me if I fast for Tisha b'Av. (I forget how this came up. It wasn't him being nosy.) I said "not any more" and explained my reasons (I wrote about this a few months ago). He agrees with me about (not) mourning the Temple but he sees it as broader than that, a day when we commemorate all of the calamities that have happened through the years. (Though the Shoah, the Holocaust, has its own day.) I thought about that, but I ended up deciding that I can appropriately commemorate the day without necessarily "afflicting myself" in the prescribed manner. I will give it more thought before next year.

My rabbi told me that he didn't fast on this day and then one year, completely by accident, he found he had gone most of the day without eating so he decided to finish it. Since then he has done a proper 25-hour fast every year.

My synagogue has a weekday service on Thursday evenings. (It's a compromise: people won't come every day, so they picked one day a week.) The service is always at the same time; depending on the time of year it's either the afternoon service or the evening service. It being summer, today's was the afternoon service, which meant it was held on Tisha b'Av. The rabbi announced that we would be adding material to the service because of that, and I noticed that we picked up a couple people tonight who don't usually come.

The luach (rules for services, sort of) says that for Tisha b'Av we wear a tallit (prayer shawl) for the afternoon service. (Ordinarily, this is done only for the morning service.) I figured the odds were pretty good that the rabbi and I would be the only attendees who would actually know that, so I debated whether to take mine. (It's an egalitarian congregation; there are no issues with women wearing tallitot.) I finally decided to take it but follow the rabbi for hints (or, if someone else also brought one, to go ahead and put it on). Turns out the rabbi didn't bring his, so I just set mine aside. I thought it would be somehow presumptuous to put one on if he didn't. I don't know if he forgot or if he made a conscious decision.

This morning at Tree of Life was strange in a few ways. First, on Tisha b'Av morning there's no music in the service, so everything is recited instead of being sung/chanted. (Well, the haftarah reading is chanted.) It was hard to recite things I'm used to singing.

One of the things you're supposed to do on Tisha b'Av is not wear leather. (Leather is perceived to be comfortable.) This means you see a lot of sneakers and slippers and stuff on people who normally wouldn't wear such things. I had worn my usual sandals (leather straps), and as I was walking into Tree this morning I realized that this might look bad. Even if I'm not doing the usual observance I shouldn't do things that stand out as "not doing it" in the community. But it turned out I was far from the only one wearing leather -- including Judah-the-practically-Orthodox, who was wearing leather shoes and a belt. Um, ok. I decided I didn't feel so awkward when they asked me to do something on the bimah.

One thing that stood out in today's services is the amount of petitionary prayer. Most of our prayer, most of the time, is not especially petitionary; this stood out as different. One of the topics in my queue is the problems of a God who intervenes in individual affairs, so maybe I'll tackle that soon now that I've gone and brought it up. But not tonight.

Comments

[gingicat]

Would you help me find your original entry on Tisha B'Av? I remember you said a lot of things I agreed with.

Thanks!

[cellio]

Here it is. Hmm, I thought I remembered being more verbose, but I guess not.