Black North, White West: Color, Grief, and the Geography of the Soul

Devarim | Tishah Be'av Yom Kippur By :  Marcus Mordecai Schwartz Ripps Schnitzer Librarian for Special Collections; Assistant Professor, Talmud and Rabbinics Posted On Aug 1, 2025 / 5785 | Torah Commentary | Holidays
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There’s a tradition in ancient Semitic languages of mapping the world with colors. The north is black. The south is red. The west is white. The east—sometimes blue, sometimes green. In Arabic, the Mediterranean is still called al-baḥr al-abyaḍ al-mutawassiṭ—the White Middle Sea. The Red Sea is to the south. The Black Sea lies to the north.

We don’t know exactly why these colors were assigned to these directions, but some scholars have speculated that the sun’s path might offer a clue. Since the sun travels across the southern sky, the south became linked with heat—and so with red. The north, being dimmer, was associated with shadow and cold, and so with black. The west—where the sun sets in a blaze of light—was seen as white. And the east, where the sun rises and the sky turns cool before dawn, became green or blue.

These colors aren’t used descriptively, but they aren’t arbitrary either. They reflect an older way of seeing—a symbolic compass, a world mapped by meaning, not pigment. Color didn’t describe the surface of things; it told you how to orient yourself.

And color still does that today—especially in ÂĚĂąÉç tradition, especially this week.

The Black of Tisha be’Av

This ancient map of meaning isn’t just a curiosity. It still shapes how we live, feel, and remember. In ÂĚĂąÉç time, too, the year has its own palette. And this week, we turn toward its darkest shade.

The Talmud teaches that one who insists on sinning should go to a place where they are not known, wear black clothing, and wrap themselves in black—so as not to profane God’s name in public (Mo‘ed Katan 17a). The text offers no reason for the black garments, but their symbolism is unmistakable. Black, in rabbinic culture, often marks sorrow, gravity, and separation. Here, it seems to strip the act of transgression of spectacle or pride—covering it instead in shadow and restraint.

Black is also the color of mourning. By the sixteenth century, wearing black had become the established ÂĚĂąÉç custom of mourning, at least in Ashkenaz. The Rema—Rabbi Moses Isserles—mentions it directly in Even Ha’ezer 17:5, noting that a presumed widow may not eulogize her husband or “wear black” until his death is confirmed. He records it without explanation, as if to say: of course mourners wear black.

The verse in Lamentations says: Yashav badad veyidom—“She sits alone and silent.” I picture a black-clad mourner sitting low to the ground, turned inward. The image isn’t in the text, but it’s the one we’ve come to carry—grief made visible in shadow. We wear black when we are in pain, when a light has gone out. But perhaps black is also the color of honesty—because it marks the moments when we stop pretending. When we strip away performance and sit with what is. And this week—on Tisha be’Av, the 9th of Av—many choose to dress in black or dark colors, echoing the mourning of the day in what we wear.

The White of Yom Kippur

But not all fasts are draped in shadow. Some are wrapped in radiance. To understand the difference, we have to shift from the black of grief to the white of return. On Yom Kippur, we wear white—kittel, tallit, simple linen. We fast not because we are broken, but because we are striving. White is the color of aspiration. The Talmud in Yoma (35b) compares us to angels. We are barefoot, wrapped in white, shedding the trappings of the body. So we fast in black on Tisha be’Av, and we fast in white on Yom Kippur. Both days strip us bare—but one lays us low, and the other lifts us up.

The Fields Are White: Mishnah Ta’anit and the Daughters of Jerusalem

White isn’t only for the holiest day. It’s also the color of joy, of dignity, of shared humanity. That’s what the Mishnah teaches us in one of the most surprising passages in all of rabbinic literature. The last chapter of Mishnah Ta‘anit (4:8) describes a strange, beautiful scene:

“There were no days of joy for Israel like the fifteenth of Av and Yom Kippur. On these days the daughters of Jerusalem would go out in white garments . . . and they would dance in the vineyards.”

