With the advent of Tisha B’Av we will say many Kinnot. Kinnot are Hebrew dirges, sad poems, or elegies both in the Bible and also to later poems. For years of saying these Kinnot which are traditionally recited by Jews on Tisha B’Av seemed like a distant memory of our collective experience of antisemitism. Even reading ones written after the Holocaust seemed artificial compared to the ancient ones or even those of the middle ages. Sadly our experiences this last year have crashed us back into Jewish history. Soon after the horrible events of October 7th Yagel Haroush wrote a contemporary kinah in response. Here is a haunting video of it:

In the penultimate verse he sings:

O how long I wonder
Creator on high
How long will the people
Be in terror?
How long
Will the earth be humiliated?
Now arise
To light my lamp
And with your spring of mercy
Heal my despair
And my eyes brimming with water
Will fill Be’eri- my well

Here Haroush situates the horrors of that day in the context of Jewish memory. How long will we all live in terror? This is song is as a Kinnah of old. We seek the light and spring of mercy, but it is no where to be found. Our eyes cry as if to fill the well of Be’eri. We are in despair. When will this war end? When will we get our hostages back? How long will the world allow the Israeli and Palestinian people to be used as pawns in other people’s conflicts? The earth has been humiliated.

Painfully, Tisha B’Av and its Kinnot are more relevant then ever. We are back in the mix of Jewish memory and our only response is to cry from the depths of our brokenness. But we must do more.

Hamas is evil and we need to fight this terror to return our hostages. But we never should have allowed ourselves to think for one moment that we could could squeeze the Palestinian people as means to get them released. Hamas is a death cult. We have failed when we allowed Israel to be seen as the people cutting them off from food. I understand the logic of doing it, but was the wrong plan. Hamas in its sickness will only benefit from the death of their own people. Instead of the noble liberator, we are seen as the aggressor. This action will only hurt Israel. These poor people are also being held as hostages. Sadly Bibi has handed Sinwar a posthumous victory. We need to free all of the hostages Israeli and Palestinian alike from Hamas. This moral clarity is the only way that we will heal our despair.

Have a meaningful fast.

For more resources for Tish B’Av see here:

• Resources for Tisha B’Av- FJC
• Kinah for Be’eri
• Lamentations-Kinot After Oct 7 for 9 B’Av Hebrew and English
• Source Sheet on Tisha B’Av after October 7th
• Reframing Tisha B’Av from the perspective of the 17th of Tammuz
• The Kind of Story We Need Right Now: Love Without Cause