The Gathering | Communal rituals for mourning - Avodah

The Gathering | Communal rituals for mourning

Published Aug 1, 2022
Roi Dimor; Unsplash
It can be hard to figure out how to relate to Tisha B’Av, the upcoming fast day that marks various key moments of destruction in Jewish history. We can dig into the customs of mourning, marking the losses and pain that come from the persecutions we’re recounting. We can dismiss it, feeling like it’s misplaced energy to lament long-ago events rather than turn that grief towards the many current losses happening all around us. But over the past handful of years, there have been more offerings that have transcend those binaries, finding ways to both honor the pain and connect it to an understanding of solidarity that places the specific tragedies of our ancestors within a broader context.
 
I felt that transcendence when I heard rabbinical student Dr. Koach Baruch Frazier speak about the essentialness of lament in building our movements; when I read Claudia Rankine’s haunting essay “The Condition of Black Life is One of Mourning” in a Tisha B’Av study session; when I’ve sat on the warm asphalt of Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza in recent summers at Tisha B’Av rituals led by Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (in particular Yehudah Webster’s 40 Days of Teshuvah ritual) or IfNotNow, evenings that brought the traditional liturgy into conversation with current tragedies. Our rituals are not meant to point us backwards or weigh us down; at their best, they enable us to build the strength we need to go on, to reflect and repent so that we can move ahead with greater wisdom. When we use a fast day like Tisha B’Av not to turn inward but rather to connect across oppressions and shared humanity, then we are infusing our rituals with the power to lead us forward in justice. It doesn’t have to be about dwelling on a feeling of victimhood that I don’t believe ultimately sustains the joyful, passionate, compassionate, responsive Judaism I feel so proud of. Rather, it is possible to honor painful history and the people who experienced it in a way that binds us that much more tightly and invests us that much more deeply in the work being done right now to build a more just world for everyone.
 
— Sarra Alpert, Director of The Avodah Institute for Social Change

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