Eicha by Candlelight - Tisha B’Av 5785 (2025)

onight, in a darkened room lit only by the soft flicker of individual candles, over a hundred souls gathered in sacred stillness for Eicha by Candlelight. This was not just an event, it was a ritual of remembrance, a meditation on exile, and a quiet act of spiritual defiance.

Rabbi Yisroel Bernath opened the evening with a heart-stirring monologue, inviting us not to perform grief, but to hold it. To slow down. To soften. To sit low with history and let the silence speak.

Rabbi Yosh Berkowicz then chanted Megillat Eicha, Lamentations, in its original Hebrew, each verse a cry from the Prophet Jeremiah that echoed through centuries of loss—and resilience. Participants followed along in English, or simply let the rhythm wash over them like waves of collective memory.

Following the reading, Rabbi Bernath led a reflective journey through Jewish history, from the destruction of both Temples to the Crusades, from the Spanish Expulsion to the Holocaust—framing Tisha B’Av not only as a night of mourning, but as an ongoing thread of survival and spiritual resistance.

A deeply moving segment explored the story of the Conversos—Jews forced to hide their faith in 15th-century Spain. Their secret fasts, their quiet mitzvot, and their admiration for Queen Esther became metaphors for our own inner strength. Esther, the hidden heroine, became theirs—and perhaps ours.

From there, the group entered a sacred space of reflection with personal prompts. Participants journaled, sat in silence, or shared memories and prayers aloud in a gentle, optional open-mic circle. Candles flickered. Tears flowed. And still—hope rose.

Three Prophets, Three Eichas, One Call to Action
Rabbi Bernath wove together the three biblical voices that cry out “Eicha”—Moses, Isaiah, and Jeremiah. Each saw the Jewish people at a different point: in their dignity, in their moral decline, and in their devastation.

 Each Eicha reminds us: the question isn’t just historical, it’s existential.

 “How can I carry this alone?”

 “How can it be that righteousness has been replaced by ruin?”

 And…

 “How can it be that a holy city sits in desolation?”

The Rebbe taught that we are the answer. That we must turn the Eicha of exile into the Eicha of leadership. That each of us is a shliach, a messenger, charged with rebuilding—one mitzvah, one soul, one light at a time.

 As the evening closed, Rabbi Bernath reminded us:

“We’ve sat together in the ruins. We’ve cried the ancient cries.
 But we’re not meant to live in sorrow.
 We are the generation of redemption.”

May this year’s fast be the last one in exile.
 May we merit to read the next scroll with joy.
Together. In Jerusalem rebuilt.