Alas! We are Forsaken! Today is Tisha B’Av
Posted by Oyster on August 3, 2006
Today, I am fasting. Today is Tisha B’Av, the Jewish day of mourning. What do we mourn today? The principle act of horror in the Jewish collective memory is the savage destruction of our holy Temple in Jerusalem, our near extinction as a people, and our dispersion to the four corners of the globe, starting the long, painful journey in the Diaspora, the Galut, to be later derided as “wandering Jews”.
But, in the Kabbalistic view of Judaism, time is not linear. It is cyclical, and moments that coincide on some certain moment, almost occupy a singular “space” in time. Shabbat, as explained by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, is one such example, it being “a palace in time“. But, alas, so are the tragedies that have befallen the Jewish nation; they too would manifest themselves mystically in concordance with our worst day of sorrow:
- the first Temple is destroyed by the Babylonians, 586 B.C.E.
- the second Temple is destroyed by the Romans, 70 C.E.
- the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, 1942
- World War I started, precipitating WWII and the Holocaust
- the first Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto (my family among them) were shipped to the Treblinka extermination center
Ever since the war between Hezbollah and Israel flared up on the 17th of Tammuz (the date when the Romans breached the fortified walls of Jerusalem), during these Three Weeks ( the period of mourning between the 17th of Tammuz and Tisha B’Av ) I’ve had a heightened sense of foreboding about the fighting, especially since everyone’s been demonstrating how this could domino to involve Lebanon’s army, Syria, and Iran. Effectively starting a World War III. But I’ve come to realize that of all the things that this war has caused, it has united the Israeli (and Jewish) people in a way that we haven’t seen in decades. And if we should learn one thing from the destruction of the second Temple, its that senseless hatred and division amongst the Jewish people will be our ultimate downfall. So, on this point I am reassured, but that is not the only reason why tragedy befell us…
Other blogs on Tisha B’Av:
- Jewlicious: Tisha B’Av is Today
- Jewlicious: Tisha B’Av at the Kotel (Western Wall; photo set on Flickr)
- Jewlicious: It’s one, two three, what are we fasting for?
- JewSchool: Lebanon Through the Lens of Tisha B’Av
Sitting on the floor of my synagogue last night, barefoot, we read the Book of Lamentations, or Eicha. In trying to picture the destruction of Jerusalem, the siege of the city, the slow starvation of the people, my thoughts floated to my recent March of the Living trip. I couldn’t help but think of my family, who either starved to death in the Warsaw Ghetto, or perished in the crematorium of Treblinka, when we read the following lines, Chapter 4, versus 8 through 10:
4:8 Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets; their skin is shrivelled upon their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.
4:9 They that are slain with the sword are better than they that are slain with hunger; for these pine away, stricken through, for want of the fruits of the field.
4:10 The hands of women full of compassion have sodden their own children; they were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
If you have ever read about the conditions inside the Ghetto, the slowly starving people who looked like walking skeletons, dead bodies left to rot… then you’ll understand the haunting resonance these lines had for me.
May all of you take time to mourn, to commemorate the tragedies that have afflicted the Jewish people throughout the ages, to learn about our heritage in Jerusalem, and have an easy fast. May the Jewish people become united, may Moshiakh come and bring peace to everyone on Earth, and then may our holy Temple be rebuilt speedily in our days.
Oy Bay! 
alilyamongthorns said
Alas, Oyster, it seems that your dire predictions are coming true as today is the deadliest day of attacks for Israel with 12 dead. http://news.yahoo.com/fc/world/mideast_conflict
shiduri said
For those of us not fasting, perhaps when we eat, we should be mindful of the suffering that was, is and will be in this world.
Oyster said
From my friend AMizrahi:
In a recent interview, General Norman Schwartzkopf was asked if he thought there was room for forgiveness toward Hizbollah.
The General said,
” I believe that forgiving Hizbollah is God’s function. The Israeli’s job is to arrange the meeting.”
