Tisha B'Av: Facing Our Traumas

Tisha B’Av 5781

by Yahnatan Lasko, Beth Messiah Congregation, Montgomery Village, MD

“Tell me about the most traumatic thing that ever happened to you.”

I was seated on the couch. Across from me sat a counselor. His question surprised me not with how personal it was, but because of how quickly its answer would usher him into the heart of my personal pain, fears, and struggles. 

Some of us have been blessed with relatively trauma-free lives. But others have experienced a trauma in our past. It may have been a betrayal by a loved one, or perhaps a tragic accident. In the midst of these painful circumstances, we may even question God: “How could you let this happen?” 

For the Jewish people, summer brings the anniversary of our greatest national trauma. On Tisha B’Av, we don't simply mourn the loss of a building—we grieve the pain of divine abandonment. As Lamentations (the megillah customarily read on Tisha B'Av) asks: “Eicha?” or “How?—how could all this happen?” 

Like the garden He laid waste His dwelling,
destroyed His appointed meeting place.
Adonai has caused moed and Shabbat
to be forgotten in Zion.
In the indignation of His anger
He spurned king and kohen.
The Lord rejected His altar,
despised His Sanctuary.
He has delivered the walls of her citadels
into the hand of the enemy.
They raised a shout in the house of Adonai
as if it were the day of a moed. (Lam 2:6–7)

The author's pain is palpable: 

How can I admonish you?
To what can I compare you,
O daughter of Jerusalem?
To what can I liken you, so that I might console you,
O virgin daughter of Zion?
For your wound is as deep as the sea!
Who can heal you? (Lam 2:13)

 The poem of the ensuing chapter contains a confession of Israel’s own liability for the Temple’s destruction: "We have sinned and rebelled, and you have not forgiven” (Lam 3:42). The sages of the Talmud similarly acknowledged Israel’s role in bringing about the destruction of the Second Temple: 

But why was the second Sanctuary destroyed, seeing that in its time they were occupying themselves with Torah, mitzvot, and gemilut chasidim [the practice of charity]? It fell because of sinat chinam [hatred without cause]. (Yoma 9b)

Given all this pain and loss, sin and judgment, is it surprising that we find Messiah at the center? Forty years before the destruction of that Second Temple, Yeshua came into Jerusalem and pronounced words of judgment over the city and its temple. These pronouncements came from Messiah not in triumph, but rather in a deep lament:

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! Look, your house is left to you desolate! (Matt 23: 37–38)

Just a few days later, Yeshua himself experienced divine abandonment in the most profound sense. Hanging on a cross, he uttered his last words, according to Matthew’s and Mark’s accounts: “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?”—”My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” (Matt 27:46, Mark 15:34). With his last cry, Yeshua prophetically binds himself to the impending divine judgment he himself prophesied, going ahead of the Jewish people into exile.

What is your greatest trauma? Have you struggled at times, asking God, “Where were you when this happened to me?” Perhaps you try to minimize the pain by avoiding the memory altogether, yet still it haunts you, rushing in at unexpected times. 

We can try to numb ourselves, but ignoring traumas won’t make them go away. Difficult as it may be, only facing our traumas enables us to truly hear words of comfort such as those of Isaiah 53:4: “Surely he . . . carried our sorrows.” 

Facing trauma is just as necessary corporately as it is individually. As the apostle Paul wrote to the Yeshua-believing community in Corinth, “Godly sorrow brings repentance, which leads to salvation” (2 Cor 7:10 NIV). By entering into the trans-generational sorrow of our people on Tisha B’Av, we not only position ourselves to truly hear God’s words of comfort, but we also help to sustain the tradition of godly sorrow, hastening the day when all Israel will receive Messiah and his Spirit of comfort. If you are a gentile, you are not only enjoined to mourn together with Israel (Rom 12:15b); you are also uniquely able to fulfill key elements of Israel's consolation as written in the Prophets (Isa 60:1–16; 61:5, 9). 

So as we approach Tisha B’Av this year, let these words of Yeshua guide us: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

This article first appeared in the Summer 2010 UMJC Twenties Newsletter. All Scripture references, unless otherwise noted, are from the Tree of Life Version (TLV).