Look Back But Don’t Stare

Nostalgia is a powerful force in our religious lives. While we may perform rituals with a sense of Halachic obligation and spiritual uplift, the manner in which we perform them often reveals a more personal side to the mitzvot. How many of us can hear the haunting melodies of Kol Nidrei on Yom Kippur or taste the matzo ball soup at the Seder without longing to connect with our own past and to be transported to an earlier time in our lives? There is probably no time of year when this longing is felt more keenly than Tisha B’Av, and nowhere is this sentiment expressed so clearly as in the penultimate verse of Megillat Eicha, which is repeated at the conclusion of the reading of that book: Hashiveinu Hashem eilecha venashuva, chadeish yameinu kekedem: Bring us back to You, O Lord, and we will return, renew our days as of old. This pasuk is invoked in our liturgy throughout the year. When the Torah is returned to the ark on Shabbat and holidays (and for that matter on any other day on which the Torah is read), and at a climactic moment in the Selichot penitential service, we repeat those stirring words.