Jonathan Salzedo will lead a service centered around the reading of the Lamentations attributed to Jeremiah. There will be chanting, reading, and discussion of contemporary commentaries surrounding this difficult and beautiful text. It’s a chance to share community, bring up your own ideas about the best and the worst, hear the ideas of others, and perhaps even leave with new thoughts.

Jonathan Salzedo writes…

What’s happening for Jonathan? Ten weeks before Rosh Hashanah, the calendar reminds me that I am unprepared, that I am busy and don’t have time to prepare, and that in any case conventional ways of preparing don’t resonate with me. But ten is an important number, and those ten weeks constitute a cycle that has a big dip followed by a big crescendo. And cycles and symmetries are things that appeal to me and somehow do make sense.

How does it work? For the first three weeks, the Haftarot we read on Shabbat consist of Jeremiah and Isaiah warning that destructive behavior leads to destruction. The low point happens right after these with the reading of the Lamentations of Jeremiah on Tisha B’Av. It’s a troubling text that describes a low point in Jewish history when the First Temple was destroyed and we went into exile in Babylonia.

Then what? We’re not good at staying down for too long. Six days later we have a party and for the next seven weeks we read more encouraging Haftarot that guide us towards Rosh Hashanah. That is the other part of the cycle.

And Tisha b’Av itself? Lamentations is troubling, but it’s also a beautiful text. We’ll chant some of it, read and discuss it, and will include recent writings that reflect it in today’s context. It’s a chance to share community, bring up your own ideas about the best and the worst, hear the ideas of others, and perhaps even leave with new thoughts.

A little background. Tisha b’Av is the date when the first temple was destroyed, the second temple too, and coincidentally or deliberately many other events that were terrible for Jews, including the announcements of the first crusade in 1090, expulsion of Jews from England in 1290, from Spain in 1492, from the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942, the bombing of AMIA in Buenos Aires in 1994, and many more. All of this makes it a focal point for introspection and reflection.

Does one need to prepare for this? No, just come and take it in and engage in discussion to the extent that you wish to.