Longing
| August 10, 2016
Photo: Shutterstock
The baby is always extra whiny on Tishah B’Av isn’t he? And oh the weather. It’s a scorcher year after year. I sit at the park and push my baby on the swing and feel guilty. It’s Tishah B’Av I tell myself hellooo.
I don’t like to think I’m a shallow person. Does my whole world really have to crumble because I’m hungry? And this can’t even be called hunger! It’s just a poor relative the merest faintest pangs. Ask the survivors for the real definition of starvation. And besides isn’t Tishah B’Av more than just the fasting? Isn’t it really about the severance of a connection so intense and beautiful we cannot even fathom it?
My baby cries again. Sighing I lift him out of the swing sit him in his carriage and stick a corn pop into his palm. It is so insufferably hot.
I know the truth. I know galus is real and devastating and it throttles every one of us in its all-encompassing many-pronged grip. I know but… can I deny that little yawn of relief that whispers through me as I sit down to my coffee and slice of babke when the fast finally ends? How I savor the chocolate oozing through the crumbly dough think longingly of hot cleansing fresh water… tomorrow’s shower. And laundry finally. Fresh laundry sweet smelling and warm from the dryer. And — thank You Hashem — music. Music!
I hate feeling this gentle release of tension; I know it’s wrong. The Three Weeks are over but the Beis Hamikdash still burns. Yet it’s there surely; the quiet peace redolent with sweet opportunities of light and happy summer days unencumbered by the shadow of mourning.
It’s not that I think galus is not miserable. When people talk of us Jews becoming too comfortable in our various places around the globe I don’t really agree. Sure some of us are blessed enough to live in pretty houses in free countries. But who doesn’t have something twisting inside be it with worry or fear or loneliness or grief? Who doesn’t know of an orphaned child a bereaved mother a lonely old man?
Of course our exile is tragic. But it’s still rather… uncomfortable to have to put away my iPod and refrain from buying new things and watch the laundry mountain grow and — oh goodness — to fast. What drags me down the most is having to create a spirit of sadness to tone down summer’s natural delight and cloak the glory in mourning shrouds.
Photo: Shutterstock
From across the park I see a double carriage at the entrance with a slender olive-skinned woman behind. Mrs. Schwartz. A frisson of guilt slithers down to my toes. No doubt Mrs. Schwartz doesn’t have to coax the sadness out of her heart. Having lost her son this year r”l I’m pretty sure she can touch the grief feel every last bleeding fiber of Tisha B’Av in her soul.
Is that what you’re waiting for? For Hashem to send you a reminder of our bitter galus G-d forbid? Can’t you summon up some feeling before it comes to that?
The trusty nag inside me sniffs righteously. I sigh.
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