The Mishnah insists that these garments were borrowed, so that no one would feel shame. Rich and poor alike in borrowed white. The women would call out to the young men, not with vanity, but with integrity. They said: “Lift your eyes and see whom you choose for yourself . . . but remember that charm is false, and beauty is fleeting; it is the woman who fears God who shall be praised.” Why white? Because it equalizes. Because it purifies. Because it returns us to something simple and shared.

Parashat Devarim and the Cry of Isaiah

Still, the joy of white doesn’t erase the moral weight we associate with darkness. The Torah portion we read this week and its prophetic counterpart both remind us how easy it is to cloak corruption in ritual and forget the ethical hue of our choices. Parashat Devarim opens the final book of the Torah, with Moses recounting the story of Israel’s wandering. But it doesn’t begin with history—it begins with a strange geography: “on the other side of the Jordan, in the wilderness, in the plain opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel and Lavan and Hazerot and Di-Zahav.” These names aren’t just places; they evoke failure, complaint, disobedience. Lavan (white) and Di-Zahav (enough gold) might hint at spiritual distortion—purity turned brittle, wealth turned idolatrous.

According to Sifrei Devarim 1:1, Lavan (white) alludes to the people’s rejection of the manna, described in Numbers as “white like coriander seed” (Num. 11:7). The people grew tired of it and longed for meat. “Di-Zahav” is interpreted by Rashi (on Deut. 1:1) based on Berakhot 32a as “too much gold,” referring to the Golden Calf, which the Israelites built from their excess wealth. According to the Talmud, Moses rebuked them for the spiritual dangers of material abundance. In each case, the name recalls a sin. But each sin carries a color too: white manna, pale skin, gold gleam. Even in failure, the landscape is stained with hue.

The haftarah that accompanies it is the opening chapter of Isaiah: “Alas, sinful nation . . . They have forsaken the Holy One of Israel.” (1:4) Isaiah is writing in the eighth century BCE. He looks at a prosperous society and sees corruption, hypocrisy, and injustice. The Temple is still standing, but the people have emptied it of meaning. They offer sacrifices while trampling the poor.

“When you lift your hands in prayer, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves, make yourselves pure . . . learn to do good, seek justice, protect the vulnerable.” (1:15-17)

Isaiah speaks in shades as well: light and darkness, red like crimson, white like snow. Not physical color, but moral hue. He demands that we see the world in color—not the color of robes or walls, but of action and consequence.

Color and Orientation: What Do We See?

We see the world through color. We associate blue with calm, red with urgency, green with safety. In ancient maps, color located you. In ÂĚĂąÉç law, color signaled category: the “white field” was grain; the “black cloth” was mourning; the “white garment” was purification.

We still live inside these metaphors. We speak of “gray areas,” of “seeing red,” of “black and white thinking.” But ÂĚĂąÉç tradition teaches that color is not only what we see—it’s how we judge.

Are we living in red—reactive, impulsive, angry? Are we stuck in black—disoriented, numb, mourning? Are we seeking white—clarity, honesty, peace? And how does color affect us spiritually?  Does the muted green of an institutional hallway deaden the soul? Does the sterile gray of a prison uniform flatten the spirit? Should bright color in hospitals and schools be seen not just as decoration, but as moral intervention? What would it mean to choose color with care—not just in paint, but in time, in ritual, in life?

Toward the White Sea

Tisha be’Av is black. But it points toward white. Isaiah promises: Though your sins be red like scarlet, they shall become white as snow.

White, in the end, is not perfection. It is repair. It is the field after the fire. The garment after the washing. The sea at the far horizon. The one the ancients called the White Sea—not because it was pale, but because it faced west, the place where the sun sets, and where hope is deferred but not extinguished.

May this fast bring clarity. May we mourn in black and reach for white. May we see color as Torah, as prophecy, and as the geography of the soul.

The publication and distribution of the JTS Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (z”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (z”l). 

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