A different approach to Tisha b’Av
RABBI Yechiel Spero's book Touched by Their Tears is a new and different approach to Tisha b'Av where we learn how to mourn and how to hope.
BOOK REVIEW: YOSSI ARON
Touched by Their Tears: A Kinnos Companion, by Rabbi Yechiel Spero. Artscroll Series, Mesorah Publications Limited, 2009.
DURING the Three Weeks and especially on Tisha b’Av, we mourn the destruction of the Beit Hamikdash. However, even if we devote hours to the recital of the entire lengthy and off-putting volume of Kinnot (the poems collected over centuries for recitation on Tisha b’Av), how many of us do this by rote, without truly feeling the pain?
Of course, the real question to be asked is how can we tap into a true well of emotion for an event that took place thousands of years ago?
From that we then move to the next step -— how can we use that mourning as an impetus for self teaching and self improvement?
Subtitled “The Soul of Tisha b’Av through stories and reflections”, this book uses stories of tragedy and hope to place the Kinnot of old in a context that all can understand. Many of those stories relate to recent events that we are more familiar with and saintly personalities who we have heard so much about.
Through them we can at least try to better understand tragic and difficult events, both national and personal, from the tragedy of the destruction of the Temple to the Holocaust, and to the tragic terrorist-perpetuated horrors still fresh in our minds.
In Touched by Their Tears, Rabbi Spero teaches us the power of our own tears. We learn how to mourn — and how to hope. As a very new and different approach to Tisha b’Av, this book is indeed recommended.