Destruction and Renewal
(Slow Prayers on a Fast Day)
Rabbi Michael L. Feshbach
Temple Shalom
Chevy Chase, Maryland

What a powerful and odd feeling, to be in Jerusalem for Tisha B'Av.

For those who are not familiar with it, Tisha B'Av -- the 9th day of the Hebrew month Av -- is, traditinally, the saddest day of the Hebrew calendar.  It is the date on which the first Temple was destroyed (because, in a retroactive act of theological meaning making in which all causes were presupposed to be internal and in our own hands, of avodah zarah -- idolatry).  It is the same date, we are told (or perhaps a day or two off) on which the Second Temple was destroyed (this time, we are told, because of sinat chinam -- baseless hatred amongst factions of Jews  - a claim perhaps closer to historical truth given how divided the community was, and absent actual rebellion against Rome who knows what might or might not have happened.)  Known ever after as a day of mouring and fasting -- a full, Yom Kippur like fast -- the enemies of our people have deliberately chosen this date to pile additional misery upon us.  Thus, then, it was the date on which the Jews of Spain were expelled -- and the fact that Columbus sailed the day before the edict went into effect in 1492 had led to scholarly speculation about whether he was, himself, a hidden Jew (as, it is certain, were some of the members of his crew).

But Tisha B'Av, outside of Jewish camps, is little known among liberal Jews.  This is partly for practical reasons, because it inconveniently falls too far away from the time when religious schools are in session, so it is often ignored in the curriculum.  But, more significantly, there were ideological reasons for downplaying the day.  The early Reform movement was eager to emphasize how possible it was to feel fully at home in the lands of our dispersion, and so dispensed with this day of wailing and weeping for a sovereignty lost, and a Temple destroyed whose literal cult practices and attendant animal sacrifices we were less than eager to see restored.  One eary and radical Reform rabbi went so far as to see Tisha B'Av as a cause for celebration, a feast and not a fast, for thus and thereby were we spread among the nations -- thus giving us the opportunity to live in and influence the entire world, fulfilling what he perceived as our highest calling and ultimate mission as a "light unto the nations."

But of such destructive flames more heat and hurt come than light.  And to cut ourselves off from the pain our people went through on this day is... well, to cut ourselves off from our history and our people itself, to deny the communal past and assert a kind of Judaism which consists primarily of individual cognitive affirmation.

The more pressing challenge to the observance of Tisha B'Av, I believe... is how to integrate the reality of renewal... the fact that this day of bewailing our exile comes to us at a time when we have planted new seeds and seen a rebirth of national sovereignty in the modern state of Israel.

My family chose to go to the wall.  But not the mobbed, barely conceivable seen of thousands of ultra-Orthodox men surging forward at the main section.  No, instead we went to Robinson's Arch, what one Conservative colleague calls "a wall of our own," the southern section of the Western Wall, part of an archeological site but available -- by order of the Israeli Supreme Court -- to Reform and Conservative Jews for separate religious observances.  The main part of the wall itself has become, essentially, a Charedi (ultra-Orthodox) synagogue, and I have deeply mixed feelings about it.

And there, sitting amidst hundreds of others at a service led by the Israeli Masorti (Conservative) movement, it was the most powerful -- but still odd -- Tisha B'Av of my life.  The haunting, plaintif (and slow!) chanting of the book of Eicha (Lamentations) wafted over the ancient stones... the very overturned stones the words were written about!  There we were, sitting... right there!  That's where it all happened!  This is where it was all about.  (Fortunately for my children, though it grew too dark to read and the service was 100% in Hebrew in any event... the Tanakh app on my iPhone had an English translation -- and the iPhone itself was backlit enough for them to see!)  (Israelis sitting next to us were duly impressed.)  (More about my possibly missing new iPhone in another post.)

And yet, we emerge from services into... into what?  A quiet street, with restaurants and cafes closed, yes.  But a living, vibrant... and real Israel.  Should we not... mark the change in some way?  How to acknowledge that the existential situation of the Jewish people is fundamentally different after the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 than it was before?  What, are we to ignore the fact that the lost independance we are mourning... is now found again?

So my compromise has been this: I remember.  I recite some of the prayers of Tisha B'Av, for the pain is part of our collective history, and the victims of this day deserve their due.  I remember.  But I do not fast.  For we are here, and we are back... and sitting in the ruined shadow of ancient stones, I know that this is a time of memory, and mourning... and gratitude and quiet satisfaction as well.

Am Yisrael Chai.  Sitting in our land, surrounded by the signs of our national rebirth, fragile as it sometimes seems -- we are here, the enemies have not defeated us.  And so while not a time for parties, and certainly appropriate for slow prayers, I do not fast on Tisha B'Av.

But what meaning... to be here!