9th of Av

The last couple of weeks has been an annual time of mourning marking the siege of the walls of Jerusalem by the Romans and then the destruction of the first (Damn Nebuchadnezzar!) and second (Damn Romans!) temples that occurred both, creepily, on the 9th of Av, 650 odd years apart.

When Jewish men mourn, they are not to shave or get a hair cut. So like Passover was a holiday for bakers, this season is a holiday for barbers. People have been looking mighty scruffy around here lately.

Today is the 9th of Av, so many people are fasting. At the Wailing Wall there will be a huge crowd of people mourning its destruction and praying for Temple Version 3.0 to be built. For those of you that are religiously inclined, check out the book of Lamentations which is the poems of Jeremiah, bemoaning the destruction of the first temple. This is what they will be reading at the synagogues and at the Wailing Wall today. Some of the text is the source of some of the most beautiful music I have ever sung.

I would like to go down to see what is happening, but I can image that without food, the crowd will be be very, very cranky.

Come tomorrow morning, bolstered by a rejuvenating breakfast, wives around the country will be sending their hubbies to the bathroom with electric razor hand.

The university is half closed, which means I had to do an epic walk around the campus to get to the one gate that was open this morning. I really despise all of these fences. I like the idea of Universities not having walls and students streaming in from all directions for higher education, but I can see the point here. Yesterday was the seventh anniversary of the bombing at the other Hebrew University Campus across the city that killed nine and injured 80 students.

Of course the non-religious grad students are hard at work today- which means all but two students, Itzik and the boss are here with their heads in the fume hoods. Sadly, there will be no glee-dah runs since all the restaurants will be closed.