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Dear  {{first_name}},

Each year as Jews, we spend three weeks grieving something that none of us have ever seen, touched, heard or experienced. Each year during this time, we don’t hold weddings and we don’t shave. The last nine days of the three weeks are much more intense when we don’t eat meat and we abstain from anything that’s risky. It’s odd that we grieve so intensely for the Temple in Jerusalem. It’s odd that we mourn this thing that has never played any real role in our lives. What makes it even odder is we’re not even all that clear on if we actually want to rebuild the Temple. Do we want to resume animal sacrifices? What would be the role on the non-kohenim who’ve grown so used to being closer to Judaism now that it’s not determined by blood? Who would run the Temple? Would it be Orthodox Jews or Conservative? Would it be Sephardic or Ashkenazic? How would decisions be made in this new Temple? All of this leaves us questioning the necessity and the efficacy of mourning on Tisha B’Av each year.
 
I assert that Tisha B’Av is still an essential observance for the Jewish people. I do mourn the Temple I’ve never experienced. I mourn it because its destruction marked an enormous shift in the Jewish people and our relationship to God. I mourn it because it marked the expulsion of the Jewish people from our ancestral homeland. I mourn it because it didn’t just stop existing on the 9th of Av in 70CE… it was destroyed by an enemy who also massacred our ancestors. But, I believe there’s an even greater reason to mourn and observe the rituals of Tisha B’Av. I believe that mourning is a necessary behavior we try all too hard, and all too often, to ignore and not go through. We belittle grief and assume “it will just get better.” When people deal with grief, others see it as a sign of weakness and not the sign of life affirming and value loving that it actually is.  
 
We inherited a broken world. The world in which we live is rough and leaves much to be desired. While certainly there is so much to be thankful for and to celebrate… there is also so much to mourn and grieve over. The wise way of coping with life is to acknowledge the imperfection of life. We need to be willing to step to the side and see that there is so much hurt in our world. We need to be courageous enough to be vulnerable and admit we struggle and feel pain. We need to be willing to cry in front of others and question why things have to be the way that they are. This is not a simple task but one that will make our lives more complete and better all at once.
 
To fully understand life, and to better appreciate all that we have, we need to understand nothing can be taken for granted. We need to step outside of ourselves and see that the world has given us so much. The only way to experience this is to acknowledge our losses and our hurt to enable us to gain a clearer picture of our gains and our joys. This will only be achieved when we agree to grieve and understand that grieving makes us more alive. It will only be achieved when we mourn our brokenness and thus celebrate all we have in spite of it.

Shabbat Shalom, 
Rabbi Hearshen                               

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