Tuesday, July 28, 2020

Tisha Be'AV at Congregation Bnai Torah

Dear Friends

The Tisha Be'Av schedule and information is in this email as follows:
1) Times of Fast
2) Services
3) Laws of Tisha Be'Av
4) Thoughts on Tisha Be'AV

For Zoom Info please Contact Rabbi Yaffe


1)  Times: Wednesday Evening 7/29/20 - Fast Begin8:10 PM 

                      Thursday  7/30/20 -  Mid-Day  12:56 PM  (You can now sit on a regular chair)
                                                                       
                      
Fast Ends 8:45 PM


2) Services:
I.  Tisha Be'AV Evening Wednesday 7/29: ZOOM service - Mincha followed by Maariv, Book of Eicha / Lamentations and some Kinot Mincha 8:00 PM Maariv and Eicha 8:15PM


Also on Facebook Live 
https://www.facebook.com/bnai.torah.1

We will be displaying Eicha and Kinot on the screen but here are links: 
Eicha:  https://www.sefaria.org/Lamentations.1?lang=bi 
Eicha:  https://www.sefaria.org/Kinnot_for_Tisha_B'Av_(Ashkenaz)%2C_Kinot_for_Tisha_B'Av_Night.5?lang=bi


II. Tisha Be'AV Shacharit Thursday 7/30  - 7:00 AM Service at Synagogue in Social Hall far left corner  Followed by short kinot - finished about 8:15PM  (No Tallit and Tefillin)


Also on Facebook Live https://www.facebook.com/bnai.torah.1


FB live: https://www.facebook.com/bnai.torah.1

Link to Kinot online: https://www.sefaria.org/Kinnot_for_Tisha_B'Av_(Ashkenaz)%2C_Kinot_for_Tisha_B'Av_Day.6?lang=bi

III. Tisha Be'AV Afternoon:   Tallit Tefillin and Mincha/ Maariv Thursday 7/30 -at 7:30 PM  Service at Synagogue in Main Sanctuary 


FB live: https://www.facebook.com/bnai.torah.1
3) Laws of Tisha Be'AV
How 9 Av Is Observed   Starting from midday on 8 Av, we limit our Torah study to the few allowed topics that are of a sad nature or pertain to the Temples’ destruction.

We eat a square meal in the afternoon, before Minchah services. Then, late in the afternoon, a “separation meal,” seudah hamafseket, is eaten. It consists of bread and a hard-boiled egg dipped in ashes, accompanied by water. This meal is eaten alone, sitting on a low stool. The meal must be over by sundown, when all the laws of Tisha B’Av take effect. Tisha B’Av evening services are held in synagogue, where the ark has been stripped of its decorative curtain and the lights dimmed. Evening prayers are followed by the chanting of Eichah (Lamentations).

Morning prayers are held without tallit and tefillin, since both are considered adornments. Most of the morning is ocupied by the reading of Kinot, elegies marking the various tragedies that befell our people.

Work is permitted on Tisha B’Av, but discouraged. On this day, one’s focus should be on mourning and repentance. If one must work, it is preferable to begin after midday. It is customary to give extra charity on Tisha B’Av, as on every fast day.

After midday, it is permissible to sit on chairs, and tallit and tefillin are worn during the afternoon prayer. In the synagogue, the ark’s curtain is restored to its place before the afternoon prayers.

The fast begins at sunset of the 8th of Av 8:10 PM  on 7/29 and concludes at nightfall  8:45 PM on   the following night on 7/30.

During this time, we do not Eat or drink, wear leather footwear,  bathe or wash ourselves (washing only until the knuckle when mandated by halachah)
NOTE: Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic all washing for sanitary purposes (rather than ritual) should be done fully and normally with soap for 20 seconds as recommended by the CDC

Also if you have any questions about fasting due to difficulty please contact Rabbi Yaffe


or apply ointments or creams, engage in marital relations or any form of intimacy

We also don’t sit on a normal-height chair until chatzot (the time when the sun has reached its apex)
study Torah (except for the “sad” parts that deal with the destruction of the Temples, etc.)
send gifts, or even greet one another (you may respond to greetings)
engage in outings, trips or similar pleasurable activities, wear fine, festive clothing

On Tisha B’Av evening services are held in synagogue, where the ark has been stripped of its decorative curtain and the lights dimmed. Evening prayers are followed by the chanting of Eichah (Lamentations).

