After Tisha b'Av 5784

Consolation for What We Lost: Following Tisha b'Av, there are seven prophetic readings of consolation - all from Isaiah - that comfort us after the Black Fast and prepare us, emotionally and spiritually, for the upcoming High Holidays.

This year, many of us New MexiJews - and many of us in the worldwide Jewish community - refuse to be consoled over the losses we have suffered. How can we ever dance again?

And this year, many of us Jews show strength and determination to move joyfully toward the future. We will dance again! 

Abq Jew has heard a story, about a certain rabbi, who had a very particular Tisha b'Av custom.

Every year, after the Black Fast was concluded, he gathered up all his copies of Eicha (Lamentations); all his Kinot (Elegies); all his Tisha b'Av sermons - and burned them.

Why? Because each year he hoped - no, he believed, and he wished to openly demonstrate his belief - that God would make this the last sad Tisha b'Av, and that next year we Jews would all dance again - to celebrate the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the return of all the Jews to the Holy Land.

But slowly.

It's no longer Tisha b'Av.
But it's still October 7th.

To start us off on our voyage to JOY, here is a video that's been going around the Internet. The place is the Leonardo da Vinci Airport in Rome (Italy). The piece is "Summer," from Antonio Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. 

The pianist is Julien Cohen. The 10-year-old violinist is YeonAh Kim.