Dear Friends,
As we approach Tisha B’Av, the saddest day on the Jewish calendar, there’s a question that many people ask:
Why are we still mourning?
The destruction of the Holy Temple happened nearly 2,000 years ago. So much time has passed. So much pain has followed. Is this really something we can still connect to?
But perhaps the greatest secret of Jewish survival is this: we never got used to the darkness.
Even in the worst of times, we believed that things could get better. That they should get better. That the world as it is is not the world as it’s meant to be.
There’s a story from the Soviet Union, when Judaism was outlawed. A group of Jews had gathered in a hidden underground cellar to learn Torah. It was dark, pitch black, and when a latecomer arrived, stumbling down the stairs, he said, “I can’t see anything! It’s too dark!”
One of the boys who had already been there for a while replied: “Don’t worry. You’ll get used to it.”
And that’s exactly the danger.
Sometimes, in life, we adjust to things we were never meant to accept. A relationship without warmth. A world filled with noise and cruelty. A constant stream of “bad news” that leaves us numb. We stop asking if this is normal. We stop remembering that it’s not.
Torah doesn’t let us forget. Judaism calls us to feel. To remember. To dream of more. The power of mourning is not in sadness. It’s in resistance. We mourn because we care. Because we believe in redemption. Because we know in our bones: this is not how the world is supposed to be.
Napoleon once said that a nation that mourns the past is one that will rebuild it. That is the Jewish spirit. We cry, because we remember. We remember, because we still believe.
Tisha B’Av is here to remind us:
Don’t get used to the darkness. Don’t make peace with brokenness. Don’t accept tragedy as the way things are supposed to be.
And this message is not only about ancient history.
This week, we witnessed another tragedy. A shooting in New York that took the lives of four innocent people, including a police officer. And likewise, in Israel and around the world, our brothers and sisters are in pain. Our hearts break. And yet, how easy it is to scroll past. To get used to it. But we can’t. We won’t. We cannot be complacent. We must keep feeling. We must keep pushing.
There are still 50 hostages languishing in the dungeon in Gaza, held captive now for 665 days. We cannot go silent or complacent. We must keep speaking their names, praying for them, and pleading that they be returned to their loving families now.
When Sasha Troufanov and Sapir Cohen came to speak to our community, they reminded us what it means to never give up and never to succumb to darkness. Even after 498 and 50 days in captivity, they carried hope in the darkest of places.
The world feels full of pain and our job is not to normalize it. Our job is to transform it. To build. To hope. To bring more light.
That is the work we are called to do. And it begins with refusing to settle for the way things are.
And as we approach this meaningful Shabbos, I can’t wait to see everyone in shul. Let’s come together, as we always do at Chabad of Naples. With hope, with heart, and with a shared mission to bring more light. This Shabbos, let’s gather to remember, to feel, and to renew our strength together.
May this Tisha B’Av be the last. And may we never stop longing for the world as it should be.
With love and blessings,
Rabbi Fishel & Ettie Zaklos