30 July 2020

Destruction of the cosmic Temple? Tish B'Av and Christians

Reading about Tisha B'Av in the Jewish calendar, I understood that it is much about the destructions (yes that's plural: one by the Babylonian empire and the next by the Roman, there has been no third temple) of the Temple in Jerusalem and also folded into those sorrowful recollections have been the calamities that have afflicted Jewish people (pogroms, expulsions, shoah, etc). The destruction of Temple in this way becomes a metaphor for other destructions -including Hiroshima. I wondered whether also taking the idea of creation -or at least the Earth as God's temple- it could be a time of lament for climate-chaos and breakdown? Perhaps a mini-liturgical season could be honoured informally?
If so, how might it look? The Tisha B'Av 'season' is three weeks and the timing is set by the Jewish lunar calendar relating to the anniversaries of the destruction of the Temple (on the ninth of the month of Av). It often takes in Hiroshima day (6 August) and that seems to be one of the things that a number of Jewish people fold into their observance of the season. So maybe the thing to do would be to take in the dropping of the nuclear bombs the 2nd being at Nagasaki on 9 August, and perhaps taking a week or two before that with, therefore, the Feast of the Transfiguration also on 6th. So end of July to start. Perhaps Mary Magdalene's feast day on 22 might be a good starting point -the story of her taking spices to anoint Jesus' body and also witnessing the resurrection are good starting points for considering 'calamitous' events? She's often associated with the woman who anointed Jesus' feet "for his burial" too ...
So I'm not proposing to change Sunday readings or anything at this point but to keep the days in between as times of reflection, prayer and repentance regarding human-made calamities affecting the cosmic Temple that is the Earth.

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