Well, Tisha B'Av was pretty quiet for me. I stayed in that evening into the next day. I prayed on my own the Tisha B'Av service that I had brought along with me and then chanted from the Book of Lamentations.
The fast was fairly easy.
TV - interesting. The 24 hour music video channel stopped running any advertisements or young adult serial drama programs. They played "quiet" music "continuously". It certainly wasn't themed on Tisha B'Av, but it was a major tone down from their regular fare.
There was a wonderful presentation (taped) from a meeting room at the Knesset. There were members of the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) there - though not the Prime Minister or President - but the woman second in command (I should know her name and title, but don't) was there.
The presentation (hartza'a) that I watched was a drash on Psalm 137 (look it up!) given by a professor (his name is in my notes somewhere) from Hebrew University. He was a very good presenter. I understood about 50% of what he said in terms of words, but got about 75% of the content - though I couldn't repeat much of it at this point - and wasn't able to both listen and take notes.
With our separation of church and state (though the White House and Congress have prayer breakfasts, etc.) it was interesting to see the blend here in Israel.
As I looked around the room when the cameras panned to the participants (think C-Span) I saw that they all had in front of them a Bible which is exactly the one I bought for myself here in Israel. It's from the Aleppo Codex (an ancient manuscript) and was published by Hebrew University. I hadn't seen it anywhere in the States and it looked very interesting. Not that I needed vindication for my purchase, but it was certainly a confirming moment.
On the TV news channels there were discussions about Tisha B'Av and occasionally a small choir would sing appropriate songs.
A slice of life.
Rabbi Heath
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