It’s the first day of Av. I’m seeing a lot of Facebook status messages and Twitter tweets griping about the Nine Days.*

I’m thinking (…can’t stop thinking…) about the bereaved young family not far from here who lost their 3-year old darling daughter in a sudden, tragic accident. Thinking about their loss, their pain. How the preschool-teacher mommy will be able to bear teaching her students again. How the babysitter will face herself, her friends, her future children… and on and on….

No meat. No music. No luxuriating in the shower. No swimming. No fun… Why not? “To remember the destruction of the House of G-d.” What does that mean? Why do we mourn now, today, this year?

Others have taught about learning the lesson from the past to the present; to repair the sins rampant then and now. “If the Temple is not rebuilt in our time, it is as if we destroyed it.”

Others have taught that the Destruction goes on until Redemption. We live in a world where humanity, the Jewish Nation, and the Expression of G-d’s Presence are in constant suffering. “One who mourns the destruction of Jerusalem shall merit to witness its rebuilding.”

I’m thinking… I’m thinking… I’m thinking about “nosei be’ol im chaveiro”. Shouldering the burden with your friend. How putting yourself truly into the experience of another person makes you both stronger.

I’m thinking that the Nine Days is also about keeping in touch with the global, historical Nation of Israel. Feeling a part of it, being a part of it. Maybe feeling a part of it IS being a part of it. In good times and in hard times.

“Getting through” the Nine Days misses the point entirely. Will that family whose daughter died be thinking about “getting through” the Nine Days; “getting through” their shiva? They’ll be the week in the deepest form of grief, finding expression in rituals of mourning that the Nine Days only shadows dimly. Will they be griping about the lack of chicken? About sitting on the floor in torn shirts and unpressed trousers? About not listening to music? About not having fun?

And why not? [I don’t mean: “Because the minor inconveniences are overshadowed by the enormity of grief.”] And why not? Because the actions suit the emotional state. They won’t be wanting to take a vacation this week. Or shop for new clothes. Or eat a steak… or much else. They won’t want to listen to a capella singing groups. They won’t want to be drawn out of their grief; they will want to experience and share and touch and reach and be drawn close. They will want to feel held by G-d and know He is carrying them to somewhere good.

Their pain, as almost-impossible as it is for me — a stranger — to bear, is right now. It is only my own pain for as long as I am willing, capable of sharing their burden.

Holocaust survivors know that the world is forgetting their pain. It isn’t gone. But we aren’t always willing to shoulder the emotional burden with them. We want to have fun. We want our meat and music. Despite an individual and human burden of pain that is so vast compared with that of a single family. (”Compared with…” is unfair. There is no “compared with”. What I mean is the vastness of numbers of individual sufferings, each unique and whole.)

The Churban Bayis. The destruction of the Holy Temple. It wasn’t just a demolition, a political or military casualty. It was a whole, long, agonizing war. A siege and famine. A Holocaust, if you will. The nearly complete destruction of the Old Country, the cities, towns, villages, educational system, government. A whole country, a whole people, a whole way of life. A thousand — nay, a million and another million individual sufferings, each unique and whole.

Experiencing the Nine Days is not about “getting through it” until the melave malka on motzaei Shabbos Nachamu. If you feel the pain, you aren’t trying to have fun. You are seeking meaning in the tragedy. You are seeking to experience, to share and touch and reach and be drawn close. To feel held by G-d and to know that He is taking you somewhere good.

You aren’t yet feeling the pain yourself?

It’s about shouldering the burden with your friend. Which friend? Your grandparents. And their grandparents. And theirs. Which friend? G-d, your Father. He does not experience time; it is all fresh, new, raw to His Shechina, ke’v'yachol.

“Kol rodfeha hisiguha bein hametzarim. All who pursue her [the Shechina] shall grab hold of her during the Straightened Times [of Mourning].”

Can you stop thinking about your meat and music long enough to sit down in the house of mourning? To shoulder the burden with your friends? To honor the freshness of pain by taking it into yourself, by acting as one with the body nation of Israel? To become the realization, the actualization, the embodiment of Jew, of Human, of Tzelem Elokim (image of God)?

“G-d is your Guardian, G-d is your Shadow at your right hand.” 

*The “Nine Days” count from the 1st to the 9th day of the Jewish lunar month of Av — this year, beginning Wednesday, July 23. They are part of a three-week process of increasing mourning, culminating in the Fast of the Ninth of Av (Tisha B’Av). During the Nine Days (or the week of Tisha B’Av for Sephardic Jews), the Torah teaches to avoid eating meat; enjoying significant new acquisitions such as clothing, houses, cars; restricting bathing to cleanliness (as opposed to pleasure); and listening to music. A summary of the Laws of the Three Weeks, Nine Days and Tisha B’Av may be found here: Halacha For Today.

Terem is the local Urgent Care Center — a fantastic alternative to the emergency room, founded by the inspiring Dr. David Applebaum, ztz”l.

