Where does it hurt?

Once again, as we do each summer, we take the time to ask this awful question, to hold the grief of our ancestors, mixed with our own, leaning into lamentations as the fast day of the Ninth of Av comes around. This year we will mark it on August 3rd, and you are invited to join us in Brooklyn for a sacred retreat, dedicated to grief and memory work, much needed for mental health and collective body flow.

We’re in the midst of the Three Weeks – a period in the Jewish calendar that remembers destruction and exile, and highlights painful patterns of hate and discord. These days aren’t just about the past; they’re warning signs meant to guide us forward: to choose better, and be better!

This year, with hearts broken, the devastation of death and hurt continuing in Israel and Palestine, the rage rippling out and impacting all of us, so much turmoil and violence in our country  — how do we hold each other’s hurt? How can we make room for grief so that we honor our feelings, deal with despair, and find some path towards healing and hope – together?

From our ancestors we’ve inherited not just traumas but also the wise ways of responding to them, with resilience and creativity, courage and empathy. We come together as a community to grieve – and to grow.

Lab/Shul’s tradition is to begin our High Holy Days Season on this day of broken dreams –
and build from it towards a season of repair and renewal.
We rise from the rubble on the 9th of Av, known as “Tisha B’av” to begin again
the journey of return to our best selves, valuing our vulnerability.  

On Sunday, August 3rd, join Lab/Shul, Rav Jericho Vincent, Temple of the Stranger, and special guests – including Rev. Derrick McQueen of St. James Church – for a powerful day of ritual, song, and learning. Immerse in embodied practices that open the heart and honor the intertwined paths of love and grief.

As Rabbi Alan Lew z”l write in one of our favorite sources to prepare for this season, “What is required of us at Tisha B’Av is a simple turn of mind, a turn toward consciousness, a turn away from denial, from the inertia, from the passive momentum of our lives, a turn away from those things that continue to happen unconsciously, and a conscious decision to change. A letting go, letting the walls of identity crumble, and turning toward that which remains….”

We look forward to holding hurt, and being held with you, together, towards healing and hope.

With great love,
Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie, Co-Founder, Senior Clergy & Spiritual Leader and
Shira Kline, Co-Founder & Spiritual Leader