Today is the saddest day on the Jewish calendar.
There. Mimi the robot has repeated the designated Tisha B'Av slogan.
This is all getting a little monotonous.
Year after year.
No eating. Sit on the floor. Do this. Don’t do that. Our Temple was destroyed.
Yesterday, with the fast approaching, I was bothered that I left my Crocs at work. I got home, looked at my non-leather-shoe options, and let out a loud, “aaaaauuugh!”
And this morning, I slammed my finger in my bedroom door.
It hurt real badly, and I cried. Hard.
Yesterday, I was not overly bothered by the approaching fast.
And during the reading of Eicha last night, I did not shed a tear.
Nope.
Today, all I feel are my missing Crocs, and a slightly swollen finger.
Yet, today marks a day that meant destruction, exile, and estrangement for a nation constantly desiring closeness with G-d.
As Jews, we're meant to contemplate the meaning and feel the reality of the loss.
But, admittedly, I feel a little detached.
I see no ashes, no fire ascending to the sky.
I am hungry, but not for G-d’s Palace.
This heart does not ache in longing for what’s been lost.
And now I am forced to pause.
My eyes are wet.
My honesty right now is the first thing to pierce my heart all day.
And, as someone constantly striving to be in tune, my insensitivity is smacking me in the face.
Talk about a loss.
Today, when the whole world mourns what’s missing in Jerusalem, I really mourn what’s missing inside of me.
Today, I grieve because, after thousands of years of soul-numbing exile, my Crocs and aching finger cause me more distress than the absence of the Bais Hamikdash.
11 comments:
May we all march to the rebuilding of the Bais Hamikdosh NOW even if we r still wearing our crocs. Green, blue yellow crocs, may we all march forward.
Great sensitivity MIM. Take care of that finger as u will need it to write about the miraculous events of redemption.
Luv ya
I think that we are so deep into golus that we just do not even understand what we lost. Yes, I read Eicha last night, but my thoughts immediately went toward how it reminds me of the state of affairs in EY today. It is so hard to respond to that which we never experienced, and the sitra achra knows that we have experienced only golus, so it wants to keep us there.
Only my stomach seems to respond to the tragedy by betraying me again and again with pain and cramping, while I am checking on my "losses", which include a piddling bank transfer which has seemingly gone astray and my AMPD cellphone service, the demise of which is now postponed to 7/31. Oh, and I have no idea whether my new Crocs, which I intend to wear to the kever of the Baal Shem Tov on 18 Elul, were ever shipped even though I ordered them last Thursday.
The churban of the Temple affects me very much, but it still doesn't affect me as much as our present inability to rebuilt it, I can't relate to the churban as an event, I relate more to the consequences, from the holocaust, antisemitism to the loss of thousands of neshamos to cults, intermarriages, unaffiliation, drugs..etc.
I am sure your loss is very easy to heal, it isn't easy to be inspired, even on Tisha B'Av...can't wait till your next post, keep inspiring us, even when you think you aren't ispired.
'keep inspiring us even when you think you aren't inspired' - very well said.
Mimi, your posts are so raw and so real, you touch the right nerve, the right point in each of our hearts every time.
I only wish we couldn't relate to this post.
I wish we all truly felt the loss and no, even more - had the third Beis Hamikdosh, when we wont feel the loss because of our great joy! May we have it right now!
Thanks for wording what I'm feeling better than I possibly could. I just don't thing we're really good at this mourning stuff... we forget not too be happy and I don't think that's something we have to feel bad about.
Oh, Mimi.... I think we're all like that, but even worse, half of us don't realize it. Refuah shelaima for the finger...
I was concentrating on Eicha for 10 minutes and then couldn't pay attention to the meaning anymore...it's so graphic, though.
So true.
I felt like that every year.
But not this year.
Ok, so my mourning wasn't for the Beis Hamikdash.
My mother was recently orphaned. The death of the second parent came unexpectedly erev shabbos. The leveya was erev tisha b'av on har hazeisim. My mother spent Tisha B'av in Yerushalayim. The whole situation is still surreal to me.
But, as I sat in 770 saying Eicha, the words of aveilus pierced my heart. When I read about the mourning, I thought of my mother just a few months ago, sitting shiva for her mother (who passed away just a few months before her father did), only i pictured whole communities in pain. I saw groups of women and children sitting on the floor, weeping for our loss as a nation. I saw people starving, hurting, and mourning. And I cried.
But I don't think I really cried for them. I think I was letting out my own personal pain.
May we be zoche to the day when Tisha B'av will become a yom tov.
I SAID Eichah (LAMENTATIONS)
THEN WE WATCHED A WOODY ALLEN MOVIE LOVE AND DEATH Prokofiev's "Troika" from the Lieutenant Kije Suite is featured prominently SO MY TISHA B'A V MY MAIN PROBLEM WAS Starvation TILL malnutrition .FOR SOME REASON I AM APATHETIC ABOUT A SLUGHTER HOUSE BURNT DOWN ON A MOUNT 423 B.C.E AND THEN 69 C.E I WORRY ABOUT THE MORDEN DAY TISHA B’A AV IN THE SUDAN
"Poor old neglected blog" seems to to be having a revival ;). reflection of it's author perhaps?
I am now in Rome, today I walked by the arch of Titus with the famous 7 branched menorah that is carried by the Jews going in to exile there I felt the destruction .It was one of those moments. When Hitler came to Rome he walked under this arch for half hour saying it was the great thing he had seen .Since then it is roped off so no one can walk under and condone with the Jewish exile. To day I walked underneath and said by Tanya heart .Till some Israely went mad at me .
bs''d
i also love my crocs. i have anes pair of laced up waterproof crocs that i wore to kever rochel tonight in the first real heavy rain here in the holy land.
with warm blessings from the hills of yehuda.
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