Tisha B’Av 5780: ”God who Suffers With: Diving Presence Amidst Pain” with Rabbi Julia Watts Belser

Jewish tradition has often mourned the destruction of the Temple by tying loss to collective transgression, evoked most poignantly through the liturgy’s lament mipnei hatatenu, “on account of our sins.”  But the Babylonian Talmud’s longest and most reflection on the destruction puts little emphasis on communal wrongdoing, and indict instead the brutality of state violence and Roman conquest. 

In this session, we’ll examine stories that grapple with Roman power and violence to explore how they imagine divine presence amidst pain, how they invite us to consider God not as one who stands apart, but one who suffers with.