The saddest day hit me like a knife in my chest. The images of Evyatar David and Rom Braslavski’s tortured and starved bodies, images that evoke the ultimate incarnation of Jewish suffering, were the final twist.

Six people in my family were taken hostage on Oct. 7, and my cousin’s husband David Cunio and his brother Ariel Cunio are both still held in captivity. I was already overcome by grief after a series of heartbreaking moments in the past couple weeks. My grief does not have hard borders: My heart grieves for the children of Gaza whose emaciated bodies have haunted me over and over; I grieve for the six soldiers who died by suicide in the last month alone because of PTSD; and of course I grieve for my family’s agony that still has no end in sight.

But underneath, there is something deeper causing my soul so much unrest and I have been feeling like I need some answers.

As is customary, I spent Tisha B’Av reading Eicha, or the Book of Lamentations. It is critical that you first understand that I’ve never done this in my life. Until now I had never once given a thought to Tisha B’Av. I am a secular Jew, and despite my devout Yemenite Israeli grandparents on my mother’s side, my upbringing was something I call “Jewish-light” when it came to scripture or holy days like this one. Our doorways were all marked by mezuzahs, we lit Shabbat candles, celebrated High Holidays in synagogue and I had what I believe to be a chic havdalah service for my bat mitzvah, but that’s pretty much where the Jewish journey ended.

As I’m now finding out, Tisha B’Av is the saddest day in the Jewish calendar. It is a........

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