Alas: A Lament for Tisha B’Av

1.
Alas, the city!

All the good things of a city,
These marvelous people,
And all that push and that pull!
All that music and disputation,
Those meetings and glorious conversations,
And all those show offs and all the crowds that love to watch and listen to them!
All that science and knowledge,
The teaching and that learning,
All this glorious movement of air and breath!

Alas, the city,
Shut down.
The city cries.
We have lost our hearts.
Blessed Holy Wholeness,
Breathing us in and breathing us out,
We forgot to give thanks.

2. Alas, God’s anger!

God,
However you understand or don’t understand God,
Is under assault.

Yet it is unclear which pains God the most:
The lies, the greed and corruption?

The masks, the kidnapping, the violence?
Or is it a package deal?
But perhaps these are “only”
Sins against people, not sins agains God,
So as to be dealt with during Elul
While we work it out amongst ourselves.

Because we will have our say:
We have
Our lawyers, our judges, our suits,
Our protests, our actions, our votes.
And everyone knows what you’ve done.

But for the sins against the One-ness,
Prepare yourself to be weighed and found wanting.
You revel in how you break our connection to the Whole,
You are appalling!
You attacked our hearts and
You used our fear against us.
These are sins against God,
The ones that break true connection,
And it is known who and what you are.

Alas, Gods anger,
Is fierce
And deserved.

3.
Alas, loneliness!

Detention, Bombing, Torture

Ignorance, Conspiracy, Defunding 

Wailing, Searching, Dying

Alas!
I am so frightened.
I weep and who will hear me?

4. Alas, compassion!

You are willfully foolish.
You are cruel and use hate as a tool.
In your greed and stupidity,
You ignore the degradation of our planet
And the answers of science
And look where it leads us!
Species and forests disappear.
Old people and the poor
Are used and discarded
The hungry are allowed to starve 

The sick are allowed to die.

Racism is celebrated,
Misogyny extolled.

Sexual and gender diversity denied. 

Creatives are shut up,

Education is shut down.  
Where is normal human empathy?
It’s so creepy.

We grieve for the sick and the dead,
We grieve for the murdered and the neglected,
We grieve for all we have lost and will lose.

Alas, compassion! Why do they laugh?
Pray for mercy.

5.​ Alas, memory!

We remember
Those who died by bomb
And those who died by police,
Those who died by gas
And those who died by suffocation,
Those who died by infection
And those who died from neglect.

We remember
Those who were shot in trenches
And those who died without vaccination,
Those who died by starvation,
Those who died with a knee on their neck
And those who died hanging from a tree.

Those who were tortured in detention. 

And because we remember
We can resist our privilege if we have it;
We will resist racism when we see it;
We must resist cruelty and stupidity when they beckon;
We need to resist lethargy and despair when it calls us.

Alas, memory!

The time will come for revenge

And you will be called to answer for your sins. 

We remember and will not let you forget. 
We remember and promise to change
Ourselves and the world,
Returning to our true selves
With
Holy Conversation,
Sacred Disturbance
And Necessary Trouble.

Amen