Finding Grief

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Ihave vague memories of how Tishah B’Av was observed in the small Southern town where I grew up. At night we read from a very depressing book called Eichah. I tried to follow along in English because I didn’t understand the Hebrew words. But reading the English translation was just too scary and depressing.

I didn’t have enough of a Jewish education to appreciate theTemplewe were supposed to be mourning. I hadn’t even heard of the Three Weeks. All I knew was that there was one specific day of the year when we had an “obligation” to be sad but fasting was “optional.” The rabbi his wife and a few members in our congregation fasted not only just at night but the entire 25 hours. I learned about these “really observant” ultra-Orthodox in the Sunday school I attended. That fascinated me… imagine fasting for a whole day like Yom Kippur!

I got the feeling that many people in our congregation like me did not truly understand what was going on. The one person who seemed a bit upset (besides our rabbi and rebbetzin) was a middle-aged man who had lost his entire family in the Holocaust. We knew that he’d had a good Jewish education inEurope so I assumed he realized why we were all gathering together and trying to be unhappy. Most of the congregants just sat on the regular shul chairs but he was one of the few who sat on a small shivah chair from our local funeral home.

My next most vivid memory of Tishah B’Av was over a decade later. Over the years I’d gradually become more observant through NCSY youth activities and having attendedTouroCollegeand Neve Yerushalayim seminary. I got my first job inWashingtonD.C.and became a part of the thriving Jewish community inSilver SpringMaryland.