Friday, July 15, 1983
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Tisha b'Av: Judaism's Saddest Day Is Conflicting
(Continued from Page 1)
deportation of Warsaw
Jewry to Treblinka start on
this day.)
Yet what an incredible
statement of Jewish life
Tisha b'Av is. Most people
blot out their defeats and
celebrate their victories.
No one likes to remember
disaster. But on this day, for
1,900 years, Jews gathered
in the synagogues, took off
the curtain of the Ark, di-
mmed the lights, sat on the
floor, told the story of the
destruction and wept bit-
terly and inconsolably.
Those bitter tears kept
alive the memory of
Paradise Lost — i.e., Israel.
No matter what pleasure or
acceptance the local people
or culture offered, Jews viv-
idly relived the loss of
Jerusalem and stayed in
exile psychologically.
Yet they never yielded
to despair — "On Tisha
b'av the Messiah is born,"
taught the rabbis. The
day of greatest tragedy
will be the day of greatest
joy.
Where did they get the in-
finite patience for 1,900
years to fast all day and to
end hours of mourning di-
rges (Kinot) singing, "Eli,
Zion." "Zion and its cities,
lament . . . like a young
woman dressed in sackcloth
weep for the husband of
your youth."
Where did they get the
strength to spend the three
weeks before the day in in-
creasing grief and -mourn-
ing and then to end the
mourning service saying,
"For the Lord shall comfort
Zion . . . He will make her
wilderness like Eden, her
desert like the Garden of the
Lord, joy and gladness will
be there again . . . " (Isaiah
51:3)
In this day is the secret of
Jewish survival — faithful-
ness beyond death, refusal
to accommodate beyond
reason, hope beyond nor-
malcy. If one day made
possible the incredible
miracle of Israel reborn, it
was this day and for this
reason alone it should be
treasured and observed.
Yet the other part of me
— the part of me that
loves Israel and goes
there frequently and
enters into its life; the
part that sees religion not
just as memory and re-
spect for tradition but as
a living organism — this
part revolts against Tisha
b'Av
Sovereignty is back; the
restoration is underway. Is-
rael is (in the words of the
Israeli rabbinate's prayer)
"the beginning growth of
our redemption . . . " I have
seen the deserts that have
become as the Garden of the
Lord, I walk the streets of
Jerusalem and they echo
with "the sound of laughter,
the sound ofjoy, the sound of
groom, the sound of bride"
(Jeremiah 33:10-11).
Every year, a protest rises
inside of me as the cantor
intones, `,Comfort, 0 Lord
. . . the city (Jerusalem) that
is in mourning laid waste,
despised and desolate .. .
because she is without her
children . . . " I want to get
up, stop ihe service, and cry:
"It's not so. I've heard the
children, hundreds of them,
laughing and playing and
running free in the
Jerusalem Forest Park —
Sust below Yad Vashem . . . "
I don't want to shock or
disrupt: so every year, I
swallow my gorge and sit
defeated while the service
goes on through its familiar,
deeply-set course of conven-
tional mourning.
My friends feel the
same ambivalence but
they don't say it so
openly. They tell me:
"The Temple is not yet
rebuilt. The spiritual
wound is far from
healed." I agree — but it's
not as if nothing has hap-
pened. Do I get no pleas-
ure from my child until
the child is totally grown
and out of the house safe
and sound? Every step
has been a joy and my-
wife and I don't act as if
we are still childless.
Some of my friends try to
give Tisha b'Av continuing
power by incorporating the
Holocaust into the mourn-
ing. There should be a
prayer inserted but I in-
stinctively know that incor-
porating the Holocaust is
the wrong move. The
Holocaust is too devastat-
ing, too total. Let it be
mourned and expressed in
its own day — Yom
Falasha Charges Ethiopia With
Systematic Religious Oppression
WASHINGTON (JTA) —
Fact-finding missions to
Ethiopia from the U.S. have
a difficult time learning of
the plight of the Falashas
because the Ethiopian Jews
are intimidated by the gov-
ernment, according to a Jew
who escaped from Ethiopia
last November.
Simha Desta, in a Capitol
Hill briefing for Congres-
sional staff, said every
meeting of Ethiopian Jews
with foreign visitors is infil-
trated by government spies.
He said if foreign visitors
complain about the treat-
ment of Ethiopian Jews,
those who met with them
are arrested after the vis-
itors leave.
