Dear Adira and Nesya,
Yesterday was Tisha B'Av. I was able to fast for 24 hours of the 25 hours. I had the experience similar to many other mothers- and it had nothing to do with hearing kinnos or Eicha in shul. I didn't go to watch the communal video screenings, lectures, etc. (I would have liked that but it wasn't possible this year.) I did immerse myself for most of the day in either learning and reading about the day, or teaching about it to the children of the next generation- YOU!
I felt surprisingly good during the fast (while being mostly horizontal!) all the way til about 7pm. I lasted a little longer until I suddenly felt more of a decline, probably due to general dehydration (even while resting) from nursing. I broke my fast and waiting for my strength to return. Toward the end of my fast, I didn't mind you seeing me "weak." I want you to know it's OK to feel weak. And I knew you would also realize that it was strength that allowed me to go that far. I wanted you to see me weak and strong simultaneously, because that's often what it is. A mixture of feelings. That's also what our nation feels at times- both weak and strong at the same time.
I don't want to forget to mention how helpful you girls were. Especially Adira, who was awake during my last hour as I started to feel unable to continue fasting.
My tools:
I was able to fast while nursing David numerous times throughout the day by resting most of the day. But the other tool I used my attitude. I want you to know that that is how many important things are possible- a strong, positive attitude! I believe that if you approach something with an "I can do that!" attitude, you have a pretty good chance of succeeding. (I'm sure research has been done and found that to be true!) If Hashem gives us a commandment, it means it is within our ability to do it- it is not impossible. The sages (rabbis) knew that women are STRONG. Even in today's generation, we are pretty strong! Even while nursing a child we can fast! If I wasn't nursing, perhaps I would have been able to be active. Daddy and many other people who are healthy enough are able to be quite active while fasting.
Getting through the day and making it meaningful with the kids:
Even while nursing, I was able to sufficiently take care of the kids and home until around bedtime on 9 Av. I did it through a combination of planning (preparing meals and activities) and employing mother's helpers (Meital and Bracha.) We also had a great long playdate with Nesya R. and later with Tzipora. Before the helpers came, we read some pages about what Tisha B'Av is all about. With the mother's helpers, you did a kotel project where you designed a kotel and wrote some of your best mitzvas on it. You also colored Kamtza and Bat Kamtza puppets and we told the story. Then we talked about a scenario like that story but used real people to make it sound like something that really could have happened.
Thoughts about the day:
This year I didn't get to read the actual kinnos, because I mistakenly could not locate the siddur with them, although I did listen to a number of short lectures and read a lot of articles. My reflections on the day don't encompass the experience of a typical community observance, but a "Mommy's 9 Av."
Tisha B'Av is a day of SO much potential. It's a day to flex our compassionate muscles and stretch ourselves to think about the losses our nation has experienced. It can be hard to feel compassionate for something that feels like the "other" because we weren't there at the destruction of the temples and the other calamities that have fallen on 9 Av throughout history. But that's the very reason we have to try. Because it's so important to have empathy. One million Jews died, our whole nation was exiled from the Holy Land, and the beautiful dwelling place for G-d that existed was desecrated and burned. Even though living in exile can sometimes even feel so comfortable that we don't really wish to change it, it's because we do not even know what we are missing. So every year, take at least one day to immerse yourself in the history of our people. Mourn for the actual pain and suffering, the loss that really happened. A whole entire people, made homeless. Take yourself on an imaginary trip to Jerusalem in those days. And come out of it being sensitive to weakness, stronger in your confidence, and more compassionate to suffering. I think it's really worthwhile.
I hope the rest of 9 Avs we share together will be very meaningful and reflective, and that soon, there will be no more days of sorrow, only joy and shivat Tzion, a return to Zion.
Love, Mommy
Wednesday, August 2, 2017
Tuesday, August 1, 2017
Tisha B'Av 2017 - new crafts, videos and ideas
Last year's post gives a bunch of play and craft ideas including link to cute printable puppets from BirkatChaverim.com
New craft ideas: I am definitely getting some of these in advance of next 9 Av!
http://www.kosherkrafts.com/27-tisha-b-av
Animated videos of the story of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza: (all between 5-10 min.)
