In every place I have lived and many where I have visited, July is the month of rabbinic vacations. While it makes sense to plan vacations so that they coincide with school breaks plus the one three-week period when no Bar or Bat Mitzvahs are normally scheduled,* I have always half suspected congregational rabbis of simply wanting to avoid July's Torah portions. Early in Bamidbar, the Book of Numbers, things begin to go south: the Israelites complain about the catering and are zapped at Taberah, Miriam stirs up discontent against Moses, the Israelites believe the ten spies and are sentenced to die in the wilderness, Korach's rebellion, Miriam's death, Aaron's death, Moses' disobedience and doom, lots of battles, plague, and a plague-cure that smacks of human sacrifice. There are political undertones to every action, Ephraim and Judah and Reuben and half-a-dozen Levite sects jostling against each other for sovereignty, and there is precious little forgiveness -- Miriam is healed only to die a few weeks later, Balaam blesses Israel but they kill him anyway, and the best one can hope for is (like On ben Peleth) to drop inexplicably out of the story before it goes too far.

Then, just as the Torah portions start to look up (establishing cities of refuge sounds like an excellent idea by that point) we hit the Three Weeks and our Haftarah portions go from random free-association to full-on jeremiads (although one of them is actually by Isaiah), prophets chanting DOOM DOOM DOOM** with increasingly wild metaphors, culminating in the Ultimate Downer Holiday of Tisha b'Av. We may or may not have come by this season of mourning honestly: in the month-names we borrowed from the Babylonians, this is Tammuz, a month named after the sun-god and divine consort who died in this month and set off more death and desolation in his wake. But in our own sacred history (one damn thing over and over) it is the march of sieges and battles and deaths leading up to the destruction of the First Temple -- the Second Temple -- Betar -- Jerusalem, again and again -- something in the Crusades -- some expulsion -- some pogrom -- some death camp. "I will yet contend with you, says the Lord" -- that's Jeremiah's Lord, the pot ready to boil over against us, the nasty one telling us we deserve our smashed skulls -- "and with your children's children I shall contend."

And July is the month of rabbinic vacations, which for those of us in the vaguely defined second ranks (a rabbi at Temple Boondoggle once referred to me as "pararabbinic," which cracked me up) means we have the dubious honor of filling in to read, explain, or simply throw up our hands in the correct rhythm. Last summer I scheduled the family beach weekend so I could avoid reading Pinchas at Temple Boondoggle; this summer at Congregation Beth Boondoggle the Torah reading is mostly not my problem, so in a moment of understandable preoccupation, I let my mother schedule the beach trip. I had, of course, forgotten about Haftarah -- more precisely, I had forgotten that I had promised to read Haftarah the last weekend in July, which I was hoping was Pinchas (Elijah whining), turned out to be Matot (Jeremiah whining), and then I had to move one week later to Masei to save the beach vacation, which gives me Jeremiah whining at length and with increasingly obscure vocabulary, plus a side of Rosh Chodesh.***

So I have been reading through Jeremiah -- the first two chapters, thanks to the mix-up -- in my spare time. It fits perfectly into July theology: I sometimes deal with obstreperous Haftarot by reading them melodramatically, but reading this one any more dramatically than it is actually written would result in ten minutes of non-stop spittle-flecked screaming (which is tricky to keep on key). While I love Haftarah trupp, I have never particularly liked most of the prophetic texts themselves (if forced to teach a random Hebrew prophet, I will pick Jonah), and I like Jeremiah less than most: his God makes me want to go pour oil at the foot of the nearest available tree and maybe offer a couple of prayers to Baal just to cover my bases. The moments of poetry prevent me from writing the whole thing off, but then they dig into my brain and refuse to leave: "They have forsaken Me, the source of living waters, to dig for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that hold no water."

We got the news about the London bombings this morning when we woke up. I don't know what it says about me that I am worrying at July theology on this blog as a result, except perhaps that I'm not giving a d'var Torah anywhere this weekend and my research seems about a million miles away while ancient cycles of destruction seem very close.**** Outside -- here and in every place I have called home, although not every place I have lived -- the temperature is zooming and the humidity is sweltering. I suddenly understand why the Israelites never had enough water, why the worst thing to be said of a false god is that is it a broken cistern, why most of the Ancient Near East seems to have found some reason or other to make this a period of mourning. History is unfortunately unanimous: cradles of civilization -- "as the number of your cities were your gods, O Judah" -- also become cradles of desolation.*****

I am allergic to the sort of theology that blames the victim, but I can respect the idea of taking time out of the cycle to respond to tragedy whether or not it is needed (and, sadly, it is almost always needed somewhere). But I wish it would not be needed. And I envy the rabbis across the world who will be coming back from vacation just in time for the comfort cycle to kick in. Back here, we still have to get through July.

* -- Except, of course, in years like this one when it's all running late and several local shuls appear to have inadvertently started scheduling b'nai mitzvot during the Nine Days. Oy.
** -- Not to be confused with the orcs in Moria -- who, whatever their faults, kept their metaphors to themselves.
*** -- When the luach suggests to read the first and last verses of Haftarah Rosh Chodesh, it means the last verse as repeated, right, not the last verse as written? 'Cause that's just... even more depressing. If possible.
**** -- In fact, my research isn't so far away -- we're coming up on Major Professional Conference #4 up in the north of England, and a lot of people who go (I am not going this year) go early or stay late to play in the British Library. I am nervous about a few dozen acquaintances, people I like, but nobody I know well enough to inquire about directly. I suppose the professional lists will let me know eventually, though.
***** -- And let us note in passing that terrorist organizations who refer to the U.K. as a "Zionist crusader government" are obviously not so very much up on the whole history thing.