Transforming Grief into Action: A Guide
In the summer of 2010, Tamara Cohen held the Barbara Bick Memorial Internship at The Shalom Center. When the BP oil company penetrated deep into the Gulf of Mexico that summer to prospect for oil deposits, it unleashed a storm of oil that killed eleven of its own workers and at least one-third of the wild-life — fish and birds — of the Gulf.
The Shalom Center asked Tamara Cohen to write in English a lament that could be chanted to the grief-stricken melody of the Book of Lamentations. She did, and the chant was lifted up at the US Capitol grounds by hundreds of people to demand the government forbid oil prospecting in US continental waters.
The Book of Lamentations is known in Hebrew from its first word, Eicha (How!! or Alas!!) And Cohen’s chantable mourning was titled “Eicha for Earth.” She also wrote a guide for using Tisha B’Av in accord with many traditional Jewish teachings to mourn the ongoing destruction of Temple Earth. Her guide follows.
Tamara Cohen is now a Rabbi and a leader in innovative Jewish liturgy. She has received one of the 2023 Covenant Foundation awards for creative work in Jewish education.
— AW, editor
A Guide for Turning Eco-Despair into Active Hope
By Rabbi Tamara Cohen
Tisha B’Av, the ninth day of the month of Av, has historically been a day to mourn the Destruction of the First and Second Temples, centers of Israelite practice before the rise of Rabbinic Judaism (First Temple 975 BCE – 586 BCE; Second Temple 515 BCE – 70 CE) and the exiles that followed those destructions.
Over the course of Jewish history this day of mourning and fasting has also come to commemorate many other tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people throughout history.
This year we are suggesting beginning a new tradition. We are suggesting that in addition to, or instead of (depending on the norms of your community and personal practice) the traditional observance of Tisha B’Av, the time has come to use this powerful day to mourn the ongoing destruction of the Temple that is our Earth, a tragedy for all peoples, creatures, and living things, but one that is not complete and thus, with sufficient will and action, is, in part, reversible.
Although this approach may seem highly untraditional, there are some Jewish textual sources that lend themselves to make the leap from the ancient Jerusalem Temples to the present Temple Earth.
According to the kabbalistic language of symbols, both the Temple and the Earth are embodiments of the Shekhinah the indwelling (feminine) presence of God. According to some rabbinic texts, the Temple was the center of the Earth—thus the destruction of the Temple carries with it the threat of the destruction of the rest. Without its heart, the body of Earth is clearly threatened. So a day traditionally used to mourn the loss of that heart can become a day to mourn the ailing body of the whole earth.
And the Temple offerings represented an effort to heal the spiritual defects of all aspects of Earth—mineral (salt), vegetation (grain, pancakes), animal life (sheep, goats, cattle, doves), and (through the songs of the Levites) the human community.
In addition, we also draw on a midrash (rabbinic interpretation of a biblical text) about the first word of the Book of Lamentations/Eichah, the traditional text read on Tisha B’Av. This midrash links this first word Eicha (also the name of the book in its entirety) to the question asked by God to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden narrative. Both words are written with the same exact Hebrew letters and are only differentiated through their different vocalizations.
The rabbis link these textual moments, the moment that God is searching for Adam and Eve after they have transgressed and eaten from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil with the opening “Alas” of Lamentations. Since “Ayekka” appears just as the human race by over-reaching to gobble up protected aspects of the Garden, and since the result was deep damage to the Garden’s abundance, the “Ayekka/ Eicha” connection is even more redolent of our planetary crisis today.
By linking the exile of the Jews from Israel with the exile of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, the rabbis link the particularistic story to the universalistic story, giving us the seeds to link what has been a holiday about the particular suffering of Jews with the need for a day of mourning for the universal suffering of the Earth and all its peoples and life forms.
The midrash, read in the context of a Tisha B’Av for the Earth, also focuses our attention on perhaps a new way to read the transgression of Adam and Eve, as a story about the difficulty the first humans, like humanity in our day, were not able to honor the boundaries set out for them about what of Eden’s bounty to enjoy and what to refrain from consuming.
Questions for discussion:
a. What do you like about the idea of creating a day of mourning for the Earth? In what ways does it make sense to you to use Tisha B’Av as this day and in what was does it not make sense? Tisha B’Av is traditionally used to mourn a wide range of tragedies but they are all understood as tragedies for the Jewish people. Is it meaningful to you have a day for Jewish tragedies that is only focused on our people or would it be meaningful to widen the day to include the threat to all of humanity posted by the climate crisis?
b. It is said that the Messiah will be born on Tisha B’Av. While many of us do not believe in an actual human being who be a messiah come to save the world, we might still find inspiration in the idea of a messianic age—a time very different from our current reality in which peace and justice reign. How do you think the seeds of such a time could be planted by you and your community on this Tisha B’Av? What would that look like?
c. The text of Eicha is full of language about “our enemies” who destroyed the Temple and Jerusalem. Historically the First Temple was destroyed by the Babylonian Empire and the Second Temple by the Roman Empire. Yet the rabbis explain the destruction of the Temples as the result of actions of the People Israel—for the first Temple, according to the rabbis the sins of idolatry, sexual immorality, and bloodshed, and the Second Temple because of senseless hatred among Jews.
When it comes to thinking about “enemies” in the context of our current environmental crisis, we too can look outward at the visible big-scale enemies like oil and coal companies causing destruction or we can follow the rabbinic impulse and look inward at the forces of which we are a part that have led to our current state of environmental destruction—or both. What do you think? Is the language of “enemies” helpful or outdated? Should we focus our energy on changing ourselves and our communities or on fighting large companies and governmental policies? What is the right balance for you and your community and why?
d. Read this midrash (just below) and discuss. What three things do you think the world is standing on? If you could add a leg to make our current world more stable, what would you add? If you want, draw a picture to go with your answer.
“What was the world like at that time? It was like a stool with two legs, which cannot stand and is unstable. When a third leg was made for it, it became firm and it stood. So, too, when the Mishkan was made… immediately, it became firm and stood. For at first the world had only two legs, loving-kindness and the Torah, and it was unstable. When a third leg was made for it, namely, the Mishkan, it immediately stood.” (Bamidbar Rabba, parasha 12)
How to use the “Eicha for the Earth”
1. If you plan to use our English readings as a supplement to the traditional Eicha, you can do that either by reading one section between each of the five chapters of Eicha, or by using the readings at the end or the beginning and end of your Eicha to frame or deepen the meaning of the reading. In this way, our Eicha joins the tradition of kinot (dirges sung after the chanting of Eicha that often focus on other times of destruction in addition to the destruction of the Temples.)
2. You may also choose, if you have the capability, to show a slide show of images of the BP oil disaster and other threats to the environment, during or after your Hebrew reading of Eicha.
3. The English can be read responsively or with each person reading one stanza and going around in a circle and the whole group joining together for the repeating refrain of “Hashiveinu.”
4. For groups that have generally gathered for a more traditional Tisha B’Av service, have a discussion, before or after your chanting, about what it means to bring this new level of meaning to the observance of Tisha B’Av.