Cancer, and a year of chemotherapy, gave me a new perspective on Jewish holidays—starting with Tisha B’Av
By Raffi Leicht for Tablet Magazine
The
day before Tisha B’Av three years ago, I ate the egg and ashes prescribed as the
meal before the fast begins, taking my last bite of the sliced white bread. On
the eve of the darkest date in Jewish history, as I sat on a milk crate and
gazed into a field and its tree-lined background, I began to cry.
I wasn’t only crying because of Tisha B’Av, but also for myself: I knew something was wrong. For weeks, while I’d been teaching at an Orthodox Jewish summer camp in upstate New York, I had been waking up in bed sheets dampened by sweat, despite sleeping in air-conditioning. My exhaustion and the lumps in my chest and throat had grown so rapidly that even in my bed, I could find no rest. Before settling upstate for the summer, I had gone to see a dermatologist to deal with an insatiable itch throughout my body; like a fire spreading, it gave no warning, no sign of rash. A prescription for an ointment to soothe my skin was filled but never used. And now, weeks later, I was getting worse.
The next morning, on Tisha B’Av, I read Eicha, Lamentations, at camp—it was the first time I’d read it publicly. Assigned the fifth chapter, I came across verses that left me trembling, just as I did when I tried to sleep, shuddering from a cold that wasn’t there.
The fifth and final chapter of Lamentations is different from the previous four. It is the only one not arranged alphabetically, symbolizing the chaotic order and misalignment I felt going on within me. “Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers; our houses to foreigners,” it reads (5:2), much like my own body. “Upon our necks we are pursued; we toil, and we find no rest,” (5:5), much like the protrusion in my own throat.
Continue reading.
The
day before Tisha B’Av three years ago, I ate the egg and ashes prescribed as the
meal before the fast begins, taking my last bite of the sliced white bread. On
the eve of the darkest date in Jewish history, as I sat on a milk crate and
gazed into a field and its tree-lined background, I began to cry. I wasn’t only crying because of Tisha B’Av, but also for myself: I knew something was wrong. For weeks, while I’d been teaching at an Orthodox Jewish summer camp in upstate New York, I had been waking up in bed sheets dampened by sweat, despite sleeping in air-conditioning. My exhaustion and the lumps in my chest and throat had grown so rapidly that even in my bed, I could find no rest. Before settling upstate for the summer, I had gone to see a dermatologist to deal with an insatiable itch throughout my body; like a fire spreading, it gave no warning, no sign of rash. A prescription for an ointment to soothe my skin was filled but never used. And now, weeks later, I was getting worse.
The next morning, on Tisha B’Av, I read Eicha, Lamentations, at camp—it was the first time I’d read it publicly. Assigned the fifth chapter, I came across verses that left me trembling, just as I did when I tried to sleep, shuddering from a cold that wasn’t there.
The fifth and final chapter of Lamentations is different from the previous four. It is the only one not arranged alphabetically, symbolizing the chaotic order and misalignment I felt going on within me. “Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers; our houses to foreigners,” it reads (5:2), much like my own body. “Upon our necks we are pursued; we toil, and we find no rest,” (5:5), much like the protrusion in my own throat.
Continue reading.
No comments:
Post a Comment