‘For These Things Do I Weep’
Adamah takes its name from the Hebrew word for earth — and from the relationship at the center of the Torah’s second creation story: Adam, the human being, formed from Adamah, the ground itself. That connection between person and planet isn’t just etymology, it’s actually built into the Jewish calendar. It is very appropriate that Tisha B’Av – the day on the Jewish calendar set aside to mourn the destruction of the Temple – falls in the middle of summer. The driest and hottest time of year is perhaps the ideal conditions for feeling all those heavy things, particularly in the way that we relate to the land.
‘For These Things Do I Weep’ a source sheet for Tisha B’Av During the Climate Crisis
Prepared by Bruce Spierer, Director of Jewish Climate Leadership Coalition
Adapted from a program created in collaboration with Rabbi Ora Nitkin-Kaner, Climate Change Chaplain at Exploring Apocalypse
Tisha B’Av recalls a moment of existential crisis in Jewish history when the people were exiled, their home destroyed, and the existence of future generations was uncertain. This source sheet explores some of the deep wisdom Tisha B’Av offers to meet, live through, and build a future during the climate crisis as it unfolds.
Discussion Guide: Adam, Adamah, and the Season of Grief
A companion piece for communities observing Tisha B’Av
This year, the smoke made it impossible to look away. For Bruce, the climate crisis is his everyday work. But even for him, the wildfires this summer landed differently. He watched the air quality outside his window turn dangerous, felt his own breath get harder to catch, and realized: this isn’t an abstraction anymore. It’s in his lungs. That’s the backdrop for this conversation with Sarah VanderWalde, Director of Marketing and Communications at Adamah.
After listening to the interview above, use the questions below individually for personal reflection, or as a guide for group discussion before or after reading Lamentations together.
Discussion questions
- On the calendar itself: Tisha B’Av lands at the hottest, driest, most barren point of the year — deliberately, according to Jewish tradition. What does it mean that our tradition built a specific time for grief into the calendar, rather than leaving it to arrive whenever it happens to?
- On containment: Bruce describes his Tisha B’Av practice as giving himself “permission to really surrender to feel that grief”, imagining the day itself “a kind of a container,” so the grief doesn’t take over the rest of the year. Where in your own life do you have containers like this? Are there set times or places where you let yourself feel something fully, on purpose? Where don’t you?
- On silent suffering: “Everyone is kind of silently suffering” is how Bruce describes climate anxiety, but arguably true of grief more broadly. Why do you think people so often assume they’re the only ones carrying a particular fear or sadness? What changes when that assumption is broken, in a room, together?
- On the land itself: This year (2026), wildfire smoke has made the climate crisis physically unavoidable for many people, in a way it wasn’t before. Has your own relationship to Adamah — the land, the earth, the ground under your feet — shifted recently? What has that felt like?
- On moving forward: Bruce describes the goal of Tisha B’Av’s ritual grief as moving people “from paralysis towards community, connection, and…the next right step.” What might your “next right step” be, either individually, or as a community, coming out of this Tisha B’Av?
- Looking ahead: Rosh Hashanah follows not long after Tisha B’Av. How does knowing renewal is already on the calendar change how you sit with grief today?
For facilitators: This guide works well read alongside Adamah’s full source sheet, which goes deeper into the textual and liturgical connections between Tisha B’Av and the climate crisis. Consider closing a group discussion with a moment of quiet — even a minute of silence — before moving into any concluding remarks. The questions above are meant to open feeling, not just conversation. If your community is connected to Adamah’s Jewish Youth Climate Movement or the Jewish Climate Leadership Coalition, this is a natural moment to mention both as a “next right step” for anyone looking for concrete communal action.
