הֲשִׁיבֵ֨נוּ יְהֹוָ֤ה ׀ אֵלֶ֙יךָ֙ (ונשוב) [וְֽנָשׁ֔וּבָה] חַדֵּ֥שׁ יָמֵ֖ינוּ כְּקֶֽדֶם׃
Return us, God, to You, and let us come back. Renew our days of old
(Lamentations 5:21).
Hashiveinu, Adonai, v’nashuva–these words that are so familiar to us during the month of Selichot and through the High Holy Days actually come from our Book of Lamentations, which we read today on Tisha B’Av. We cry out to God in one voice, asking to return–both physically and spiritually–to God, to our Holy Land. We are forlorn, but we are not bitter. We grieve, but we are hopeful. We yearn for the past, for the good days of old, and we trust that God is still with us every moment both now and going forward.
So many of us have enjoyed meaningful prayer experiences at the Western Wall; the beautiful portion of the retaining wall from the ancient Jerusalem Temples. To see it standing fills my heart with great blessing and hope. And still, none of us ever had the privilege of walking through those Temples, and they may feel like a distant mystical memory. And so, we make space on Tisha B’Av for all of our mourning, all of our shared grief. Below is a beautiful prayer for today by my colleague, Cantor Sarah Beck-Berman. Cantor Sarah opens up a pathway to explore all of the feelings we might experience on this symbolic day.
A Tisha b’Av Prayer
By Cantor Sarah Beck-Berman
Grief, loss, devastation, distress,
Shock, numbness, denial, apathy,
Disorganization, confusion, searching, yearning.
Anxiety, panic, fear, resentment, jealousy,
Anger, hate, blame, terror, rage,
Sadness, depression, guilt, regret, isolation.
All these feelings and more, we will experience in our lives.
We often find ways to distract ourselves from the full depth of our emotions.
But today, we open the floodgates and sit with those feelings we would rather avoid.
We can make space enough inside us to hold all these different emotions.
When we open up to grief and sit in darkness, we learn to be better human beings and
light the way for others.
Help us open not just to private grief, but to communal grief for our people and for
suffering in the world.
May we learn this Tisha b’Av that finding rock bottom can become a foundation for strength and growth. Amen.
— Cantor Emma Lutz