Dear Temple Emanu-El community,
Tomorrow night is Tisha b’Av, the lowest point on the Jewish calendar. It concludes three weeks of collective mourning for the catastrophes that have befallen our people from time immemorial. Then, in that magical way that our liturgical calendar has, we end this period of communal grieving and enter the seven weeks of prophetic consolation that lead up to Rosh HaShanah. On each of the seven weeks, we read a special haftarah with a message of comfort and reassurance from the book of Isaiah. This Shabbat is the first of the seven and is referred to as Shabbat Nachamu, or Shabbat of comfort.
This year, we don’t need to summon up images of the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem in order to feel communal grief. We have experienced so many losses ...
