13 Comments
User's avatar
Jay's avatar

Peter, I deeply appreciate your reflections on the emotional and philosophical underpinnings of our traditions. For those of us raised without religion, these traditions can seem baffling or even pointless. You always manage to bring home their historical context and their current relevance. Thank you, my friend.

Expand full comment
Peter Himmelman's avatar

Your comment is as good as it gets. Thank you.

Expand full comment
Foulkes Richard's avatar

Peter your reflections on Tisha B’Av moved me—the way memory, hunger, and loss are woven together into something enduring. But I wonder if grief can truly guide us if it ends at the borders of our own pain. I believe our people’s memory has its greatest power not when it shields us, but when it opens us to the suffering of others?

Compassion is the light that dims only when we view the "other" as not ourselves.

Beautiful explanation of this tradition.

Expand full comment
Peter Himmelman's avatar

Richard, You’ve touched on something important here. Pain is among the most powerfully felt of human experiences. Empathy for the pain of others seizes on that power—and makes it holy.

Expand full comment
Rabbi Anita Silvert's avatar

Well said. Memory allows us to honor the past, but also learn from it, and without that second part memory is simply a story without a moral.

Expand full comment
Peter Himmelman's avatar

Absolutely. T’som kal.

Expand full comment
Elliott Landy's avatar

A good way to AWAKEN in the morning.

Thank You Peter!

Expand full comment
Laurie Jarboe's avatar

Thank you. I had never heard of Tisha B'av.

Expand full comment
Abbi's avatar

Yasher koach!

Expand full comment
Larry Jaffe's avatar

Thank you good sir

Expand full comment
Ruth Jacobs's avatar

Thank you

Expand full comment
Stella Deporis's avatar

Profoundly beautiful!!

Expand full comment
Lynne Robinson's avatar

Amen

Expand full comment