Today is a day of joy! It is Rosh Chodesh – the new moon. In Judaism we are blessed with clear cycles of time to accompany us meaningfully through life. Rosh Chodesh is marked when the moon is at its slimmest, roughly every 28 days. Rosh Chodesh is mentioned in Torah and in Psalms, but it is thought to also have connections to ancient Babylonian customs. Traditionally Rosh Chodesh has been associated with women – a day the Talmud (megillah 22b) says they should have a break from the toil of housework and general work. A midrash, Pirkei de Rebbe Eliezer (chapter 45), tells us that Rosh Chodesh is given as a gift to women because when Aaron instructed the Israelites to collect up silver and gold he specifically asked them to give him the gold earrings of their wives and sons, knowing that this was likely to fail. And as he planned, the women refused to hand over their earrings, not wanting an idol to be made from them (I remain dubious as to how pious this behaviour was. Today at EHRS, men and women enjoy honouring Rosh Chodesh by learning together, I am yet to refuse to load the dishwasher on Rosh Chodesh but perhaps it is a custom I should try to be more mindful of.
Even though Rosh Chodesh is a time of joy, this particular Rosh Chodesh is tinged with sadness. It is the start if the month of Av, and since last Sunday we have been in a period known as the 3 weeks – a period of mourning. Men might stop shaving, and In Ashkenazi communities, from tomorrow, they will not eat meat except on Shabbat. This period culminates on the 9th of Av, which starts next Saturday evening. Known as Tisha B’Av, this is traditionally a 25 hour fast remembering and mourning the destruction of the two Temples and many other Jewish tragedies ascribed to this fateful date, including the Expulsions from England in 1290, and from Spain in 1492. I also learnt this week that the date Germany declared war on Russia in 1914, essentially beginning the First World War, was also Tisha B’Av.
I am a big fan of Jewish time. It is structured in such a way that it creates pockets of time for us to revisit and experience different emotions. We have seasons of joy, and times to grieve and mourn. Sometimes, like today being both Rosh Chodesh and Av, they are mixed together, just as they are in the reality of our messy lives. We are given permission to feel the grief we need to feel, to take time for lament, so that we can continue to live well afterwards. The Rabbis understood that suppressed grief, and perhaps even suppressed joy, can be dangerous. In fact the calendar of Av reflects this beautifully. Tisha b’av is the 9th, but shortly afterwards comes the little known festival of Tu B’Av – the 15th of Av. It is a festival of love, when in ancient times the single women of Jerusalem would come out dressed in white to dance and attract a partner – the Jdate of it’s time perhaps! It is now known as a sort of Jewish valentines, or yet another opportunity for Gary to forget to buy me flowers. Our days of grief are followed a week later with a celebration of love. Destruction and mourning is never the end, life and love always return. Perhaps that more than anything in the Jewish calander should give us hope as we look back at 18 months of loss and struggle, and begin to turn towards regeneration and new beginnings.
Today in synagogue we have marked yahrzeits, celebrated Rosh Chodesh, and had the utter joy of honouring our young leaders who post Bar and Bat Mitzvah have continued their Jewish journeys with learning and empowering themselves to be a part of helping to create the Jewish future. I want to say thank you to all of our graduating hadrachah students, for knowing that the journey doesn’t end at Bar and Bat Mitzvah, it really just begins! If the calander teaches us anything, perhaps it is that there really is no end. However bleak things may seem, or however joyous we may feel, the cycle will continue. Our job is to live it as well as we can, to be a source of meaning, comfort and joy for those around us, and to make the most of the gifts of creation, and the gift of each being given a unique role to play in that creation. It doesn’t mean life will always be joyous, but it does mean that when there is pain, we will support one another through it, and know that life will return again, even if it is irrevocably changed.
At the end of every torah service we hear words from the end of the book of Eichah – Lamentations, which we read on Tisha B’av: Hashiveinu Adonai eilechah v’na’ashoo’ovah. Chadeish yameinu k’kedem… Turn us back to You, Eternal, and we shall return; renew our lives as of old. It is a story of destruction and grief, but it closes with hope and renewal. Our Hadrachah graduates are a part of the hope and the renewal, indeed we all are, in some way. Our Judaism allows us times and spaces to acknowledge things are not always easy, and sometimes they are absolutely rubbish. But it also teaches us that light will return, and regrowth is a part of the cycle.
I look forward to continuing to walk the cycles, to holding hands on the journey (if safe to do so!) and to seeing what hope and regeneration we can all create together in the coming years.
Shabbat Shalom
