PLEASE NOTE: We will not be gathering for services tonight, Friday, October 4. Shabbat services will be held as usual on Saturday, October 5. L'shanah tovah!

Tisha b’Av: A Ritual for Personal, Ancestral, and Collective Grief

On this Tisha B’Av, we will come together to hold space for the fractured pieces of sacred temple within us, around us, and those of our collective past.

Led by Rabbi Karen and Cantor Raechel in the WJC sanctuary

Tisha B’Av commemorates the destruction of our first temple, 2610 years ago. Five centuries later, on what is believed to have been the same day, our second temple was burned to the ground. Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (the founder of Jewish Renewal) believed that the temple was a template of the heart, where we could feel the pulse of the divine.  

Our tradition offers guidance for both times of joy and times of heartbreak. We will harness this wisdom as we come together to consider the effects of this rupture, to grieve the ongoing destruction of our sacred earth, and to tend to the aching of our own hearts. 

Join us as we:

  • Light Yartzeit candles and call in ancestors 
  • Sing niggunim and piyyutim of our lineage 
  • Write, sing, and listen to the lamentations of our community 

For Zoom participants:

We invite you to prepare a sacred space in your home with a candle that you can light.