Work is permitted on Tisha B’Av, but discouraged. On this day, one’s focus should be on mourning and repentance. If one must work, it is preferable to begin after midday. It is customary to give extra charity on Tisha B’Av, as on every fast day. After midday, it is permissible to sit on chairs, and tallit and tefillin are worn during the afternoon prayer. In the synagogue, the ark’s curtain is restored to its place before the afternoon prayers.

After the Fast When night falls, before breaking the fast, one should perform netilat yadayim (hand-washing), this time covering the entire hand with water, but without reciting the blessing. It is also customary to perform Kiddush Levanah at this point, celebrating the rebirth of the moon, and our hoped-for national rebirth.

The Temple was set ablaze on the afternoon of the 9th of Av, and it burned through the 10th. Therefore, the restrictions of the Nine Days (such as not eating meat, swimming or laundering clothing) extend until midday of the 10th of Av. This year haircuts, bathing and laundering are all permitted on the 10th of Av (7/31) Before Mid-day (but not eating meat and drinking wine until mid-day) because it is Friday and we need to prepare for Shabbat

4) Thoughts on Tisha Be'AV: A Debt of Truth

On the Ninth of Av we mourn the destruction of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, which was twice destroyed on this date — each time leading to exile for the Jewish people.

Why were the Temples destroyed? One of the names by which the Temple is called in the Torah is mishkan ("dwelling").1 The Sages point out that the Hebrew word mishkan is related to the word mashkon, which means "collateral." This indicates that when the Temples are taken from us they are actually being held by G‑d as a collateral against the payment of a debt we owe Him.

But what remains of the destroyed Temples to be held as "collateral"? What is the debt whose payment will trigger the Temple's return to us?

The Temple is not just the buildings that stood on a hilltop in Jerusalem for a total of 830 years. The buildings are the physical manifestation of a particular reality. That reality is what we call the "Dwelling of Shechinah" — the accessible, available and palpable presence of G‑d's essence in our world.

A fundamental principle of Judaism — articulated in this week's Torah reading — is, "There is none else besides Him" (Deuteronomy 4:35). This does not just mean that there is only one G‑d who has power in the cosmos. It means that there is only one reality and that is G‑d. Everything in the universe is an extension of G‑d's being, and nothing else.

However, as in a one-way mirror, G‑d experiences the truth that is G‑dliness and we do not. We only see our reflection and imagine that we exist as independent, monadic entities.

The purpose of the Torah is that we should live in this world and reveal the truth that it is G‑dliness, thereby turning our mirrored existence into a transparent one. Each mitzvah we do reveals the presence of the One in ordinary life. When our lives reflect this reality, G‑d enables us to not just believe and obey, but to also experience His presence.

When the Holy Temple stood in Jerusalem, it housed the "Dwelling of the Shechinah." When we entered the Temple and worshipped or brought an offering there, we experienced G‑dliness as the essence from which the entire fabric of the universe is woven. Our very bodies felt enwrapped in a garment of G‑dly light; the very stones of the Temple communicated their G‑dly nature to us.

When, as a people, we moved away from the Torah, away from a life that acknowledges G‑d's presence in each detail of our existence, the result was that we could no longer see the Shechinah in the Temple. If we do not live this reality, then we cannot experience it, and the structure of the Temple becomes a shell without its soul. If nothing is happening in the computer's CPU, there will be no image on the screen.

Our personal life is the dynamic energy of the Temple; the building is just the "screen." If our personal, inner Temples are not functioning, there can be no manifestation in the external, physical Temple. The Temple as a physical structure no longer has a function we can access.

G‑d therefore takes the physical Temple as "collateral." G‑d is telling us: when you have the light to fill this building, I will restore it; when you are ready to live the reality that all is one with Me, the Temple will be rebuilt. When you make good on the deficit of truth in your lives, I will return the collateral so you may make rightful use of it.

Over the course of our long and dark exile, we as a people have done much and already made many heavy payments in our devotion to the truth of the Torah. Surely our debt is very close to being discharged, and just a little more effort on the part of each of us will, G‑d willing, bring about the rebuilding of the Temple and the era of universal amity that will follow, when "My House (the Temple) will be a House of Prayer for all the nations" (Isaiah 56:7).

May we all see this speedily in our times.

FOOTNOTES
1.     The Hebrew word mishkan in the Torah typically refers to the portable sanctuary the children of Israel used in the desert and in the Land of Israel until the First Temple was built; however the term is also used to refer to the two permanent sanctuaries that stood in Jerusalem on the Temple Mount.

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