Desta said Jews in
Ethiopia are persecuted be-
cause of their religion. He
said while Christians are
arrested for political rea-
sons, Jews are arrested only
for practicing their religion.
He said the Ethiopian
government has closed
synagogues and Jewish
schools and has forbid-
den the practice of
Judaism and the teach-
ing of Hebrew. He said
when foreign groups visit
the Ethiopian Jews the
synagogues are re-
opened only while the
visitors are there.
Also appearing at the
briefing were David
Makovsky, president of the
North American Jewish
Students Network, and
Seth Vogelman, chairman
of the network's National
Ethiopian Jewry Task
Force.
Makovsky recently vis-
ited Ethiopia with two Is-
raelis, and said the group
was able to have intimate
conversations with Ethio-
pian Jews because all spoke
Hebrew. He said the group
was accompanied
everywhere by a guard car-
rying a Soviet-made
Kalachnikov rifle.
Desta, who now lives in
California with his wife and
daughter, said he was im-
prisoned and tortured for
nine months for trying to
escape from Ethiopia. He
said if Jew does escape, his
family and friends are tor-
tured.
Desta, who plans to
immigrate soon to Israel,
called on American
Jewry to speak out on
behalf of the Falashas.
He also urged U.S. consu-
lar offices in Ethiopia
and neighboring coun-
tries to assist Ethiopian
Jews to get out of the
country.
He said President Reagan
has- authorized 3,000 refu-
gee visas from Africa for
1983 and only 1,000 have
been used. He said many of
these visas could be given to
the Falashas.
Canadian Party Rejects
Recognition of the PLO
TORONTO (JTA) — A
resolution calling on
Canada to recognize the
Palestine Liberation
Organization as the repre-
sentative of the Palestinian
people was defeated by the
1,200 delegates attending
the 50th anniversary con-
vention of the New Demo-
cratic Party, in Regina, Sas-
katchewan.
But the resolution that
emerged after a 90 minute
debate endorsed the princi-
ple of a homeland for the
Palestinians.
The resolution stated that
Palestinian demands for a
homeland were a valid and
important cornerstone of
peace in the Middle East.
While it urged the PLO
and Arab states to recog-
nize Israel's right to exist,
it also supported PLO in-
volvement in the Mideast
peace process and asked
an end to Israeli settle-
ments in the occupied
territories.
The resolution called for
the withdrawal of all
forces from Lebanon.
HaShoah — and in its own
way. This wound — Tisha
b'Av — the loss of sover-
eignty and spirit — is bein g
healed. Let us start practic-
ing to be free and happy
again.
One friend of mine — a
fierce Zionist — on the
Tisha b'Av after the Six-
Day War, finally took his
son into an inner room on
Tisha b'Av afternoon and
made kidush and they broke
the fast together. The ges-
ture was too Sabbatian for
me. I am trying to raise my
children with a deep respect
for tradition and I fear that
the dissonance of that act
would be too shattering for
them. And what about those
hundreds of years of faith-
fulness and fasting? Am I to
dismiss them?
Another friend suggests
that I go to a concert during
the three weeks of mourn-
ing or swim in the week be-
fore Tisha b'Av. Maybe that
much dissonance can be
handled.
When I was rabbi in a
congregation, I used to
let out my ambivalence
on the head of anyone
who wept excessively. In-
tense grief seemed par-
ticularly hypocritical to
me. I would sidle up and
whisper into his ear,
"There is no need for you
to be heartbroken. For a
mere $400 one way, El Al
will take you away from
all this misery and re-
store you to the land of
your forefathers."
I find the conflict easiest
to bear when I am in Israel. I
make sure to go to the Wall
— 100,000 Jews gather
there. What a joy! In the ex-
citement, the traditional
message is subverted by the
inner reality. I meet my
friends whom I haven't seen
in yeait — so do thousands
of others, joyfully. Young
boys and girls socialize with
all the effervescence of
courting. Isn't it wonderful?
Aren't you glad that the
Temple was destroyed?! I go
home, hungry but happy.
And another year has
passed .. .
I look at the Calendar.
Tisha b'Av is coming again
— this year on July 17. The
specter of thousands of Jews
killed in Crusades rises and
asks: "Do not forget." I
writhe — I pray. Maybe by
next year, the Messiah will
come and put me out of my
conflict. . . .
Caricatures
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