For most Reform communities these days, the “Three Weeks” leading up to Tisha b’Av are just like any other three weeks in the year. However, I know there are many folks in our community who grew up in different times. Perhaps you were told by your rabbi, “Sorry, you can’t have your wedding on that date, it’s in the ‘three weeks.’” But then the rabbi never told you why!
To begin, this is strictly an Ashkenazi custom — though Sephardim have their own version too. The Ashkenazi custom is not to hold weddings from the 17th day of Tamuz through the 9th day of Av.
So what is this custom and why isn’t it observed in our communities today?
“The Three Weeks” is a mourning period that lasts, you guessed it, three weeks. The mourning period recognizes times in our history in which things weren’t great for the Jewish people, in fact, they were some of the worst tragedies in our history – things like Moses breaking the tablets of the Ten Commandments after witnessing the golden calf incident, and later, the Romans forbidding sacrifices in the Second Temple. Ultimately, the mourning culminates on Tisha b’Av. We lament the complete destruction of The Second Temple in Jerusalem and all that accompanied the Temple’s downfall: the hatred between Jews that is attributed to its destruction, the loss of a centralized Jewish community, and the ultimate exile of the Jewish community from Jerusalem.
Some folks who observe these days as a period of mourning do not get haircuts, purchase new clothes, listen to music, or hold weddings.
If you’re going to a Jewish wedding in the next three weeks, you’ll notice these mourning customs are not observed! Here’s why:
- They’re customs, not laws. This means that they are not stated as law and thus communities who practice in particular ways do not always observe the custom.
- After the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, many communities transformed their observance of the Three Weeks and Tisha b’Av entirely by no longer fasting and doing away with services and programing. Some felt that we were no longer in a period of mourning because we returned to our ancestral homeland, and thus they ended the customs and recognition of the holiday.
- Until recent years, Reform communities haven’t spent much time observing Tisha b’Av. A lot of kids are at camp, families are traveling, so it tends to be a quieter time around the synagogue, and our liturgy changed to not pray for things like the rebuilding of the Third Temple in Jerusalem. Rather than a focus just on a return of the Jewish people to Jerusalem, we also focus on a return to peace for all people.
So if you’re heading to a wedding in the next three weeks, enjoy! AND with this new knowledge under your belt, maybe this is the year you come check out a Tisha b’Av service. Though we may have the State of Israel, we still mourn the hatred that continues between peoples. Yet tradition the Prophet Jeremiah says that we rise up stronger. We ask for Jeremiah’s words to be fulfilled: "I will turn their mourning into joy and will comfort them and make them rejoice from their sorrow.”
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Rachael
