by Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback
This time of the Jewish year always makes me think of a verse from Psalm 30 that’s about hope, grit, and resilience:
“You turned my mourning into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and girded me with joy!”
“הָפַ֣כְתָּ מִסְפְּדִי֮ לְמָח֪וֹל לִ֥י פִּתַּ֥חְתָּ שַׂקִּ֑י וַֽתְּאַזְּרֵ֥נִי שִׂמְחָֽה׃”
Almost two weeks ago, we commemorated Tisha B’av, the saddest day in the Jewish Year. We recalled moments of destruction and despair. And then, earlier this week, we celebrated Tu B’av, a day where we focus on the power of love to bring meaning, healing, and hope to our lives. The Talmud tells us that in ancient times, on Tu B’av, the 15th day of this Hebrew month, “the daughters of Israel would go out dressed in white and dance in the vineyards” and matches would be made and families would be created.
Within a period of one week, we go, literally, from mourning to dancing.
We all deal with loss. We all, eventually, will mourn. It’s the price of love, the price of friendship. Here’s what helps make it a bit more bearable: we remind ourselves that our ancestors, members of our family, have stood where we are standing. They have wept. They have fallen to the ground in anguish. But, eventually, in time, they found the strength to stand up again. To smile again, even to dance again. Eventually, in time, they removed their sackcloth and found the way back to joy.
Mourning is inevitable. Sadness is part of the human existence. But it is not where we are meant to dwell all the days of our lives. Through the support of our friends, our community, and our clergy; through the rituals of our tradition; through the passage of time, our mourning turns to dancing, our sadness to celebration.