A proposal for a new Tisha B’Av where we feast instead of fast – The Forward

Is Tisha B’Av really a time of mourning? Or is it time to acknowledge a more complicated emotional reality? Image by Forward Graphics

Tisha B’Av is not a holiday I grew up with, and not one that makes much sense to me. I have mixed feelings about mourning the destruction of the First and Second Temples in ancient Jerusalem, but have no interest in praying for the building of a Third Temple. I am a proud Diaspora Jew, and I believe that the things I find sacred and beautiful in Judaism come from the experience of exile.

But I also love Tisha B’Av. I love that there is a day set aside for acknowledging disaster and grief. It feels like it offers a kind of spiritual comfort that I struggle to find elsewhere in Judaism.

Over the past few years of practicing both Zen Buddhism and Judaism, a new approach to Tisha B’Av has emerged for me. My proposal is to re-celebrate the traditional Tisha B’Av – the day of mourning for the destruction of the Temples – as a new Tisha B’Av, celebrating the day on which the Jews in the Diaspora decided to stop mourning the destruction of the Temples.

The new Tisha B’Av can be a day to practice letting go. To take stock of all the things we have lost and decide if they are things we still want to mourn. From small things to big things – lost relationships, missed opportunities, old versions of ourselves. But sometimes we also feel like we’ve been holding on to things since before we were born. Things that we feel like we’ve been holding on to for thousands of years.

For Jews, this feeling on Tisha B’Av is literal. But my experience in Buddhist spaces tells me it is a universal experience. So many of us feel as though we came into this world already entangled and interdependent, yearning for things we don’t even remember, for bonds from past lives.

The new Tisha B’Av can be a day when we are grateful for the gifts of exile. Most of all, we are grateful that we have discovered that God is just as easy to find in Babylon, Poland and Brooklyn as in Israel. Just as easy in our homes and in nature as in our houses of worship. We are grateful for the experience of wandering, which has shown us the humanity we share with all lost and oppressed people.

The new Tisha B’Av can be a holiday for humanist Jews. This also means that the new Tisha B’Av can be a holiday for left-wing and anti-Zionist Jews. Jews who are grateful that the destruction of the Temples also destroyed Judaism as a state religion. Jews who do not want their spirituality to be mediated by state institutions and who want a religion that insists on certain moral truths despite the state.

The new Tisha B’Av can be a holiday for Jews who are glad that the old forms of religious authority are gone. Jews who want to be their own source of spiritual authority. Jews who want to establish a direct connection with God. For me, this means striking a balance between the impulse to place our lives in the care of higher powers and the impulse to take responsibility for ourselves. On Tisha B’Av it is said that God does not answer the prayers of the Jews. The Messiah is also supposed to be born on this day.

The new Tisha B’Av, like the original, can still be a time to reflect on the Messiah. To ask ourselves if we really believe that this world will be saved. Personally, I don’t. And I don’t like the feeling that I’m waiting for some kind of help that will never come.

So the new Tisha B’Av can be a day on which we reflect on what it means to save ourselves. Are we still lost after all these millennia? And if so, can we find our way in our own bodies? Can we end the exile in our own lives? (The new Tisha B’Av may be a holiday for Buddhist Jews.)

I think Jews like me can no longer feel lost in Jewish tradition. We need to become familiar with the parts of the tradition that don’t appeal to us so that we can confidently say, “No, I can’t accept that.” So the new Tisha B’Av can be a day when we gain Jewish knowledge. When we read the Book of Lamentations as tradition prescribes. And when we recognize that it was a very long and painful exile.

We don’t have to regret the time we spent grieving the things we’ve lost. We don’t have to decide that we hate the parts of our Jewish communities or our Jewish selves that feel lost or feel loss and want back the things that were destroyed. But we can simultaneously practice letting go of those things and finding ourselves where we are. When God speaks to you, say, “Hineinihere I am.” You can’t find God anywhere but where you are. Right now I’m in Brooklyn.

This new Tisha B’Av should be a holiday, not a fast day. People joke that the formula for Jewish holidays is, “They tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat.” But for Pesach, Purim and Chanukah, the story is actually, “They tried to kill us, we killed them, let’s eat.”

The destruction of the Temples was different. The Jews never took revenge on the Babylonians and Romans, but we survived. So Tisha B’Av would be a holiday that is not marked by revenge. It should probably be a vegetarian holiday. We don’t want to reintroduce animal sacrifices.