I used to cry easily. Like my dad, a good sappy TV commercial could do me in. I would cry at funerals when a tearful family member gave a eulogy, even if I hadn’t known the deceased. I used to cry in pain, in sorrow, in joy. 

 It’s been a long time since I had a good cry. I’m not sure when the tears stopped. All I know is that there are moments when I think I should be crying, when people around me are crying, and I am dry-eyed.

 I assure you, it is not due to a lack of empathy. Quite the opposite. I care deeply about people, feel their pain, and often walk with them on their life journeys, happy and sad. I just don’t shed tears along the way. 

 Next week the Jewish people will observe a communal day of mourning, called Tisha B’Av. Its name is the date; the ninth of the month of Av. It commemorates the two occasions in ancient times when the Temples in Jerusalem were destroyed. 

 This year, many are using it as an opportunity to mourn the horrific attacks of October 7, the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Still today, more than 100 people are being held captive in Gaza, kidnapped on that terrible day ten months ago.

 I have struggled to understand the correlation between mourning the loss of the ancient Temples and the pain of October 7th. Why not wait until October, or the date on the Jewish calendar, the holiday of Simchat Torah? That poses problems, of course — Simchat Torah literally means “joy in the Torah” and is one of the happiest days on the Jewish calendar. But that’s when the attack happened.

 And what of the original tragedies that Tisha B’Av commemorates? The destruction of the Temples, especially the second Temple in the year 70 CE, was a critical element in the shift of Judaism from being a sacrificial cult to the religion we observe today. I don’t mourn the loss of the priestly class and ending the practice of sacrificing animals. I’m glad that Judaism has emerged as a spiritual practice that stresses human kindness and repairing the broken parts of this world.

Over the three weeks leading up to Tisha B’Av, I have struggled. How am I going to mark the day? How can I find holiness in sitting on the floor and chanting the book of Lamentations? What if I don’t cry?

 I queried friends and sought answers in the Talmud and the writings of other sages, both ancient and modern. And I found my answer in my own words, from a sermon I gave years ago.

I was a new rabbi, and I had asked my mentor why people would cry during services for no discernible reason. She said, “Prayer services are a conduit for the feelings that come when we talk to God. That sometimes makes us cry. Not bitter tears. Not sad tears, or tears of joy. Tears of a heart opening to God.”

Tears of a heart opening to God. That sudden expansion of your chest that you can’t exactly explain. The feeling that is neither sadness nor joy but rather an acute awareness of the awe-inspiring universe, of being alive, of being human. 

Rabbi Elazar, a great sage of our past, said that the gates of prayer were locked after the second Temple was destroyed. But, he taught, the gates of tears are never locked. That is the power of tears, and of Tisha B’Av.

And that is the answer to my problem. Tisha B’Av isn’t about specific events. It’s about letting ourselves feel sorrow, to step out of our daily activities to simply mourn, and to express the pain that lies hidden behind our everyday faces. It’s about heart opening tears.

 There is a line from one of the special poems written for Tisha B’Av, called kinot. Kina 38 tells us, “Rise and let us cry, and shed a sea of tears, which will flow like rivers from my eyes to yours.”

May you each be blessed to shed heart-opening tears, tears that let the light in, whether you weep openly or not.