Today is Tisha B’av. The saddest day on the Jewish calendar. Tradition teaches us that today both the First and Second Temple were destroyed.

Friday night, as is traditional for Shabbat, we took a break from mourning. We celebrated, we laughed and we cried. Temple Emanuel of the Merrimack Valley hosted a potluck dairy dinner and Shabbat service in honor of my husband Simon, my daughter Sarah, and me. We led the service, we shared memories, we ate yummy food. We have called Temple Emanuel an improbable community. That was evident on Friday. In the middle of the summer, over 80 people showed up. Jews from five or six congregations and differing levels of practice and observance, Catholics, Protestants, Muslims. There were Episcopal priests sitting next to nuns sitting next to UCC clergy. There were four rabbis in attendance. Friends, who have become friends even though they are from very different backgrounds, chatting over dinner and catching up on their lives, precisely because we open the doors wide. There were people who were over 80, and the youngest participant was five. There were people who need help walking, people who are straight, gay, transgendered, single, married, widowed. There was not a cross word spoken (except maybe by me at the very end when I was overtired). We used four different prayer books, Artscroll, Union Prayer Book I, Mishkan Tefilah, and Siddur Sim Shalom, representing the major American Jewish movements.

Tradition teaches that the Second Temple was destroyed because of senseless hatred. Jews hating other Jews. Friday night was the antidote. Jews who don’t necessarily agree, praying and eating together. Protestants, Catholics, Muslims singing Hebrew songs, praying for peace, for wholeness and completeness. Ours is not to finish the task, neither are we free to ignore it.

There is much work still to be done. Lowell, with the Greater Lowell Interfaith Leadership Alliance and events, like the Lowell Folk Festival, which celebrate our diversity are good models. We are commanded to pursue peace. To actively run after it. Friday night, in the midst of the Tisha B’av season and in weeks that have shown other modern examples of senseless hatred in Aurora, in Bulgaria and in Afghanistan, bring me hope.

It is sad to be leaving a community we have loved and been a part of after 30 years. It is sad to be leaving close friends and people we have worked with to make the world a better place. However, this model that we helped create is one that can endure. The work will continue. Isaiah says Nachamu, Nachamu, Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, which we read on the first Shabbat after Tisha B’av. May we be comforted and may we continue to work for a world of peace.