ASHES AND EMBERS: A LAMENT FOR TISHA B’ AV
Rabbi Ben Newman
Eikhah! How can it be? That joy once danced in these streets, that laughter echoed through these gates now splintered and silent.
Jerusalem sits alone— not only the city of stone and history, but the Jerusalem we each carry inside: that vision of wholeness, that dream that we once believed unbreakable.
We walk the ruins, barefoot in memory, tracing grief like a finger over cracked parchment. The walls have fallen— in the Temple, in our homes, in our hearts.
We sit on the ground with the mourners of every age, those who have wept by candlelight, who have buried their hopes in scorched soil, who have asked, again and again, Where were You, when the fires came?
And yet— there is a whisper that rises from the dust.
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