Actifest Hope for Tisha B’Av and Temple Earth
by Rabbi Arthur Waskow
Dear friends,
As the traditional Nine Days of grief unwind toward Tisha B’Av, we have several resources for you to draw on as you shape your observance.
The first includes several explorations of a renewing outlook on Tisha B’Av by Rabbi David Seidenberg, author of the magisterial Kabbalah and Ecology (Cambridge University Press). He writes:
1) Please feel free to draw on my translation of Eikhah, which has several sections discussing the theology of Earth as a Temple and the idea that Tisha B’Av needs to be about the Earth’s destruction. The url is neohasid.org/resources/laments/ — you can go to the translation yourself to see what I’m talking about. You can also just direct folks to the neohasid.org homepage, which features that link.
2) Especially consider using Cantor Richard Kaplan ז״ל’s song Kinah leChurban Gan Eden as your intro or outro — the destruction of the planet was something that Richard cared deeply about, and it would be a kind of tchiyat hameitim ("Giving life to the dead") to play some of his song. You can play it/download it from neohasid.org at http://www.neohasid.org/tisha_bav/kinah_lekhurban_gan_eden/.
3) My book Kabbalah and Ecology includes a beautiful midrash about the Earth as Temple on pp. 202-3, fn. 661. Please feel encouraged to use it if you think it will help drive home what you are teaching.
4) The neohasid translation of Eikhah also includes a kinah piyut about the Earth called "Al eleh anu bokhim, anu bokhot." It is also downloadable by itself at: https://neohasid.org/docs/AlEleh.doc
The second is an actual usable Tisha B’Av service —
Beginning with my own kavvanah for 9 Av candle-lighting as an invocation of inward sacred fire for eco/ social justice in the non-destructive fire of the Burning Bush—contrasted with the destructive fires of the racist burning cross of the KKK, Auschwitz, Hiroshima, and the fossil-fuel broiling of the Earth by CO2 and methane;
Centered by Rabbi Tamara Cohen’s “Eicha for Earth“ (excerpts below)
Ending with transformative vision: a chant by Rabbi Shefa Gold from the Song of Songs for its love of Earth; psalms and an Isaiah passage that are a paean for Earth that is a universal Temple for all life.
Find this service at — https://legacy4now.theshalomcenter.org/node/1733
Excerpts from “Eicha / Lament for the Earth: Tisha B’Av 2010”
(by Rabbi Tamara Cohen, chantable in Eicha trope)
Eicha: Alas, she sits in danger.
Earth, home to multitudes,
like a beloved, deep in distress.
Blue ocean, source of life –
Endangered and imprisoned.
Bitterly she weeps in the night
Her shorelines wet with tears.
Of all her friends, none to comfort her;
All her allies have betrayed her.
Checkerspot butterflies
flee their homes;
Polar bears
can find no rest.
Because our greed has heated Earth.
Whole communities destroyed
To pursue off-shore oil.
Lives and dreams have been narrowed.
Coastlines mourn for families,
lost homes and livelihoods.
Barrier islands lament, desolate.
Wetlands sigh without their song birds.
Estuaries grieve; the sea is embittered.
Earth’s children – now her enemies;
Despite destruction, we sleep at ease.
The Breath of Life grieves
our abundant transgressions.
Infants of every species,
captive to our conceit.
Gone from Appalachia –
her mountaintop glory;
mined by Massey Energy
without compassion.
Children sick from air and water,
stumble weak before King Coal.
All that was precious in the days of our youth,
Earth recalls in woe and sorrow.
Her creatures die with none to help them,
at the hands of Exxon, now BP.
World leaders shrug
and look on helpless.
We have sinned greatly,
and so are ailing.
Our people who respected life,
have come to defile it.
We have stripped Earth naked,
she shrinks back.
Oily waves slap the sand like a soiled hem;
we were heedless of the cost of our appetite.
We have sunk appallingly, there is no comfort.
See, Breath of Life, this misery; how our avarice jeers!
Greed has laid hands on all dear to us.
Your sanctuary plundered by multinationals
full of contempt for Your holy community.
The Earth’s poor cry out as they search for nourishment;
indigenous communities trade resources for food,
to keep themselves alive.
Look, O Breath of Life, and behold,
what gluttons we have become.
Will we heed this warning, we who live as if unscathed –
Will we truly look and know this agony as our own?
We are afflicted by angry consequence,
The elements push back against their abuse.
Forest fires reach down and spread like fury,
Sprawl and refuse trap our spirits.
Great storms hurl lives backwards, upside down
survivors are left forlorn, in constant misery.
For these things do we weep
Our eyes flow with tears.
How far from us is any comfort,
the possibility of change that might revive our Earth?
The children are forlorn for their future is bleak
unless we act with speed and wisdom.
Alas, humanity in our reckless living
have brought shame over all.
Can we remember the holiness of your creation,
Your footstool, green and fertile?
We have razed woodlands to the ground,
profaned the Kingdom of Earth and all its creatures.
In arrogance we slashed the mighty Redwoods,
will we cease hiding our power from ourselves and befriend our Earth?
How can we wrestle with God and bring justice to others
If we don’t quench the flaming fires,
and turn back from endless consumption?
Egrets and brown pelicans languish in salt marshes
From the depths, corals cry out.
“Where are the fish? Where are the clean waters?”
Languishing battle-wounded in the wetlands,
life runs out in ocean’s bosom.
Hashivenu Yahh elecha v’nashuva, hadesh yameinu kekedem.
Let us return, help us repent,
You Who Breathe all Life;
Breathe us, Breathe us,
Breathe us into a new path –
Help us, Help us,
Help us turn to a new way of living
Make new, Make new,
Our world of life intertwining –
Splendor, beauty, joy in our love for each life-form.
Lead us, lead us, on a new path to Eden,
Teach us self-restraint in the very midst of abundance.
To “Ayeka/Where are you?”
We will answer Hineni.
We are here to honor boundaries, not to devour all.
Open, open –
Our eyes to see in each creature,
Tree, Ocean, Mountain –
the Presence of the One.
We will soon have publicly available a recording of the extraordinary webinar on “Renewing Tisha B’Av” presented last night by Rabbi Tamara Cohen of Moving Traditions, Rabbi Arthur Waskow and Linda Carranza of The Shalom Center, Joelle Novey of the DC-MD-Northern-VA chapter of Interfaith Power and Light, Mirele Goldsmith of Jewish Earth Alliance, and Madeline Canfield of the Jewish Youth Climate Movement.
With blessings of life, liberty, and sacred community for you and your beloveds
— Arthur