The Terem branch near our home recently moved to a new building after many, many years in its old home. To help people find the new site, they posted some signs at the major intersections nearby:

Did you spot the same problem I did? The Terem logo is a heart-shaped letter “tet”, ending in an arrow that points to 10:00 (up and to the left). The purpose of the sign, however, is to direct you to make a right turn (see the white-on-red long arrow at the bottom of the sign?).

Visually, there are two conflicting messages. If you’re in a hurry, or overwhelmed, or don’t know the neighborhood, which message will sink in? (Probably the first — which is misleading.) Or will they just fight for your attention as the lines of cars behind you honk in frustration?

User Experience designers talk about mobility meaning independence, individuality, and personal freedom. Or mobility meaning communication, income, and literacy.

What if mobility means you might be blown up by a terrorist? If mobility means vulnerability and insecurity? What happens when you combine a culture that glorifies charity with an environment of mortal vulnerability?

Israel is a country brimming with charitable acts. The phone book has 50 pages of free loan society (”gemach“) listings, offering interest- and payment-free loans of money, cell phones, baby strollers, pacifiers, Sabbath meals, medicines, photocopies, fax machines, tools… you name it.

The 600-pound gorilla of free loan societies is, of course, Yad Sarah, founded by Rabbi Uri Lupoliansky, currently mayor of Jerusalem. But gemachs are a common family activity.

It’s normal for Jewish homes worldwide to have one or more charity boxes, into which small change (usually) is collected over months or years, then picked up by the organization who owns the box. Our home currently has about five of them, including one shaped like a tractor to help support farmers during the sabbatical shemitta year.

A field between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, left fallow for the Sabbatical (Shemitta) year. 

A typically Israeli sight is that of charity boxes in public places — available should a sudden philanthropic urge strike, or you just have some spare change in your hand. Or you get nervous about taking public transportation.

Here’s a common one (affixed to a pole near a bus stop):

Here’s a collection box outside the counter of a downtown bakery (note that the money collected isn’t for the shop owner):

The translated sign reads: Hidden Charity — i.e., the donor and recipient don’t know one another, which is a more sensitive form of charity — for Sabbath charity and kindness to families blessed with many children (may they live long) in honor of the holy Sabbath and the holidays. [The money will be donated to] the charity [in honor of] Rabbi Meir Baal haNes and Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, may their memories protect us. May you be blessed from on high with good fortune, blessing, and success.

Here’s one I saw just down the block from my home, also next to a bus stop, but somehow it has been grown right into the knot of a tree:

Seen in downtown Jerusalem:

You don’t need to hear me rant on again about uncontrolled Google Ads.

Yesterday, I moved the homepage of the Haredi Women Professionals (aka Supermom) Network to a new hosting site that plants automatic Google ads along one side of the page. In the ten minutes between my setting up the page and paying for a premium service entitling me to remove the Google Ads, the homepage was advertising links to pornography (how obvious, given the word “Women” in the title, right?).

Here’s another example (from a search results page). Not a mis-match of interests, this time, as much as poorly-chosen ad copy:

Need I point out that Orthodox Jewish Women are not for sale?! :.D

Oxymoron (ooh, that should have been Word of the Day): a figure of speech that combines two opposing or contradictory ideas, such as “old news” or “extensive briefing”. My step-dad used to put in that category “military intelligence” and “civil war”. And there’s always the deadpan “criminal justice”.

Seen in Shaare Tzedek Hospital’s Emergency Room, Jerusalem:

Unfortunately, as with most ER waiting rooms, an oxymoron.

Seen in Shaare Tzedek Hospital, Jerusalem:

The white outlets are part of the ordinary hospital circuitry.

The brown outlets lead to the grama circuit, an electrical system designed to indirectly close circuits on the Jewish Sabbath — not something you’ll find in common home use, but perfectly acceptable for use for the sick. Also on the grama circuit is the call button, so that patients will feel free to call for a nurse even if they don’t have an emergency (for an emergency, anything will do, of course).

Not shown are the red outlets, on the emergency generator circuit, and often designed to accept hospital equipment only.

How do you use waiting time? Many people “kill time” while in line: watching mobile TV, checking email, sending an SMS message, playing a game. What if you believe that “killing time” is bad?

Seen in a neighborhood branch of the Israel Post Office:

A shelf of Biblical and Talmudic study books for customers to read while waiting to mail a letter, deposit money, or pick up a package.

It’s a small gesture, but one that respects the immediate culture and values of the environment.

I’m thinking that two babies lost their mommies today. They’ll never remember their mothers, never remember their smiles, their hugs, their pride. Because of the evil that people are capable of perpetrating upon others; because of the wickedness that a culture can cultivate and nurture and praise; because some “teachers” have the power to teach their students to dehumanize others.

Every time we demean, disrespect, disallow, dehumanize, we risk creating the monster of evil.

Seen in Jerusalem:

I’m sure this has some street significance of which I am not aware. Please, if you know… don’t tell me.