Tisha B'Av

Today is the observance of the Jewish day of Tisha B'Av, the day of the destruction of the two temples in Jerusalem.  It's the ninth of the month of Av, except that today is really the tenth of Av.  We have to move the observance over one day because we are not allowed to fast on Shabbat, except for Yom Kippur.  Last night we went to services to begin the observance of the holiday.

There are a lot of rules for observing this holiday.  Oh, wait...that's true for everything in Judaism. LOL!  Oh, wait...I'm not supposed to laugh or enjoy anything today.  DOH!

Mark used to go to work on this day because there's no prohibition against that.  Because it always comes in the summer, I never had to do it.  I must admit that I never read all the rules for observing this day. This morning I decided to do some googling. I found a pdf file from a very observant synagogue somewhere (never found out where it was) and read some pretty restrictive rules. I guess this is why I don't go to that shul!

Mark is fasting, as he always does, with one small exception of taking enough water and small amount of cheese to make it safe for him to take his heart medication. Preservation of life is always paramount, and if he doesn't take this heart med twice a day, his life is definitely in danger.  I don't think I ever fasted on Tisha B'Av.  Today I am planning on skipping breakfast (not too hard when you don't get up until 9:15), eating a smaller than usual lunch, and having no snacks  The fast ends at 9 p.m., so we will be IN our local Denny's and ordering our food at 8:59!!  I have already had two cups of coffee, though.  I always observe the big fast on Yom Kippur, but I just can't seem to do these other ones.  Sigh.

My fledgling choir did a great job of singing "By the Waters of Babylon" in a four part round last night.  There were nine of them up there. Each part was three people and I was the fourth part by myself. It worked very well.  They received many compliments after services, and I hope they felt as proud of themselves as I felt proud of them for their work.

Yesterday we spent the day in the morning at shul, and then we went to the Shalom Club's luncheon and pool party.  We were pleasantly surprised at the party.  In addition to turkey wraps and corned beef sandwiches which did not use kosher meat, there were tuna salad and egg salad sandwiches.  Cole slaw, potato salad, pickles, watermelon, and chocolate chip cookies (regular and sugar free) rounded out the menu.  It was delicious!  There were about 40 people in attendance, and many came over to talk to us.  We knew a few of them, but many people just stopped by to introduce themselves because they had not met us before.  It was a nice, congenial group of people.  They had hired someone as a DJ and party organizer.  She had them playing some pool games and dancing in the pool. I took a plastic "hard hat" and danced YMCA along with everybody else.  The pool was so warm that it felt like bathwater!  It was fun to go over to the other side of Solivita, called Venezia.  They have a pretty big pool and clubhouse over there, so it was a nice space to use.  I felt sorry for the people in the house right next to the pool. The loud music and the DJ on the microphone must surely have been heard inside their house. I wonder if they thought about that when they picked that lot.

After the party, we came home and napped before showering, dressing, having dinner, and heading over to  SOJC for the Tisha B'Av services.  Mark and I laughed that it was probably the first day that we've had down here in Florida where we literally spent the whole day just with other Jews!  In Maryland there were probably many days like that since virtually all of our friends were from the synagogue.  On Shabbat we would go to services and then either spend the day home alone or play Mah Jong and hang out with our Jewish friends.  Here in Florida even when we go to shul, we often go to the pool in the afternoon and hang out with non-Jews.  Not that it matters to us whether our friends are Jewish or non-Jewish, but we just remarked on it yesterday because it was something new for us down here.