The Tenth of Av, Seven Haftaros of Consolation, and Life After the Pain

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The Tenth of Av,  Seven Haftaros of Consolation, and Life After the Pain

Every year, after Tishah b’Av is over, I find myself eager to just put it all behind me and get on with enjoying my summer. (To be honest, I think some of this attitude is residual “halachic resentment” from when my friends and I followed a psak which prohibited almost all social gatherings of more than two people; suffice it to say, that put a dent into my summer vacation.) It’s always a drag to break the fast after Tishah b’Av and still be bound by many of the prohibitions of the Nine Days until midday on the Tenth of Av.

This year, however, I am going to attempt to relate to the Tenth of Av differently. Tara Brach’s book, Radical Compassion, is about the mindfulness practice of RAIN: an acronym for Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture. There is a fifth step called “after the RAIN,” which she describes as follows:

The four steps of RAIN involve active ways of directing our attention. In After the RAIN, we shift from doing to being. The invitation is to relax and let go into the heartspace that has emerged. Rest in this awareness and become familiar with it; this is your true home. Now, paying attention to the quality of your presence – the openness, wakefulness, tenderness – ask yourself: “In these moments, what is the sense of my being, of who I am?” “How has this shifted from when I began the meditation?”

There are examples of “after the rain” type practices in halacha as well, most notably in tefilah:

And he should not make his tefilah like one who is carrying a burden who casts it off and goes on his way. Therefore, he must sit for a little while after tefilah, and only then may he depart. The early pious Sages would pause for an hour before tefilah, and an hour after tefilah, and they would extend tefilah for an hour. (Rambam: Hilchos Tefilah 4:16)

What are we supposed to do during this post-tefilah “pause”? Presumably, we engage in a process akin to what Tara describes: to reflect on what transpired during our davening, to allow our thoughts and feelings to integrate the effects of our tefilah, and to prepare to reenter life enlightened by the experience.

We observe mourning practices of the Tenth of Av because the Beis ha’Mikdash continued to burn. On a basic level, turning away from our metaphysical trauma and running back to our normal lives would reflect a callous attitude towards the tragedies of Tishah b’Av and their implications. Imagine someone in the middle of a commemorative ceremony at Auschwitz saying, “Sorry, I gotta go. I have tickets to the new Marvel movie, and it’s starting in an hour.” The extension of mourning protects us from this insensitivity.

However, I would like to suggest that the extension of our mourning into the Tenth of Av can function as an “After the RAIN” pause – a time when we can sit in the aftermath of our painful reflections and our national teshuvah and reflect on how to reenter our lives in light of these transformative three weeks.

This function is also served by the Sheva d’Nechamta – the seven haftaros of consolation we read between Tishah b’Av and Rosh ha’Shanah. I haven’t learned these haftaros in-depth, nor have I learned about why we read them, but I know one thing for certain: if we took the messages of these haftaros to heart, then we would not simply cease thinking about the Three Weeks, the Nine Days, and Tishah b’Av at midday on the Tenth, and then return to our lives. Instead, we would utilize this period of seven weeks to build a bridge from our metaphysical trauma and subsequent teshuvah, through the remaining summer months, until the Moadim of Tishrei. I don’t know exactly what this bridge is supposed to look like, but I’m sure that if it’s done correctly, the experience will be transformative. I’d like to give it my best shot.

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