Today is the first day of the Jewish month of Tammuz, also considered Rosh Chodesh, the beginning of the month. This month is typically known as a season for sorrow, corresponding to the dry months of summer that provided scant hope for our agrarian ancestors. The sages later designated the month as one of mourning, commemorating the destruction of Jerusalem’s city walls by the Romans in 69 C.E. through a fast observed on the 17th day of the month. The observance opens a three-week period of mourning and culminates in a fast observed on the Ninth of Av, which commemorates the destruction of the Holy Temple. Mourning is a necessary component of Jewish life. It enables us to remember those who traveled alongside us and sustained us. It enables us to acknowledge and hold dear the losses we’ve suffered, both as individuals and as a people. And it enables us to [...]

Today is the 30th day of the Jewish month of Sivan, considered Rosh Chodesh Tammuz, the beginning of the month of Tammuz. Ironically, the month shares its name with a Sumerian agricultural god, Dumuzi. According to one Sumerian legend, Dumuzi’s wife, the goddess Ishtar, searches the underworld for Dumuzi after his ignoble death, only to return to the earth and discover that he was not mourning for her. She then banishes him to the underworld for six months out of each year—the summer season when rain ceases and green plants die in the ancient Near East. The Hebrew Bible is familiar with worship of Tammuz and mentions the god in the Book of Ezekiel. When God speaks to Ezekiel of the crimes of the Israelites, God brings the prophet to a house of God in the northern kingdom, where the prophet discovers “women sitting, weeping over the Tammuz,” (Ezekiel 8:14). [...]

Today will be a Ukrainian Constitution Day unlike any other in the nation’s young history. On this day in 1995, after two years of work by the Constitutional Commission established by then-recently elected President Leonid Kuchma, the nation of Ukraine officially adopted its first post-Soviet constitution. June 28 immediately became an annual holiday, celebrated with parades and the public performance of Ukraine’s national anthem, “Shche ne vmerla Ukraina,” which means, “Ukraine has not yet perished.” Today, on the 126th day since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an invasion to reclaim the former Soviet republic, it could hardly be more resonant. Though far more militaristic than most Jewish or Zionist poetry, the anthem—adapted from an 1862 poem by Pavlo Chubynsky—contains echoes of the Israeli national anthem, “HaTikvah.” Both hearken to an expression of national hope and pride experienced during a period of occupation and oppression. Perhaps, however, the closest comparison is [...]

June 27 marks the observance of National Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Day, established in 2010 to pay tribute to U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Joel Biel of the North Dakota National Guard, who died by suicide in April of 2007, immediately following his second tour of duty in Iraq. Had he remained alive, today would have been Biel’s birthday. Though often associated with military service because of the severe trauma associated with conflict, PTSD may be caused by anything the mind processes as trauma, including the horrors of conflict, domestic violence, child abuse, sexual assault, natural disasters, automotive accidents, and more. Estimates suggest that more than 8 million Americans suffer from PTSD, with the vast majority suffering in silence. In our highly individualized society, which emphasizes personal responsibility and the dignity of privacy, it can be difficult to find safe, inviting arenas to tell our horrifying stories, let alone find [...]