Temple Newsletter for July 28th

From destruction to reconstruction.

From hate to love. 

Without a doubt, we have all gone through some difficult moments in life. If I ask you, what has encouraged you to get ahead, what would your answer be?

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Dr. Viktor Frankl (Austrian psychiatrist and psychotherapist who developed the psychological approach known as logotherapy) asked himself the same question in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. He discovered something simple but very powerful: those people who best overcame adversity and survived atrocities were those who still had the hope of reuniting with a loved one when they were released, or those who wanted to fulfill some mission or dream in particular. That love, that longing, was what kept them alive and gave meaning to their lives in the midst of so much inhumanity.

We live very intense days in this month of the Jewish calendar, Av, but even more so, this week in particular. In Israel, citizens rose up warning that democracy is in danger. At the same time, Jews around the world have fasted yesterday, on Tisha B’Av, in memory of the destruction of both Jerusalem temples and many other tragedies.

And, “coincidentally,” next week we will celebrate Tu B’Av – the day of love. It is worth clarifying that this holiday does not refer to conjugal love. But to love as a human value, the love of life, the love for those around us, the characteristic love of mankind as a social relational being. In Tu B’Av we will celebrate human love with all its forms and various colors.

How is this possible? In the same month we went from the most tragic day in our historical memory to the most cloying day? It’s funny at a certain point, but that’s how it is! We Jews have a lot of this: Yom Hazikaron and Yom Haatzmahut, the bitter and the sweet, the sting and the honey. The rupture of the cup in the Chuppot reminds us of the same idea.

Perhaps life has all these flavors, so different and so mixed at the same time in our throats.

The work of Dr. Frankl and the month of Av leave us a wonderful teaching. The only thing that builds after destruction is love. It wouldn’t make much sense to wallow in pain as an end in itself. It is rather about reflecting on our mistakes and miseries, to make from carbon the most beautiful and perfect diamond.

Today is Shabbat Nachamu (“Sabbath of comfort/ing”). It is the first of seven Shabbatot of consolation leading up to Rosh Hashanah. So the Jewish recipe for consolation after a big pain, is this: Where there is division, you put love. Where there are comments that do not add up, you put love. When you hear gossip, you put love. When pain clouds your sight, you put love.

The sages say that the Mashiach will be born in a Tisha B’Av. Nobody can know if it’s true, I don’t put too much importance on it either, personally. But I do believe deeply that after days of much pain, life always reopens its petals showing us all its beauty. Hope is calling us.

It’s about having the courage to give ourselves a second chance. The month of Av encourages us to move forward with our heads held high. 

You keep walking, because love is waiting for you.

Shabbat Shalom

Cantor Ines