This year I am not "doing" tisha b'av,  For various reasons I am not fasting, and the truth is, I m doing enough mourning this year I don't feel like I need to add anything else to it.  I am generally miserable enough.  I did not go to shul to hear "Eicha" because I have spent the last 5 months asking myself that very question.  Eicha?  God how could you do this to me?  How could you take the holy spark you sent me to care for and leave me broken and alone?

This year I do not need the wailing of kinot to remind me of what has been lost- I know first hand and I have felt true wailing from deep in my heart and not the sort that some wrote for me hundreds of years ago.  I have been a mother wailing for her child and I have seen sisters torn apart.  I have felt that which I loved wrenched from my arms.  What do I need today for?  To remind me of the pain of this last year?

Thanks, but no thanks.  I'll pass.

Today I am in pain- but not for a holy temple that was destroyed 2000 years ago.  I am aching for a soul that was destroyed 5 months ago and totally and completely as any that were lost fighting the Romans- the difference is that the lost soul took mine with it.

Look how she sits alone and forlorn.  No children playing in her streets.  No sounds of simcha in her alleys.  Does it speak of the old city left silent and alone one day to be rebuilt or the barren mother crying herself to sleep months later once the world has forgotten and gone back to its routine?  It does not sound like the hustling Jerusalem I know now with people going every which way.  It sounds like my home as my daughter grows up and shouts less and reads more.

So God, today, like most days, I mourn- but not for what you lost by taking the temple- you could give it back whenever the hell you want.  The only reason you have not is because you are behaving like a selfish child- "play by my rules or I am taking my ball and going home!"  You don't care how nice people are to each other.  How much we invite others over or try to help anyone in need.  You don't care if we learn and cry and pray- you can withold whatever it is that we want for reasons as simple as a school yard bully.

You want my attention?  Give something back for a change.  You want me to believe?  Show me that you are there and can do more than just take.  Show me that you can do more than behave like a toddler and for once in 2 millennia  show us you are listening to those who try to live good, moral, decent lives.

Lets play tit for tat.  Give and take.  You want me to care about what you have taken from others, lets see you care about what you have taken from me.