By Jakir Manela
Tisha B’Av, beginning at sundown tomorrow night, is the saddest day on the Jewish calendar. The Temples in Jerusalem were destroyed on this day, ending Jewish sovereignty in the holy land 2,000 years ago and many moments of trauma and tragedy across the ensuing centuries of Jewish history haunt us on this day as well. Tisha B’Av is a day to tap into our experience of loss, pain, and grief. This year these are all-too accessible feelings, as we survey the devastation all around us.
- Catastrophic climate disasters continue destroying and harming countless lives, through heat waves, flooding, wildfires, drought, and rising sea levels. Meanwhile, our own EPA, led by a Jew, takes aggressive legal action to discontinue any regulation and limitation of the same greenhouse gases that cause these disasters.
- Gun violence and random mass shootings continue to plague our society, with the latest tragedy claiming the lives of four innocent souls in New York City, including a Jewish communal leader.
- The unspeakable horrors of October 7 live on, not only in the hearts of Israelis, but also in Jewish communities around the world, even as nearly two years have passed. The war and hostage crisis have caused profound and ongoing trauma. Meanwhile, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza has only deepened, with starvation and displacement impacting countless lives. Large swaths of the Israeli people continue to protest the actions of their own government.
We grieve for what’s been done to us, and we grieve for what’s been done in our name. And while these global traumas unfold before our eyes, we each also have our own lives to lead, showing up as best we can for ourselves, our families, our friends, our communities, with all the painful challenges and exquisite beauty that only we see and feel and experience, more visceral for us yet invisible to the public eye.
The Talmud teaches us that every generation in which the Temple is not rebuilt is as if it were destroyed again in that generation. This Tisha B’Av, is there anything left standing? Is there anywhere that destruction has not yet reached?
How do we hold all of this? How do we find the spiritual, emotional, physical, individual, and communal strength and resilience to face this loss and destruction, and all the ways in which we are both complicit and responsible for finding a way forward?
One of Adamah’s core values is Joy, Love, and Hope: creating joyous experiences filled with love that give people hope for the future. We live out this value in many ways, needed now more than ever.
- Practicing blessings of gratitude with our campers at tasting new foods, learning new skills, making new friends, and building an inclusive community.
- Celebrating nature at Family Farm Camp, enjoying the fruits of the earth and the support of community grounded in shared values and love for our children.
- Teens building an eruv (Shabbat boundary) while backpacking with us on the Appalachian Trail.
- Growing climate action, as renewable energy, food waste reduction, energy efficiency, and community gardens, is showing up in more Jewish spaces of all kinds all over the world. Steadily, our people are stepping up to create a future where our descendants can play safely under clear skies, breathe fresh air, and grow up with genuine hope for their future.
- In Israel too, amidst profound grief and uncertainty, we see incredible resilience and inspiration, especially from changemakers in the environmental peacebuilding community, who continue to cultivate hope, cooperation, and renewal across divides.
This work is essential now more than ever, grounding ourselves in love even and especially when the world around us feels bleak. Because while there is undeniable pain in our world today, we have learned that even horrific loss can lead to rebirth and renewal.
We have an obligation on this day to face the brokenness, around us and inside of us. Lean in. Do not look away.
Denial helps no one and moves nothing forward but neither does despair, because we also have an obligation to find our way back to healing and hope. So I invite you to download this text study pulling from Eicha, the book of Lamentations, which is traditionally read on this day.
We are taught that the messianic era will occur when unconditional love and acts of chesed (loving-kindness) replace the toxic stew of baseless hatred that plagues our people and our planet. We are obligated to stir our own hearts into love and strength and join together with friends and allies in building the world as it should be, out of the ashes of destruction, planting and nurturing seeds of hope for a brighter future.
The heartbreaking depth and spiritual stakes of this day, especially this year, call upon us to fast and focus our hearts and souls on both the loss and healing we so desperately need. Our love for the land and people of Israel, and our yearning for their safety and wholeness, remain unwavering, even as we hold space for painful truths and multiple narratives. So may our fasts, our prayers, and our actions this Tisha B’Av and beyond, bring us closer to a more just, peaceful, and sustainable future full of life on Earth. And may we rebuild this world in love.
May this Shabbat offer grounding and peace as we prepare for the solemn day ahead.
Jakir Manela