I think I’ve heard that quote before, in a different context, so this might have been a forgery.
Most. Unromantic. Jew. EVER. « Oy Bay! said
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A ROMAN said
My ancestors gave you multiple chances to surrender and leave peacefully among the other people of the world, but you refused our peace.
You can thank your own stubborness and religious ferver for the horrors that followed since then. You believe yourself to be better, to be chosen, and yet a group of pagan foreigners was able to destroy god’s chosen place with amazing skill and cunning. A group of pagans who is now considered to be the foundation of the west, and is among the most loved and respected people on earth. The moral of the story is that Men rule the world, not gods, and the strongest always prevail, regardless of the circumstances or the beliefs of the people involved. The only problem that I can see in certain Jews (as well as tons of Christians and Muslims) is that you leave the affairs of the world to a god who is not present, therefore letting the people at the top run the show unquestioned. Religion creates compassion and friendship between groups of the same faith, but let’s not forget it alienates the rest of the world in the process. You can live in your little box as long as you want, but one day what is outside your box will come and disrupt your peace, and you won’t know how to deal with it…just like in the year 70 C.E. when my forefathers destroyed your temple. Did you ever ask yourself if maybe most of your problems are actually caused by your religion (as in Christians and muslims and any other ‘all-or’nothing religious group) ???? The problem is that religion is by nature self-righteous, and unquestionnable. You are therefore bound to it regardless of logic. period. Stop thinking about whats after life and start focusing on LIFE!
a friendly advice from a Roman.
>[ROMA CAPVT MVNDI]<
daniel a. said
Let me start with a sentence that maybe you already heard. Israel an US, the jews, still exist, Rome and its empire is in ruins. I clearly doubt that you as you arrogantly state are a Roman. Romans caesed to exist when their culture and arrogant way of living rotted into a mass of putrid customs and ideas, being trampled by whom you petulantly called Barbarians, when they invaded Rome and brougth down the “glorious empire” which Romans themselves had started to destroy with thir own hands.
You should know that the we Jews have always linked our present, past and future on their faith on God(Rachmuna letz’lan), the only God that has prevailed and whose thought and idea helped create the religion that now reigns on the land where your beloved Roman empire used to lay upon. Who would have thought that Christians, whome Romans clearly despised and persecuted, whom romans called cowards and weaklings, would establish their reign upon the ruins of the monster that once terrorized them.
See, you might think that our past, present and future is all inside our box, but let me tell you, it is a box that God(Rachmuna letz’lan) has and will always preserve for a long time, even hwn the thougt of the roman empire had long disapeared from the world’s mind. How do I know this? because He promised Us He would, and because We have what Romans never learned to have: FAITH IN GOD.
Oyster said
A Roman:
I wasn’t aware that Roman galley ships could row as far as Florida from Rome.
Secondly, your ancestors weren’t atheists. They were polytheists. Just because they were ‘pagans’ doesn’t make them godless.
I’m not sure where you come off saying that Jews “leave the affairs of the world to a g-d who is not present, therefore letting the people at the top run the show unquestioned”. Jews have been the world’s premier shit-disturbers for all of history. When any country or empire, no matter how powerful, has arisen to try to crush our people by killing us or our religion/culture, we have fought back ferociously and to the death.
And while all those who have considered themselves Roman in terms of culture, religion, and literature, has gone the way of the worm, the Jewish people survive and will continue to exist for all of history. Because while the Romans might have been great at building empires, they never developed a system that would preserve their civilization throughout the ages…
challahbackgirl said
Tisha B’av community commemoration and more on CBDYAG
FriarYid said
If you want to talk self-righteous, read Tacitus’ thoughts on the Jews. The Romans were kings of “our shit don’t stink” foreign policy, and the historians of the age are just as condescending as any European imperialists of the 18th and 19th centuries.
Peace at the end of a sword is no peace at all. That’s just as true today as it was two thousand years ago.
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kim said
all jewish must be gassed in concentration camps in iran because of their crualty in palestine.