Getting in touch with our souls on Tisha B Av

It is easy to become despaired by all the evil, morally debase and senseless hatred and killing of innocent people in the world.

Instead, of despair, we can take the opportunity of the fast for the destruction of the Temples to reflect and rephrase our own thoughts and meditations.

In light of the recent shootings in  America, there have comments on Facebook that has called for a day of mourning for the victims and the senseless violence sweeping the USA and throughout the world.

“The Jewish people have such a day called Tisha B’Av taking place this Saturday night and Sunday. Tisha B Av is the day when the Jewish people mourn the destruction of the Holy Temples in Jerusalem as well as all the persecution and suffering endured by the Jewish people throughout time.

Tisha B’Av is not a day of anger, nor of blaming others, but a day of reflection, a day of sitting with all the feelings of brokenness on a personal and communal level. Tisha B’Av is the one day in the Jewish calendar when we reflect as a community the impact in our lives when God is not at our centre. The Holy Temple was symbolic of God’s home in the world. When God does not have a place in the world, neither do we. Our souls can also not be totally at home in this world.

Let us open our hearts this year on Tisha B’Av and also cry for all the pain and suffering due to senseless violence all over the world.  Let’s Invite the world to join the Jewish people on Tisha B’ Av to feel together the pain for all the senseless suffering in the world today.

Let’s call out for a new way together. The world’s problems are too large for people to solve on their own. We must each do our part to be peaceful, we must make ourselves worthy to be conduits of light and love and always know the true peace that we seek for ourselves and for the world comes only from God.

May our prayers, our tears and our fast on Tisha B’ Av enable us to break open the walls that separate us from others, from our true selves and from the Divine. May the offering we make on Tisha B’Av help bring healing and redemption to the world.”

I want to thank  Melinda Mindy Ribner ( www.kabbalahoftheheart.com ) For these inspirational words.

I could think of no more appropriate words to express.