A Day of Prayer, Learning, Mourning, and Hope
Tisha B’Av, the saddest day of the Jewish year, is a day of disruption from our routines, as we mourn communally for the loss of the Temple and other tragedies of Jewish history and our world.
Afikomen is honored to join as a co-sponsor of Hadar’s Tisha B’Av programming on July 18. Join us and communities around the country online for a full day of learning sessions with Hadar's faculty, including a reflective writing workshop and a special session for kids ages 6-11, ending with a kumzits (song session) and break-fast with Joey Weisenberg.
We encourage you to drop in to different sessions throughout the day. Register in advance to receive the Zoom link.
See the full schedule of learning and ritual and register here:
Schedule (in PST)
6:00-7:00 AM: Shaharit
Broadcast of live minyan from Hadar’s Summer Beit Midrash
7:00-8:00 AM: Kinnot
Broadcast of Kinnot reading from Hadar’s Summer Beit Midrash
8:00-8:30 AM: Break
8:30 AM - 9:30 AM: Anger at an Angry God: Exploring Lamentations Chapter 2 with Rabbi Shai Held
9:30 AM-10:00 AM: Break
10:00 AM-10:45 AM: Hidden in the Cleft: Let Me Hear Your Voice with Rabbi Avi Strausberg
In this session, we'll turn to a modern feminist midrash and Israeli poetry to search for God in a post-Holocaust world. Mining verses from Songs of Songs, we'll explore themes of absence and longing, hiddenness and revelation, as well as power and powerlessness. Through this textual exploration, we'll ask, "Where is God in human suffering?" and "Why doesn't God intervene to save us?"
11:00 AM-11:30 AM: Minhah
Broadcast of live minyan from Hadar’s Summer Beit Midrash
11:30 AM-12:00 PM: Break
12:00 PM-12:45 PM: To Greet the Messiah with Shining Hair with Rabbi Tali Adler
What does Tisha B'Av look like? According to some sources, the answer historically depended largely on gender. In this class we will study some traditional women's Tisha B'Av customs and the way (male) rabbis responded to them. We will analyze how these customs might illuminate the religious intuitions of the women who practiced them and how those intuitions can illuminate another perspective on Tisha B'Av.
1:00 PM-1:45 PM: The Power of Catharsis: A Reflective Writing Workshop with Rabbi Avi Killip
We will use guided writing prompts to explore, process, and maybe even connect to the divine. Bring a notebook and pen, or plan to type. Join us for this hour of quiet, personal reflection. No sharing will be required.
2:00 PM-2:45 PM: We All Turn Toward the Temple (Ages 6-11) with Chana Kupetz
Have you ever wondered which way Jews pray when they are in Japan? In Antarctica? In New York? In this session we will learn a text that teaches that wherever we are, we should still turn toward the place where the Temple once stood.
3:00 PM-3:30 PM: Learning with Hadar’s Advanced Kollel: Cultivating the Divine Gaze with Jamie Weisbach
What is our task when we are observing Tisha B'Av? In this session we will analyze the first perek of Eikhah to understand the importance of bearing witness to suffering, both in our observance of Tisha B'Av and in the process of redemption.
3:45 PM-4:15 PM: "If there is fury, there is hope" Eikhah and Tragic Literature with Ranana Dine
Literature scholars often ignore Eikhah as a biblical work of tragedy, and indeed often claim that the Hebrew Bible does not include tragedy as a genre. What would it mean to think of Eikhah as a work of tragic literature? By looking at the text of Eikhah itself and the work of literary theorists we will explore how Eikhah offers a deeply tragic and moving vision of the destruction of Jerusalem. But as a testimony to tragedy, sorrow, and fury Eikhah can still offer us a space for finding the beginnings of hope, giving the megillah significant theological resonances beyond the classics of tragic literature.
4:30 PM-5:15 PM: Salt, Thread, Smoke: Making Meaning from Nothing with Rabbi Aviva Richman
Our sages in the midrash on Lamentations (Eikhah Rabbah) offer a series of riddles to accompany us in loss. We'll explore the resonance of three particularly enigmatic riddles that interweave the mundane and holy, the accessible and impossible. Through these riddles, our rabbis beckon us into the futility and hope of meaning making in the face of loss.
5:15 PM-5:45 PM: Break
5:45 PM-6:45 PM: Tisha B’Av Kumzits and Break-Fast with Joey Weisenberg