Click below to watch Rabbi Miriam's thoughts at the end of Tisha b'Av.
Are you reading this at the end of Tisha b'Av?
Get up! And I don't just mean off the sofa and to the fridge. I mean that we need to get up from the low place of immersing, wallowing in our sad moments, wrapped up in an awful 10 months. Yes, that's what Tisha b'Av is there for. But the rest of the year, we can't be "Tisha b'Av Jews," defined by all the bad that has happened to us. We need to be Shabbat Jews, Rosh Hashana Jews, joy of regular mitzvot Jews. Yiddish-loving, Midrash-loving, hey, even salmon bagel loving, positively defined Jews.
This year, after a particularly sad Tisha b'Av, this feels more important than ever.
The word for "get up" is "kum" and this is said at the end of Shiva. Shiva at which we also don't wear leather shoes, don't greet people or take care of our bodies. Now it's our time to get up.
Take a look at this amazing article on a similar theme, written by freed hostage Liat Atzili. She talks of "tekuma" rebirth, which, perfectly, comes from the same root as "kum". https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/01/opinion/gaza-war-holocaust-shoah.html
May we not know sad Tisha b'Avs like this again, and may we mirror-image the sadness with all the affirmative ways of being Jewish we have.
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