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The Month of Seeing Clearly
This Hebrew year we began a new column with Rabbi Charna Rosenholtz, who is offering a 12-part column exploring the spiritual and psychological wisdom of each Hebrew month. Drawing from Torah, Kabbalah, Mussar, and seasonal awareness, each installment will highlight core themes, practices, and reflections to help ground us in sacred time. Join us on this monthly journey through the Jewish calendar.
We have entered the Hebrew month of Tammuz, a month that asks us to pay attention to how we see.
Tammuz arrives in the heat of summer. The days are long. The light is strong. In Boulder, the mountains are vivid, the air is dry, and the world can feel both beautiful and exposed. Jewish time teaches that outer conditions often mirror inner work. In Tammuz, the light is bright enough to show us what needs repair.
This is not an easy month in the Jewish calendar. Tammuz begins a descent toward the Three Weeks, the period of mourning that leads to Tisha B’Av. The 17th of Tammuz marks the day the walls of Jerusalem were breached. Tradition also connects this day with the breaking of the first tablets after the Golden Calf. Both stories are about distorted vision. The people could not see clearly. They mistook fear for truth. They mistook absence for abandonment. They mistook an object for God.
Tammuz asks: What are we seeing clearly? What are we seeing through fear? What are we refusing to see?
According to Sefer Yetzirah, each Hebrew month is linked with a letter, a tribe, a sense, and a sign of the zodiac. Tammuz is linked with the letter chet and the sense of sight. That is the heart of the month. Sight is not only physical. It is also moral and spiritual. We see with our eyes. We also see through memory, emotion, loyalty, fear, hope, and habit. Sometimes we see what is present. Sometimes we see what we expect to see. Sometimes we see the old wound before we see the person standing in front of us. Tammuz gives us the work of refining vision.
The letter of Tammuz is chet. In a Torah scroll, chet has the shape of a doorway or canopy. It can suggest enclosure, protection, threshold, or passage. It is also the first letter of chayim, life. Yet chet also begins the word chet, sin or missing the mark. This is the paradox of Tammuz. The same doorway can lead toward life or toward distortion. Much depends on how we see.
The tribe of the month is Reuven, whose name comes from the Hebrew root ra’ah, to see. When Leah names him Reuven, she says, “God has seen my suffering.” Reuven carries the wound of wanting to be seen. That is a deeply human wound. Much conflict begins there. People want their pain seen. Communities want their fear seen. Families want their effort seen. Nations want their history seen. The danger is that when we do not feel seen, we may stop seeing others clearly. Tammuz asks us to practice a stronger kind of sight. Not naïve sight. Not sentimental sight. Clear sight. The kind that can name harm without making hatred holy. The kind that can see fear without letting fear become the ruler. The kind that can recognize grief and still keep the heart open.
Tammuz begins with ordinary summer energy, then turns toward a more serious register. The 17th of Tammuz begins the Three Weeks, a period of communal reflection that leads to Tisha B’Av. During this time, Jewish tradition remembers the breaching of Jerusalem’s walls and the long history of rupture, exile, and loss. This year, the 17th of Tammuz falls on Thursday, July 2.
In many communities, the Three Weeks are not only about ancient destruction. They are also a time to examine the conditions that make destruction possible: hatred, arrogance, humiliation, denial, and the failure to listen. The rabbis famously teach that the Second Temple was destroyed because of sinat chinam, often translated as baseless hatred. That phrase still has power. It asks us to notice when dislike hardens into contempt.
For Boulder, this month also lands in a particular emotional climate. We continue to live with the need for safety, courage, and relationship. Jewish life needs protection. It also needs wisdom. We need clear eyes, steady hands, and communities that do not let fear distort the whole field of vision.
Lastly, Tammuz invites us to remember women who knew how to see what others missed. Miriam is one of those figures. As a young girl, she watches over baby Moses from the riverbank. She sees danger, and she also sees possibility. Later, she leads the women in song after the crossing of the sea. Miriam’s vision is not passive. She sees, then acts. Leah also belongs in the conversation because of Reuven. When she names her son, she names the experience of being seen by God. Leah teaches that being seen can become a form of healing. Her story reminds us that people often carry hidden loneliness even inside family systems, leadership structures, and religious communities.
Tammuz asks us to become better witnesses. Not spectators. Witnesses. A spectator watches from a distance. A witness allows sight to become responsibility. Jewish wisdom does not separate body and soul. If Tammuz asks us to see clearly, then we need to care for the instrument of seeing. Rest matters. Water matters. A slower pace matters.
Before the fast of the 17th of Tammuz, it is wise to prepare gently. Drink water. Eat simply. Enter the day with intention, not drama.
Each day this month, ask one simple question:
What am I not seeing clearly?
Then ask a second question:
What would a generous eye notice here?
A generous eye does not deny reality. It does not excuse harm. It looks more fully. It sees context. It sees humanity. It sees the part of the story that anger leaves out.
Tammuz is a month of heat, memory, and vision. It begins with light and leads us toward mourning. Its gift is not comfort. Its gift is clarity.
May this month help us see what needs repair.
May it help us see one another with more courage.
May it help us choose life at the threshold.
Chodesh Tov,
Rabbi Charna Rosenholtz
Check out Shulchan.net for more information about R’Charna’s offerings
Here is a list of Rabbi Charna’s monthly columns in the series:
