Avodah

The Three Weeks are generally a lousy time for me. Granted, the Three Weeks are generally a lousy time for the entire Jewish People across millennia (most famously, they mark the interval from when Jerusalem's walls were breached on Tammuz 17th until the Temple was destroyed three weeks later on Av 9th, but the Three Weeks also include historic events such as the Golden Calf and the breaking of the Tablets, the 1492 Spanish expulsion, the beginning of WWI, and much, much more). However, this blog is about me, and I don't like them, either. I'm tense and anxious the whole time, waiting for the other shoe to drop, obsessively checking the news, trying to bull through the Three Weeks without actually doing anything, to just get it over with.

Last night, I finally acknowledged that this is ridiculous. Judaism doesn't encourage pointless behavior, so clearly there's something useful I should be doing, rather than snapping at everyone and being too anxious to sleep. Granted, yelling at G-d seems to get solid short-term results, but along with being unhealthy, I assume that yelling at Him is pretty sketchy religiously, too.

Well to quote Proverbs 16:1, לְאָדָם מַעַרְכֵי לֵב; וּמֵה' מַעֲנֵה לָשׁוֹן. (And to translate Metzudat David there, "A person can arrange the things in his heart in a pleasing manner, but it takes Divine help to arrange his words so he doesn't trip over them.") It turns out the question I need to ask is "What is the avodah of the Three Weeks?" (Avodah is tricky to translate. Spiritual Labor? Work? Divine Service?)

Anyhow, that is a very good question to ask, because it gives a very productive answer. Mourn. The Three Weeks are marked by customs of mourning (e.g., refraining from haircuts, music, and weddings). I know that. This is a period of mourning. I know that, too. So it's pretty safe to suggest that maybe, just maybe, the avodah of the Three Weeks is to mourn. 

Mourning in and of itself can be definitely be productive. (I never blogged about how long it took me to get over my first miscarriage, before I realized that "allowing myself to feel sad" was not the same as "deliberately pausing to grieve or mourn," and that was something I had to do, even though it had been an early miscarriage years before.) Still, this article I found about the Three Weeks doesn't say to just mourn. It also says to want.

[The] avodah during the Three Weeks...is the sadness, the longing that grows out of our having been separated from the immediate Presence of our Creator.

That is productive. That is healthy. Allowing myself to feel that I miss G-d (which I do! Why were Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur so long ago?) enhances my relationship with Him. That is useful avodah rather than an unhealthy descent into stress and anxiety and anger.