Brown-headed Cowbird : Tisha B’Av

This is a Brown-headed Cowbird. It appears elegantly lovely, but if you ask a birder, “Is there any bird that you actually dislike?” 99% of the “Yes” answers will be this cowbird. These birds are brood parasites, which means they lay their eggs in other birds’ nests instead of their own. The cowbird chicks hatch earlier and then destroy the native eggs. The parents are even tricked into feeding the cowbird young. I don’t ascribe human ethics to animals, but there is something disturbing, even diabolical, about this adaptive strategy. We can’t help but internalize perceptions of brokenness and displacement.

Tisha b’Av is the saddest day in the Jewish year. The 9th day of the month of Av commemorates the Episode of the Spies, the destruction of both Temples in Jerusalem, and our Expulsion from Spain among other tragedies. Traditional observance three weeks prior, intensifying in the last nine days, entails physical afflictions to psychologically prepare for this nadir of spiritual life. Our textual study turns to Lamentations and Talmudic content focused on the Temples’ destruction and exile. But as always, to even our most mournful readings, we append a coda: a small, bright light promising a path emerging from the darkness.

We are here. There is something profound in the simple tautology of that observation. Tisha B’Av is our annual opportunity to mourn communally for what we’ve lost. But to be a mourner inherently defines one as a survivor. Only the living mourn. All the tragedies of Av, from the Spies to the Shoah, have diminished but never extinguished Am Israel. All of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days are a defined and delimited time, both acknowledging the “time to mourn” while simultaneously promising a path back to when there is a “time to dance.” The Cowbird kills baby songbirds, but their Song continues. As does ours.