This year, the 17th of Tammuz will be observed on Sunday, July 17. According to the tradition, this is the day that the walls of Jerusalem were breached, ushering in the Three Weeks of Affliction and leading up to Tisha B’Av. In preparation for this time, this week’s Kavanot are reflections on hope, anxiety, and the challenges and opportunities of these summer days.
In June of 2020, in the deep anxiety of the early days of the COVID shutdown and in the midst of massive protest sparked by the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Rabbi Elizabeth Bonney-Cohen taught on heat. She wrote:
Tammuz is also the brightest month of the year. It comes as the first new moon after the summer solstice, and its long summer days also invite the warmest temperatures of the year.
Certainly, we could note that—according to scientists and scientific evidence—summer in America is getting longer, hotter, and more dangerous. We could note that the excitement of breaking a weather record, perhaps a bit of fun in my youth, is becoming a mundane yet terrifying reality as our planet warms by degrees. We could note all of that—and it would be true—but as we begin this week, I want to note this, as written by Rabbi Bonney-Cohen:
Heat also carries a generative power. Heat enables us to cook our food and boil water to make it safe for drinking. It allows us to fuse metal together and bend that which seems stubborn and rigid. Driving through rural Kansas as a kid, I would often see fields set ablaze as an agricultural practice for rejuvenating the land, and on trips to the Rocky Mountains I learned about small forest fires that the Park Rangers would intentionally set to clear dead trees and invite new growth—even the destructive heat of fire can serve a productive purpose.
A few weeks ago, as I raged and mourned and wondered what to say and teach about the Dobbs decision, my friend and colleague Rabbi Megan Doherty shared this idea with me. And while I went in a different direction with my teaching then, I offer it to you now for your Monday morning. She said to me:
We know that fire is necessary but dangerous when uncontrolled, and still Judaism uses fire for sacred purposes (entering and ending Shabbat and festivals) and blesses it. Can we bless this fiery rage and put it to sacred purpose?
So, that is my blessing to you as we begin perhaps a mundane week in July. Whatever fire you are feeling—whether of fear or of hope or of joy or of rage or of anxiety or of inspiration—can you bless it and put it to sacred purposes?
—Rabbi Sari Laufer