Tisha B’Av 2023
On Tisha B’Av, we remember the destruction of the temple by the Romans in 70 CE. It would be the end of Jewish sovereignty in the land of Israel until 1948. It changed everything. We went from a religion, like so many, rooted in place – Jerusalem, our eternal place – to a religion rooted in an idea. The idea of Jerusalem, a City of Peace. The idea of one God. The idea that each human reflected a spark of that one God. That idea has sustained us through 2000 years of slavery, diaspora, and genocide, as no other vanquished people have been sustained throughout history.
If you can imagine the house of God on earth burning before your eyes, and the total loss of your country, you can understand some measure of the trauma our ancestors experienced. In an attempt to understand what we went through, our Talmud in Masechet Gittin tells of division and cruelty in the Jewish community, ultimately concluding that the Temple was destroyed because of ‘baseless hatred.’
This again moves the destruction of Jerusalem from the temporal to the spiritual. Rather than understanding that destruction as the result of geopolitics, we look to the idea that we were destroyed because we failed to honor the spark of the divine in each other. I do not dispute the veracity and power of this idea. In framing the loss of Jerusalem not as God abandoning us, but as us abandoning God, we give ourselves a way forward, from what could have been a dead end. Additionally, on some level it is fair to say geopolitical violence is by definition a failure to honor the spark of the divine in each other. But I can’t help but notice a familiar pattern. Every survivor knows the temptation to take the blame for their own victimization. Because if it was your fault, if it was within your control, then you can not do it again. You can still believe you live in a world where you are safe, because your safety is in your own hands. Instead of facing the terrifying reality that someone else can hurt you and you can’t stop them. This often leads survivors to feel guilt and shame for having been victimized, and to engage in self damaging behaviors in the belief that these behaviors will keep them safe.
After a town hall in Brighton two years ago, wherein a Rabbi shared this teaching about Jewish intercommunal hatred causing the destruction of the temple, a woman approached and told me “see, your own Rabbi said it. You Jews destroyed yourselves. I’m learning so much. This is why you people are always causing problems.”
I would like to state for the record, that while we have a long way to go in the area of Jewish unity (a long way to go), the other reason the Temple was destroyed was a GIANT ARMY OF ROMANS. I urge that at this moment in history, it is important to look outward as well as inward. We are no longer a stateless people building a spiritual narrative to sustain us through political powerlessness. The danger of turning inward for blame, is that we invite others to blame us too, contributing to the anti-Jewish canard that our victimization is our own fault. As we mark Tisha B’Av this year, in addition to strengthening bonds of kindness and respect within the Jewish community, I urge us to also look to the communities around us. Call out the dangers facing our people, look for allies, and do not be silent in the face of anti-Jewish hatred and violence. We no longer have to be silent to stay safe. Indeed, staying silent has become its own danger.