#1 (best narration of animated videos I watched, great commentary, a little more adult style, but very well done, and not overly graphic, beyond the unfortunate mistakes that are part of the story and have to be explained to kids anyway)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9LUV7rSfpc
#2: From the great new-ish site AlephBeta, which has tons of high quality webinars, videos, etc https://www.alephbeta.org/course/lecture/tisha-bav-2014-lecture-2/autoplay
#3: (From BimBam, not impressed with a couple details of it, but 99% recommended) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6t3Zm7nMTg
http://www.betweencarpools.com/what-to-watch-on-tisha-bav/
New 9 Av activity ideas
My favorite ideas from an article about camp activities for 9 Av (first two can be adapted to home, last few are just really good connections that may spur future activity ideas for older kids/at home.)
Rabbi #2: I remember during one summer at Camp Ramah in New England, we took the youngest campers, too young to really understand some of the themes of Tisha B’Av, down to the “waterfall” just outside the front gate of camp, on the river, and we talked about what it means to be separated from one’s home. We blindfolded them and walked them around in circles a bit so that they didn’t know where they were or how close they were to camp. It led to quite a good discussion and maybe helped them understand what it means to be “exiled.”
Use charcoal—literally burned wood from fires earlier in the summer— on paper, to depict challenging moments from their lives
Focus on the rabbinic idea that the Temple was destroyed because of sinat chinam [senseless hatred] and on Rav Kook’s complementary idea that the Temple would only be rebuilt because of ahavat chinam [senseless love]. Last year our program began with a focus on bullying—modern kids’ experience of senseless hatred. Several older campers volunteered to share personal narratives of being bullied. You could have heard a pin drop as they spoke. Then, the drama chug [activity] performed the story of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza, which defines senseless hatred, and then the idea of ahavat chinam. Then each cabin received a large wooden panel that had part of the cityscape of Jerusalem outlined on most of it, and a blank space on the bottom. The kids were asked first to each write down on a piece of paper an act of senseless love that they were committed to doing over the course of the holiday. Then they broke into two groups, the painters and the poets. The painters painted the cityscape. The poets wrote six-word poems on senseless love. When it was completed, the whole camp gathered in the amphitheater and, as we sang Yerushalayim shel Zahav, we lifted the 27 panels one by one—no one knew that they all fit together to form one large mural until this point—and literally rebuilt Jerusalem on the foundation of kindness.
Jewish Organizational Leader #1: There were a number of summers at Camp Stone where we cleaned up cemeteries after having learned about the people and community that used to thrive near our camps.
At Camp Modin, the evening before Tisha B’Av we have a beautiful ceremony where the entire floor of the huge rec center is filled with styrofoam cups, with small tapers nailed to the bottom, in the shape of a Jewish star. The campers file in from the lawn and 400 kids sit around the star. The lights are off, and the older campers do a program that has everything from historical quotes from Anne Frank to facts about the Holocaust and other tragedies throughout Jewish history. We take them through a journey and sing Eli Eli, and Gesher Tzar M’od and Oseh Shalom and other songs of peace. Even the little kids feel a sense of awe.
girl-power-positive programming about fasting. We had the girls talk in small, facilitated groups about why they were fasting. No shock: Tisha B’Av and Jerusalem were not on the top of the list; it was a day of trying to look better. We then looked through magazines and asked the girls to share the messages they were getting (you need longer eyelashes, here are the top 10 ways to a skinnier you …). Then we challenged them to find or create positive body images. It became somewhat of a collage, cutting and pasting words and images, adding in a “don’t” in some places, to change the negativity into something positive. We concluded with a discussion about healthy choices—eating, exercising, relating to friends—so that we were “rebuilding” the Temple: the temple of our souls, of our bodies. (think of the verse- Bilvavi mishkan evneh- in my heart i will build a sanctuary- sanctity of our bodies)
New craft ideas: I am definitely getting some of these in advance of next 9 Av!
http://www.kosherkrafts.com/27-tisha-b-av
Animated videos of the story of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza: (all between 5-10 min.)
