Tisha B’Av — A Potent Meditation
Av is the month that includes the most fateful day in the Jewish calendar, Tisha B’Av, which is distinguished by its extremely fallen state and yet its extremely great potential.
Av is the month that includes the most fateful day in the Jewish calendar, Tisha B’Av, which is distinguished by its extremely fallen state and yet its extremely great potential.
Achdut, A Tisha B’av Video by Sarah Yehudit Schneider, 2024 An inspiring and practical teaching on Tisha B’Av 2024 by Sarah Yehudit Schneider
Explores the metaphoric question of, “Does God cry?”
Tisha B’Av Teachings Through the Years Tisha B’Av teachings over the years (2007-present).
Explores the metaphoric question of, “Does God cry?”
Shame is the first emotion mentioned in the Torah, the Talmud extols its dark influence, and Maharal calls it the most powerful motivating force in the psyche.
When Tisha B’Av—the day for mourning the woes of our nation—falls on Shabbos—our day of spiritual delight when it is generally forbidden to mourn.
On Tisha B’Av we mourn the loss of our House of Holy Presence (aka Bet HaMikdash). But what is it, really, that we are missing?
Shame and Sinat Chinam: Tisha B’Av 2021 This is a video of Sarah Yehudit’s teaching on Tisha B’Av evening after Chana Yaffe’s beautiful Eicha reading. Below that is an audio file (no video) of the talk. Audio recording of Sarah Yehudit’s Tisha B’Av Teaching https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/SSV_Downloads/Tisha.b.av_2021_SY.mp3
Video and Audio for teaching and discussion.
The chink that precipitated our Tisha B’Av fiasco was a defect in our ability to distinguish truth from falsehood; a flaw in our listening skills.
Baseless Hatred is what caused our exile, and yet for two thousand years we haven’t managed to fix it. Why?
Tisha B’av 2017.
Enemies are the primary obstacle to quality of life. If they would just disappear, we could finally focus on our soul work instead of getting sidetracked by the need for self-defense. But it’s not so simple.
During the three weeks our obligation is to decrease simcha. We focus on what is missing, bewail those lacks, and downgrade our devekut. That is what it means to mourn.
TISHA B’AV 5772 / 2012 By searching out the sliver of truth in contrary perspectives we acquire daat (the joiner of polarities) and build the Temple in our day.
How do we hope for mashiach with certain faith that he REALLY could materialize at any moment and yet also find a way to embrace our present moment with unconditional acceptance.
If it is true that causeless hatred prompted the Temple’s demise and only its opposite can save us…then we have got to find another way to disagree among ourselves.
In the month of Av, says Sefer Yetzira, the sense of listening is up for tikun. Our test is to not get hypnotized by voices that claim authority but do not embody Torat Emet.
The spies understood that crossing into the holy land would initiate a new era—now they were princes, but across the border, in the new world, they’d become obsolete.