Tonight’s sunset marks the beginning of Tisha B’Av, the Jewish remembrance of the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem, the destruction of the Second Temple, the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and a number of other horrific events. And tonight I attended a Tisha B’Av service for the first time ever.
We sat in the sanctuary in the dark, reading the weeknight maariv and from the book of Eicha (Lamentations) by flashlight. The sanctuary had been set in a state of disorder — chairs overturned, siddurs scattered across the floor, a Torah scroll unfurled across the bimah. What struck me most was the open doors revealing an empty Ark.
Toward the end of the service, the thirteen of us who were present shared our personal thoughts on the service and on Tisha B’Av in general. I kept thinking back to sections of Rabbi Niles Elliot Goldstein’s “God at the Edge” which I’d read over the weekend, about the ancient Jewish mystics who encouraged their followers to embrace chaos and crisis as a means of burning away egotism, vanity and materialism and refining the soul and spiritual relationship to the divine.
So many of the people I know and hold dear are in crisis of one kind or another, and the world at large is no different — from the global economic crisis to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. I, too, am experiencing my own challenges. What keeps coming back to me is the adage that crisis reveals character, and the knowledge that no matter what is going on in life or in the world — whether we’re experience a period of feast or famine — the pendulum always, always swings back the other way.
Tisha B’Av is also a time of fasting — 25 hours of fasting, to be precise — to mark this time of mourning.
Fasting has always been tricky for me. As someone who’s had issues with hypoglycemia, I can tell you that any fast messes with trying to maintain a stable blood sugar level. In the past, I’ve done “semi-fasts,” by abstaining from solid food but allowing myself to have juice, tea and occasionally some broth as necessary.
I’ve never been particularly satisfied with this half-measure, and I did some research over the past several days, trying to find a way to safely participate in a full fast. What I found instead was medical advice that hypoglycemia is pretty much at the top of the list of contraindications for fasting, whether for religious or secular purposes. So it looks like I’m sticking to my tea and juice (vegetable juices are excellent for fast days, BTW), and will continue to have fruit and crackers handy in case I start getting shaky.
