Posted on Tisha Be'Av

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