Part One
How does a nation hold its grief?
Before we ask what the destruction changed in the world or in halacha, we begin with the day itself — and how a people mourns.
How we mourn
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Grief, never unmarkedJudaism does not let a catastrophe pass in silence
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The language of fastingour oldest language of mourning, fixed into the calendar
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Pointed at hopethe masechta of fasts turns, at its close, to the year's most joyous day
The balance
To grieve — not to be consumed.
A people learning to carry a national wound through time without letting it become the whole story.