Tisha B'av-9th of Av

"If someone would give my head enough water, and my eyes a large enough source of tears, I would cry day and night over the destruction of my people (Jeremiah)."

Though we often focus on the part of Tisha B'av that has a silver lining. The well know idea that the Messiah would be born on this day, that certain sad prayers are not said and that it is only from the ashes of destruction that redemption can emerge. Yet there is another side to Tisha B'av. If only we had enough tears so we would cry constantly, all day everyday. It would be a rason d'etra in itself. It would be engulfing. Its own meaning, not a means to an end. This is the max response to destruction. On Tisha B'av we can relate to it, to an all engulfing mourning, a way of life.

The Jewish calendar is amazing this way. It takes us through all of our emotions, to extremes. The nature of extreme emotion is that that is all there is. We must put aside another self, a future time, the past even, and be totally in the all engulfing present. Tisha B'av is one day, yet it is all the time. Purim too will be one day, yet all the time.

Sometimes we are commanded to do both. When a mourner reaches Yom Tov, a holiday, suddenly they do not mourn. How can they do this? But this is the Torah's way, an all engulfing present .