ALAS, THE GOLD IS DIMMED

Alas! - she sits in solitude! The city that was great with people has become like a widow...she weeps bitterly in the night and her tear is on her cheek. (Lamentations, 1:1-2)

Today is Tisha b’Av, which will mean absolutely Jack-Shit to 99.9% of you, my Esteemed Readers.

It’s the saddest, most mournful day in the Jewish calendar. Most people, including the large percentage of Jews who are nonobservant, are not especially familiar with it. The ones who are tend to use it in the general context of procrastination: “I’ll take care of it before Tisha b’Av.” Since so few people know when the hell that is, you’re safe!

The day commemorates a whole series of disastrous events in Jewish history, including the destruction of - not one, but two!- Temples in Jerusalem hundreds of years apart, along with the subsequent sacking of the city and the exile of its Jewish population. Traditionally, it’s also a day to mourn the horrific impact of the Crusades, which devastated Jewish communities in Europe back in the eleventh and twelfth centuries C.E., as well as the 1492 expulsion of the Jews from Spain under Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand and the seventeenth-century depredations of the Cossacks under Bogdan (hoick-patooie!) Chmielnicki.

Traditionally, as the day begins (at sundown - oh, those crazy Jews!), the regular evening service is concluded with a reading of the Book of Lamentations, with everyone sitting on the floor in a semi-darkened room, in the manner of mourners. The reading is done using a beautifully elegiac melody, a touch that adds to the grim beauty of the proceedings.

Morning services are not too different from the usual weekday morning routine, except that the tallit (prayer shawl with tassels) and tefillin (leather boxes containing Scriptural excerpts) are not worn per the usual practice. A portion of Deuteronomy is read from the Torah scroll, followed by a complementary Prophetical reading (Haftarah) from the book of Jeremiah (verses 8:13 through 9:23). Most of that latter reading is chanted with the same mournful trope used for the reading of Lamentations, except for the last two lines which are read with the “regular” melody, the one used year-round. This reflects the idea that we prefer even the sternest admonitions (something old Jerry was especially good at) end on a brighter note - so the last line or two of our readings is structured to be a little more optimistic.

Oh, and did I mention that it’s a fast day? No food and water - for the serious-minded among us, anyway. Also no sex...and no leather footwear. That means SWMBO and I will need to put the leather fetish equipment and chocolate body paint aside until at least sundown tonight.

Damn.