I
t is the morning after Tishah B’Av. The fasting is done the kinnos dirges are closed the book of Eichah/ Lamentations is back on the shelf the low stools are stored away meat is back on the menu the radio’s good music station beckons.
Nevertheless I feel a certain unease about returning to life without any mourning restrictions. How am I supposed to switch moods from yesterday’s gloom and doom to a new bright day of joy and simchah? On 9 Av we mourned the destruction and burning of the Beis Hamikdash and all that it represented in terms of G-d’s presence on earth and we wept over the brutal murder and torture of Jews who were taken into captivity by a ruthless enemy. For our forebears the tragedy did not end with the Ninth of Av. It continued into the 10th of Av and the 11th and the 12th and into the many centuries beyond. How is it possible to be in deep mourning on a Sunday and then on Monday to smile again as if nothing happened?
Truth to tell not everyone would relate to my discomfort. A certain Orthodox organization in a new chapter of Vulgariana Americana runs a fundraiser just after Nine Av with all-you-can-eat steak beef with all the trimmings plus alcoholic beverages — all proceeds going to charity. (Yeshayahu 1:12 comes to mind. I would rather not cite it. Look it up.)
So I am a bit ill at ease this morning as I flip on the good music station hoping that the music will be gloomy Mahler and not flippant Offenbach. Nor am I content about bathing luxuriously which as communal mourners we avoided during the previous nine days. And I am a bit uncomfortable about wearing a freshly laundered and crisply ironed shirt that was just recently off-limits. Certainly halachah permits these things now but part of me keeps thinking about those days that followed the Ninth of Av.
