Spirituality

HOLIDAY 101

Thinking Tisha B'Av

T

isha b'Av, a full fast day run-
ning from sundown July 19
to sundown July 20, is one
of the most challenging days on the
Jewish calendar and that's
even without the fasting.
For 2,000 years, Jews
have observed this day as a
national day of mourning
for the destruction of the
two temples that stood in
Jerusalem and the demise
of the Jewish settlement in
Israel at the time.
It is the day that Jews
have lamented the fact that
we are in exile, scattered
throughout the globe-span-
ning diaspora. It is the day
that we agonize over not
having merited the messianic era,
when peace will descend on the world,
when the Jews will all return to Israel
to build the third and final temple and
live in eternal peace and harmony.
But to many of the Jews in that
diaspora, it seems like a pointless day
because they are perfectly happy with
the status quo and don't really savor
the idea of leaving the comforts of their
homes and communities to follow the
Messiah to Israel!
Many have worked hard to achieve
the prominence and social strata they
now occupy; and the idea of rebuilding
the third temple in Jerusalem is simply
not appealing to them.
To Jewish communities throughout
the ages, the idea of messianic har-
mony and global peace meant that
they would no longer be persecuted,
expelled or tormented. But here in
Metro Detroit, we are thankfully not
being oppressed even without the
Messiah; and many don't feel an urgent
need for messianic peace.
So what is supposed to inspire us to
feel anything on this national day of
mourning?
If we want to feel the emotion that
Tisha b'Av is supposed to engender,
we need to look outside of ourselves
and take a renewed look at our exile
through the lenses of klal Yisrael [the
people of Israel].
We may feel secure in our homes in
Troy, West Bloomfield, Franklin or Oak
Park; but what of the Jews in Sderot,
Tehran, South Africa or France?
What of the 6 million Jews who are
within range of Hezbollah's rockets
along the Lebanese border?

Do they not need the global peace
of the messianic era?
We may have prominence or stat-
ure in our communities, but what
about the rising anti-
Semitism across the globe
and the billions around
the world who view Israel
as an apartheid state
that sponsors terrorism
through the Israel Defense
Forces?
Do the Jewish people
not need the return of the
exiles and the return to the
stature we had before the
destruction of our temples
and the spread of our dias-
pora?
We may have a rich
Jewish life, but what of the millions
of Jews who know close to nothing
about their heritage, who have never
had the opportunity to celebrate their
bar mitzvah, have never said Shemah
Yisrael or lit a Chanukah menorah?
Do they not need a Third Temple?
If we want to feel anything on this
national day of mourning, it will have
to be through feeling our national
pain, our national struggle!
It is interesting to note that the
sages tell us (Babyldnian Talmud,
Yoma 9B) that the Second Temple
was destroyed because of the baseless
hatred the Jews of the time displayed
to one another.
Baseless hatred comes when
people look at the world through the
tiny lenses of self; and it was this that
brought about our national decline
and the destruction of our temples.
The way to rebuild is to don the
lenses of klal Yisrael, to feel and
mourn the pain of all Jews wherever
their exile is, whether in a bomb
shelter in Sderot or a drug rehab in
Kansas.
When we begin to feel other's pain,
when we look outside of ourselves
and deeply into others, we exchange
baseless hatred for baseless love,
destruction for redemption.
"Whoever mourns over Jerusalem
will merit to see in its joy!" (Talmud
Taanit 30B). ❑

Rabbi Burnham is director of outreach for
the Jean and Theodore Weiss Partners
in Torah Program hosted by Southfield-
based Yeshiva Beth Yehudah.

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July 15 • 2010

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