Eight Ninths of Av
2015: For one night it makes full sense
To be sleeping on dad's floor
Mourning our imperfect world
Yearning for our redemption
2008: I speak to a small crowd at Y.U. at night
I spend all day watching inspirational videos
I am not sleeping well, have a woman on my brain
My friendship with this woman feels destroyed
2006: An older man named Ephrayim Caspi
Asks me to carry his Torah down the steps to the Kotel
The fast is hard on him, he could use a hand
I feel important as he tells the guard, “He’s with me”
1998: I’m teaching in Camp Morasha
and feel I was tricked
Into walking across the campus to speak at two A.M. minyanim
Someone has manipulated me on a day of brotherhood.
In the afternoon I speak about "Spirituality," a
teen girl thanks me
1990: I spend Tisha B’Av sleeping on X’s floor
I spend the whole summer living on his floor
While I date Y, which goes until winter,
when she tells me, “Maybe the spring will be a better time”
1987: In yeshiva in Yerushalayim a rabbi tics me off
As he wonders aloud if we still need to mourn
He says it’s hard for him, what with the redemption here
Where, I wonder? My world is still unredeemed
1978: I am 15 and sleep in Great Neck Synagogue
My friend C goes and I tag along
They have a black hat Torah learning program
We recite kinnot from 9 AM to 1 PM, new to me
1975: The summer after seventh grade - My family takes a
Vacation to Israel. That’s my Bar Mitzvah present.
My parents fight and it gets really bad
By Tisha B’Av, all is “OK,” we wail at The Wall as a family
