This Tisha B’Av I feel the brokenness deeply, as I’ve never felt it before. We fear that the walls of our temples are crumbling. Not only our synagogues and holy spaces that sit empty, reminding us of our isolation from one another and from the loving embrace of community. But also the walls of those institutions that we hold dear, and believed would never crumble: the democratic institutions that we relied on to protect and to defend us; the commitment that we thought was shared across our nation to take care of each other; comfort that we count on to hold one another in times of sorrow and to come together as a community in times joy; the sense that everything is alright.
The Coronavirus has laid bare the bitter truth that everything is not alright. In fact, it has not been alright for many people before this pandemic arrived. We witness daily the terrorism of interminable poverty; of racism, of unjust systems of justice, and of those we count on to defend and protect us who are instead brutalizing and killing; the hatred that rips people from their countries or corrals them into detention centers and concentration camps; the disintegration of our planet that makes some areas of this world unsustainable for human life. Like the end of Jerusalem and its holy temple, it feels as if the walls are crumbling and the world is burning. And so tonight, we enter into our own broken hearts, and grieve, for the destruction past and present; for us, for our loved ones, for the strangers, we do not know, for humanity.
Why do we designate one day a year for remembering past suffering? Because we must remember. Because we have not yet succeeded in ending the suffering. Because the world is burning. And because remembering something that happened so long ago gives us hope. Because we have survived to tell the stories. Because we must tell the stories. Year after year, we remember and we hope and we stand up and we act to bring healing to our world.
Video and Chat Recording (Password is: &5bFTQ@u) from Tisha B'Av: A Night Of Brokenness