I know the moment Tisha b’Av concludes, the Jewish mood shifts, toward the Shiva deNechmeta, the upcoming seven Haftorahs of comfort and consolation. They will accompany us for the forthcoming seven Sabbaths, right up to Rosh Hashanah.
But last Sabbath, a friend was sharing how she had just found out the previous week that her scheduled trip of August 1 to Israel had been cancelled due to new COVID restrictions at Ben Gurion airport. She was locked out. We spoke of that feeling of being locked out of Israel on the eve of Tisha b’Av.
I was raised in Israel and then, as an adult, lived there on my own for close to eight years. In the intervening years I made regular visits to Israel, so these past two years are the longest I have ever not been in Israel.
When it comes to Israel, I was accustomed to kind of having my cake and eating it too. While I may have been in chutz l’Aretz, in the exile, or the Diaspora, Israel was always just an airplane ride away.
It was my choice. Whenever I saved up, instead of traveling around the world I often found myself returning to Israel for a visit. The choice was mine, but the option to do so was simply “there.”
Maybe you can’t dance at two weddings, but I was privileged enough to have my foot, so to speak, in two countries.
My compass is always directed toward Israel. It is a matter of when, not if, I make it home again.
Until two years ago, Israel was always there as an option to come and go to, and enjoy.
In a twist of irony, one summer I had been to Israel on a visit when Tisha b’Av fell on the calendar.
I was a proper American visitor, yet able to experience mourning for the destruction right there in Jerusalem, seeing the actual strong walls surrounding the ancient, sacred Jerusalem. Pressing my face against the stones of the Kotel, the Wailing Wall, the last remnant of the Temple. A wall built by the dedication of the poor — their blood, sweat and tears poured into erecting this wall. Unlike the majesty of the Temple, this humble wall has stood the test of time, against all odds remaining there for us.
This Kotel is a tangible echo of our Jewish history, and I, as an American visitor, could soak in twilight at this Kotel. As the sunset of Tisha b’Av melted away, the musical songs of longing burst forth from the depths, the famous Kotel kumzitz of thousands crescendoing, merging with the golden setting sun.
We were able to live abroad yet travel in to grieve the loss of the Temple. Of course, we grieve for all of Jewish tragedy on Tisha b’Av, which is not limited to mourning the Temple. But still, the irony.
COVID changed all that. Last Tisha b’Av I was visiting in Denver, and I overlapped with my younger brother who was visiting from Israel. Unable to gather in synagogue at that point, he chanted Eicha, Lamentations, in the dark of my parents’ backyard, as we sat on the ground by candlelight. It was unforgettable. It was very touching and very meaningful.
Somehow it kept this feeling of being locked out of Israel somewhat at bay.
I still held an airline ticket to Israel, unused from the previous Passover. COVID had begun a little prior to that and all travel had come to a halt.
It was only a few months into COVID last summer, I had just travelled to Denver from New York. Perhaps there was a sense of life resuming that imbued the air, but last week was the second Tisha b’Av I’ve been locked out of Israel.
The luxury of living abroad, yet vising Israel at will, has came to an end this past year. We have all internalized this. It has made many of us rethink. With the reality of living in a world of borders unexpectedly closing, we ask ourselves: Where is it that we would ultimately want to be?
This past Tisha b’Av, the second year in a row closed off from the option of traveling to Israel, cemented this new reality. It distilled much about the experience of living as a Jew in the Diaspora experience versus a lived Israel experience.
We can no longer take for granted that we can live abroad and rely on Israel visits to anchor us in the Israel experience as a shot in the arm, or an opportunity to intensify our Judaic experience when it suits us.
I’m glad this time of mourning and diminished joy — the Three Weeks — are behind us. There’s something about aligning our inner lives with the external texts and themes of consolation and hope.
As this transitional week from mourning to consolation passes us by, for those of us who have a strong link to Israel I cannot help but notice how much our COVID lives have changed, how deepened that physical distance between our Diaspora lives and our access to Israel.
No doubt, it certainly is a privileged and first world type of adjustment to take not of.
It’s not my primary concern as we navigate our still-limited post-COVID world. Yet, it still caught my attention, even if it is a somewhat ancillary issue compared to so much else that is transpiring.
“Nachamu Nachamu, Ami, take comfort, take comfort, My people.
Ultimately, the texts of both Tisha b’Av and all the texts of our faith, including this coming Shabbat Nachamu, the Shabbos of Comfort and Consolation, are the same wherever we might find ourselves.
The words are the same, but the their flavor and intensity when experienced in the one and only country of the Jewish people, Israel, is not.
The words are the same, but the music and melody that animate them, that added special layer, is what is missed.
Copyright © 2021 by the Intermountain Jewish News
