From Whyte Darkness to Brown Light: Tisha B'Av in a Summer Like No Other

A common element of the religious psyche is that of reward and punishment.  If you follow the rules, good things happen.  And if you don’t, bad things befall you. Generations have struggled to understand the meaning and veracity of this concept as we all continue to make sense of the worlds we live in.

 

There is one phrase that we often hear on Tisha B’Av that seems to be in sync with this idea about how things work.

 

(:כל המתאבל על ירושלים זוכה ורואה בשמחתה” (תענית ל“

“All who mourn [the destruction of] Jerusalem will merit to see it in its joy.” (Ta’anit 30b)

In the most simple reading, it is clear.  Observe Tisha B’Av, cry over the Temple and you will be lucky enough to see it rebuilt with joy.  Fast, scream and wail and you will, eventually, feast, laugh and dance.   And while it would be easy if things were that clear, as we often know, it doesn't seem like things work out that way.  Just doing the right thing often does not lead to reward in such a direct way.

Over the past few years, I have been introduced to the incredible work of thinker and poet David Whyte.  In his poem, “Sweet Darkness,” he helps us understand the importance of focussing on darkness.  His perspective gives a new lens on this Rabbinic phrase, encouraging us to mourn with a promise of real perspective and inner joy. While the entire poem can be found here, I would like to focus on two selections:

The night will give you a horizon,

further than you can see.

You must learn one thing.

The world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds

except the one to which you belong.

While darkness and mourning can blind us, Whyte tells us that night actually gives us vision.  It gives us the vision of understanding the vastness of existence and also, the perspective that there are specific worlds, specific communities and specific people to whom we belong.  Mourning helps to understand that in the abyss that often characterizes our existence, the true inner joy comes when we attend to our priorities--the worlds, the ideas and the people who belong to us and to whom we belong. And Whyte concludes: 

Sometimes it takes darkness

and the sweet

confinement of your aloneness

to learn

anything or anyone

that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

 

The message is clear. Experiencing darkness and aloneness in our lives, the true internalization of the enormity of destruction either of a live or of a Temple, helps us learn.  The darkness reminds us that in order to reach our full potential, we must only embrace the communities, the people and the Temples that truly bring us life and bring us joy.  

 

Mourning may or may not give us a front row seat at the rededication party of the Third Temple or a guarantee of a life of luxury and riches, but what darkness will do is it will give us an opportunity.  It will allow us to remember that our energies should not be invested in smallness and insignificance.  It will allow us to realize that our energies should be invested in the anythings and anyones that bring us life. That lesson and that lens are the keys to true joy. 

 

The past five months have been ones of darkness and aloneness.  And while it is sometimes tempting and sometimes productive to keep moving as if nothing is different, numbing ourselves is not the answer.    Just like with the destruction of the Temple and in other challenging times, the world is broken in so many ways.  We must allow ourselves to weep and allow ourselves to mourn. Because, as Brene Brown puts it, “numbing vulnerability (and pain) also dulls our experiences of love, belonging and creativity…..

Numb the dark and you numb the light.”