#1 (best narration of animated videos I watched, great commentary, a little more adult style, but very well done, and not overly graphic, beyond the unfortunate mistakes that are part of the story and have to be explained to kids anyway)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9LUV7rSfpc
#2: From the great new-ish site AlephBeta, which has tons of high quality webinars, videos, etc https://www.alephbeta.org/course/lecture/tisha-bav-2014-lecture-2/autoplay
#3: (From BimBam, not impressed with a couple details of it, but 99% recommended) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6t3Zm7nMTg
Video list for older kids:
pre-teens or teens (because basically all of them have Holocaust content, not sure at what age/maturity that is OK.)http://www.betweencarpools.com/what-to-watch-on-tisha-bav/
New 9 Av activity ideas
My favorite ideas from an article about camp activities for 9 Av (first two can be adapted to home, last few are just really good connections that may spur future activity ideas for older kids/at home.)
Rabbi #2: I remember during one summer at Camp Ramah in New England, we took the youngest campers, too young to really understand some of the themes of Tisha B’Av, down to the “waterfall” just outside the front gate of camp, on the river, and we talked about what it means to be separated from one’s home. We blindfolded them and walked them around in circles a bit so that they didn’t know where they were or how close they were to camp. It led to quite a good discussion and maybe helped them understand what it means to be “exiled.”
Use charcoal—literally burned wood from fires earlier in the summer— on paper, to depict challenging moments from their lives
Focus on the rabbinic idea that the Temple was destroyed because of sinat chinam [senseless hatred] and on Rav Kook’s complementary idea that the Temple would only be rebuilt because of ahavat chinam [senseless love]. Last year our program began with a focus on bullying—modern kids’ experience of senseless hatred. Several older campers volunteered to share personal narratives of being bullied. You could have heard a pin drop as they spoke. Then, the drama chug [activity] performed the story of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza, which defines senseless hatred, and then the idea of ahavat chinam. Then each cabin received a large wooden panel that had part of the cityscape of Jerusalem outlined on most of it, and a blank space on the bottom. The kids were asked first to each write down on a piece of paper an act of senseless love that they were committed to doing over the course of the holiday. Then they broke into two groups, the painters and the poets. The painters painted the cityscape. The poets wrote six-word poems on senseless love. When it was completed, the whole camp gathered in the amphitheater and, as we sang Yerushalayim shel Zahav, we lifted the 27 panels one by one—no one knew that they all fit together to form one large mural until this point—and literally rebuilt Jerusalem on the foundation of kindness.
Jewish Organizational Leader #1: There were a number of summers at Camp Stone where we cleaned up cemeteries after having learned about the people and community that used to thrive near our camps.
At Camp Modin, the evening before Tisha B’Av we have a beautiful ceremony where the entire floor of the huge rec center is filled with styrofoam cups, with small tapers nailed to the bottom, in the shape of a Jewish star. The campers file in from the lawn and 400 kids sit around the star. The lights are off, and the older campers do a program that has everything from historical quotes from Anne Frank to facts about the Holocaust and other tragedies throughout Jewish history. We take them through a journey and sing Eli Eli, and Gesher Tzar M’od and Oseh Shalom and other songs of peace. Even the little kids feel a sense of awe.
girl-power-positive programming about fasting. We had the girls talk in small, facilitated groups about why they were fasting. No shock: Tisha B’Av and Jerusalem were not on the top of the list; it was a day of trying to look better. We then looked through magazines and asked the girls to share the messages they were getting (you need longer eyelashes, here are the top 10 ways to a skinnier you …). Then we challenged them to find or create positive body images. It became somewhat of a collage, cutting and pasting words and images, adding in a “don’t” in some places, to change the negativity into something positive. We concluded with a discussion about healthy choices—eating, exercising, relating to friends—so that we were “rebuilding” the Temple: the temple of our souls, of our bodies. (think of the verse- Bilvavi mishkan evneh- in my heart i will build a sanctuary- sanctity of our bodies)
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