spirituality
An Unfamiliar
Observance
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The Destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem, oil on canvas, by Francesco
Hayez. Both the first and second iterations of the Beit HaMikdash were
razed on Tisha b'Av, hundreds of years apart.
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I
t is a testament to the amazing
variability of Jewish synagogue life
in America that the summertime
fast of Tisha b'Av is for some a time
of momentous communal mourning,
and for others a normal and unre-
markable day.
In contrast to Yom Kippur, which
sees widespread observance in one
fashion or another across the denomi-
national spectrum, Tisha b'Av and its
ritual restrictions (which are nearly
identical to those of Yom Kippur) are
unfamiliar to a sizable contingent of
American Jews.
A bit of anecdotal evidence: This
author recently worked as the Judaics
director for a summer camp affili-
ated with the JCC movement and was
asked to put together a brief Tisha
b'Av ceremony, something this partic-
ular camp had never before included
in its Jewish programming. The
campers were so incredulous about
the existence of this holy day that
many were whispering to each other
that it had been invented by the camp
staff as a color war breakout prank.
How could Tisha b'Av, traditionally
one of the most intense and salient
religious experiences of the year, be
wholly foreign to a large portion of
American Jewry? Surely it cannot
simply come down to the fact that
most people are averse to fasting —
if that were the case, how could we
explain the ongoing popularity of Yom
Kippur?
The actual answer revolves around
the traditional thematic elements of
the fast. The narrative of Tisha b'Av
centers on the destruction of the Holy
Temple in Jerusalem, a national calam-
ity that marked the end of Jewish
sovereignty in ancient Israel and
the official onset of the long Jewish
diaspora. The day's liturgy mourns
the disappearance of high priests and
animal sacrifices, and woven into its
eulogizing is the wish for a return to
these original forms or worship.
It is in reaction to these sentiments
that modern Jewish thinkers have
diverged on how Tisha b'Av ought to
be approached in the present. Unlike
Yom Kippur, whose themes of repen-
tance and forgiveness are timelessly
compelling, Tisha b'Av as tradition-
ally observed openly longs for a way
of religious life that has irrevocably
passed and that even the most fer-
vently Orthodox today would find
alien. Understandably, those move-
ments and individuals in recent his-
tory that have championed Judaism's
ability to evolve and adapt would not
be interested in the message of Tisha
b'Av — that what is old is best.
This was the feeling that guided
early leaders of the Reform movement
in the 18th century to do away with
the observance of Tisha b'Av Because
they were interested in making