I agree. We do not want to turn back time to era of the sacrifical cult in a monarchy constantly threatened with enslavement or destruction by aggressive neighbors, we want to go forward wiht an evolved religion.

The great sage, Rabbi Max Lilianthal, argued that to fast and lament the diaspora on Tishe B'Av (the Ninth of Av) was improper. Instead it should be a day of joy for it ushered in the diaspora and sent Jews on their holy mission to bring God's word to the world. He recognized that only by settling the Jews around the world could they fulfill their divine purpose. Rejecting in true Reform fashion the notion of American Jews being in exile, he said "here is our home."

Some have reasoned that to observe Tishe B'Av with mourning is to insult the Good Lord and deny the blessings he has bestowed on us as Americans.

In any event, that is a holiday for a different time and place.

Reading through the comments on my Torah Commentary, I was struck by the difference between what I thought I wrote about and what others read. Over the years, teaching the Midrashic homilies on the special haftarot that are read before and after Tisha b'Av has lead me to the conclusion that we have a unique opportunity to utilize the day in a manner representative of the values of Reform Judaism. At the CCAR Convention in San Diego I taught a session on texts representing a coherent concern with issues of what we call social injustices. The Torah Commentary was another opportunity to talk about this.

The issue for me has nothing to do with fasting and lamenting. It has to do with the meaning of prophetic and rabbinic text that emphasize corruption of the political and judicial system, undermining protections in the market place and economic deprivation for the powerless in society.

Unless I'm wrong, there is no day in our calendar which encourages us to focus specifically on these and other issues that can be assessed under the umbrella of our concerns with social action. Whether we focus on our own Jewish Community, what has happened in recent years in American society, or problems of corruption and economic distress in Israel--there is more than enough to reflect on using classical and modern Jewish critique embedded in the texts of our tradition.

This is an interesting discussion, and I'd like to share my perspective as an active congregant in a Reform synagogue that has been observing Tisha b'Av for a number of years. We never saw it as even remotely being about wanting to bring back the rituals of the Temple. Rather, we see it as one stop along the way of an annual cycle that gives us ongoing opportunities for spiritual development. Our rabbi quoted Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch in the observation that "the catechism of the Jew is his (sic) calendar." Tisha b'Av is the low point -- the point of raw suffering and hitting bottom -- that we need to encounter before the climb up to the High Holy Days. I think that acknowledging suffering and sitting with it is something we need to learn to do, if we are to be able to respond effectively to suffering in our own communities and around the world. The three weeks before Tisha b'Av get us ready for the stark moment. Listening to the haunting and beautiful cantillation of Eicha (the Book of Lamentations) helps us to rise up from the despair recounted in the text. After this, the seven weeks with the Haftarot of Consolation leading up to Rosh HaShanah really make sense: we really get what it means to start doing the work of teshuvah.

I was intrigued by Rabbi Barth's suggestions as to how we might look at Tisha b'Av and I think it fits and enhances the approach we have taken.

Our actual observance has consisted of a study session on the themes of the holy day and an Erev Tisha b'Av service. We thought that because the observance is unfamiliar to Reform Jews, it was important to include some study, but because study of Torah is considered a joyful activity and thus specifically prohibited for Tisha b'Av, we confined the study to learning specifically about the day itself. We hold the service partly by candlelight in a space where there are low risers that people can sit on; there are chairs for people who can't do this. A former cantor of our congregation and I collaborated to produce both a service just for this and a selection from Eicha. The service includes some readings selected for Tisha b'Av. The Eicha booklet has a selection of 5-6 verses from each chapter and has an introduction explaining a little about the book, the translation we used, and why and how we made the selection we did. I have both the service and the Eicha readings electronically (as Davkawriter 6 files, but they can be converted to pdfs) and would be willing to share them with anyone who might be interested in exploring using them. Contact me at mrbdc[at]net1plus[dot]com.

One year we invited a refugee from Darfur to address us in place of the study session, and we connected the contemporary suffering in Darfur to that of our people in the destruction of Jerusalem that Tisha b'Av commemorates.

As BZ has observed elsewhere, Tisha B'Av is on our calendar whether or not we choose to observe it as a sacred day.

Whether or not we choose to mourn the destruction of the two Temples, it behooves us to know where we came from and to understand the consequences of events, intended or not. Had the Second Temple not been destroyed, sooner or later it would have been repurposed, because animal sacrifice became out of touch with advancing sensibilities.

The rejection of Tisha B'Av reflected the embarrassment of the 19th century rabbinate over anything that might raise eyebrows among their their Christian neighbors -- both the spectre of dual loyalty and the crudity of the ancient practices. Enjoying the kind of security we do, at the very least it's instructive for us to understand why our predecessors 150 years ago felt the way they did, and what happened to the world and to the Jews did get their descendants past it.

American society has repurposed Memorial Day and Labor Day -- and Reform repurposed Shavuot into a time for Confirmation and Sukkot into a time for Consecration -- so why can't we repurpose Tisha B'Av into a time for remembering how bad turns into good?