Shavuah Tov! Wishing everyone a blessed week.
Tonight we enter the month of “Menachem Av,” name given to the 11th month of the JEWISH Calendar. Av means “father” and it’s
customary to add the name “Menachem”, which means “comforter” or “consoler.”
The 9th of Av is the day in which both Temples were destroyed and many tragic events came to the Jewish People throughout history.
So beginning tonight until the halachic midday of the 10th of Av we reduce our joy and mourn the destruction of our Holy Temples and the Exile in which we are now.
1. We don’t eat any meat (including poultry) or drink wine, only on Shabbat we are allowed to do so.
2. We don’t wear fresh laundered clothes (except for babies) and we abstain from doing any laundry.
3. We abstain from swimming.
4. When taking a shower don’t use hot water and bathe by parts. It shouldn’t be done for pleasure.
5. Don’t remodel or expand your home in these days.
6. Abstain from sewing or knitting new clothes. We also don’t buy new clothes, unless it’s on sale and you need it and might not find it later or you need to buy for a bride or a groom, it must be worn after the nine days.
7. Cut nails during the actual week of Tisha B’Av.
No haircuts also these nine days, no live music (only accapella),no weddings (one may become engaged).
8. Not a good time to have surgeries unless it’s necessary, court cases, buying a car, home,etc…
Although all these things seem highly uncomfortable, this is the intention behind it. How can we feel connected to two edifices that we didn’t even experience? How can we mourn for something we have no recollection of?
The Talmud states that there is a heavenly decree that engenders forgetfulness of the departed by those still living. However, if the object or person of grief and despair and loss is only absent, then this sense of closure and comfort remains absent as well.
In an ironic way we keep suffering from existential anxiety because in our deepest self and core we know that this is not how it is supposed to be. The world is not what H”S intended it to be.
Try these nine days to feel the collective pain by being a little uncomfortable.
