A time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to wail and a time to dance – Ecclesiastes 3:4

There is a limit set for grieving. Even for a beloved relative the Torah forbids us to prolong our grief beyond the norm. The stages of grief are the initial week known as “shiva,” followed by thirty days known as “shloshim,” finally culminating at the first “yahrzeit” – the anniversary. Excessive grief, however, when mourning goes beyond the allotted time, transforms a healthy and natural emotion from being positive to extremely negative, hampering us and not allowing us to move on in life. Remembering the deceased is crucial, as is honouring their memory – and the pain of loss sometimes will never leave us, but active grieving should be confined to only the first year.

At this time in the Jewish calendar we make the switch from a period of grief and mourning to times of hope and joy. This past Tuesday was Tisha Be’Av – the saddest day in the calendar, a day when we commemorate and mourn the tragedies of our history, the destruction and the exile, the crusades, the inquisitions and the pogroms. We read the mournful and poignant elegies, composed with broken hearts and bitter tears and we try to envisage the milieu in which they were authored, the emotions and heartbreak poured into the dark ink, recording the tragic events for posterity. The Haftarot we read on the last three Shabbatot were also designated as appropriate for this time, dealing with prophecies of exile and destruction.

That is now all behind us, and we move on to positive and uplifting times. As soon as Tisha Be’Av is over we brighten our perspective, raise our eyes from the ground and talk of good times. The 15^th of Av is the key day in all of this. Known in the vernacular as “Tu Be’Av” (the word Tu being the enunciation of the letters Tet and Vav together which make the number 15) the Mishna tells us that this was one of the greatest days of celebration in the Jewish calendar. This was the day in which speed dating was first invented. The single young women of Jerusalem would dress in white on this day, and dance together in the vineyards. The young men would join them in the vineyards and they would each try to find their appropriate shidduch.

Tu Be’Av also commemorates quite a few “happy” occasions in our history (or at least marks the end of sad events). Among other events it was on this day that the generation of the Exodus from Egypt finally stopped dying from the Divine decree in the desert; it was the day the tribe of Benjamin were once again allowed to marry into the other tribes of Israel (they had been banned following a civil war over the Pilegesh be’Givah incident); it is the day when the thousands slain by Hadrian at Beitar were finally allowed to be brought to burial. It is also the first “heads-up” that the months of Elul and Tishrei are just around the corner.

In the Haftarot too we see a change for the positive. Following the three “punishment” Haftarot we now have seven consecutive “comforting” Haftarot beginning this Shabbat with the reading from Isaiah, “Nachamu, nachamu ami – Comfort, O comfort my people (says G-d).” The double expression of comfort is seen as referring to the Beit Hamikdash, twice destroyed. An interesting note here is that if we total the number of verses in these seven comforting Haftarot we find 144 verses altogether. If we total the number of verses in the “admonition (tochacha)” portions of the Torah we find 143. The symbolism here is important: however great the trials and tribulations we may endure – the comfort and consolation will always be greater.

So as we move as a people from times of sadness and mourning into times of hope and happiness let us try and absorb that into our own personal lives too. If there is something painful that we find hard to forget, something tragic which fills our thoughts and which we find it difficult to move on from, let’s remember that there is a time limit for everything. There is a time to grieve and to feel pain, but there is also a time to accept the judgement of Heaven, and to move on with hope, motivation and inner happiness to fulfil the mission we were sent to this world to fulfil.

And together may we merit to once again hear the sounds of laughter and jubilation in the streets of Jerusalem as we make our way to the rebuilt Beit Hamikdash.

Shabbat shalom

Rabbi Zalman Lent