It feels like this year there is so much to tend to in our collective grief. Once again, we lean to the inherent wisdom of our Calendar, where much around us withers in the summer heat. Our tradition has allocated three weeks for us to tend to our grief, just as it offers the shiva after a loss. I, personally, feel grateful for belonging to a tradition with such an essential invitation. How can we expand the parameters of our grief this year and start softening the blockages in our internal world to meet the world with a softer strength and a deeper clarity?
A poem I wrote in 2022:
This year, on the 17th of Tammuz,
I fasted beside a man
who had gone two full months
on hunger strike,
protesting negligent prison conditions
and a trial built on insufficient evidence.
He spent 46 years behind bars,
over 30 in solitary confinement
for a crime
he did not commit.
Let me repeat:
a crime
he did not commit.
How can I mourn the breach
in Jerusalem’s walls
without mourning the ones
we build today,
walls that cage our siblings,
walls that rever control over
humanity?
How can I grieve
ancient invasions
without grieving the borders
we draw now:
welcoming some,
abandoning others
to wither beneath the scorching suns
of deserts we made?
How can I lament
the past of Jerusalem
without mourning her present:
her homes demolished,
her olive trees uprooted,
her people displaced?
How can I separate
our grief
from the trauma
that now drives our own leaders
to repeat the very violence
that once brought our temples down,
first by Babylonians,
then by Rome?
All life is a sacred temple.
To mourn the destruction
of David’s house
is to mourn
the destruction of every body,
every soul
cast aside.
I don’t believe
our tradition gives us
three weeks of mourning
only to grieve stones.
No.
It’s so that every day
after the 17th of Tammuz,
we stretch the bounds
of who belongs
in our grief.
About the Author:
Ophir Haberer is a Jerusalem-born facilitator, educator, body worker, somatic therapist, culinary artist, ritualist, poet, storyteller, and organizational consultant. At the Adamah SF Hub, he has played several roles for Wilderness Torah including festival and leadership manager, Sephardic, Mizrahi, and Jews of Color program provider and advisor, and member of the design council. You can learn more about his work and bio on his website.
