Time of Grief to Time of Hope
This Saturday night, right after the Sabbath, begins the observance of Tisha B'Av, the anniversary of the date when the Holy Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed.
We fast and pray and read Lamentations, and remember all the other disasters in our history - the expulsion from Spain, the pogroms in Russia and Poland, the Holocaust. It's not a happy time, but it's important.
Midrash teaches that God chose this date for our loss because it's also the anniversary of the day some months after the Exodus from Egypt when the spies returned to the Hebrew camp and ten of them reported that the land was good, but the cities strong and people enormous. The people went to their tents and cried for fear, saying "God must hate us for bringing us here to die by the sword." In some ways that was even worse than the sin of the Golden Calf - God, as it were, said "It's enough that the people keep disobeying me and rebelling against Moses after all the miracles I've shown them, but to say that I hate them after all that? The minds of these people have been crippled by the slavery they grew up in. These people aren't ready to go into the Holy Land - they'll all die in the wilderness and their children will go in."
So from that day forward, this is the day that God's anger expresses itself against us for our sins, and the results have been devastating.
It's also worth mentioning that Midrash teaches different reasons for the destruction of the two temples. The first one, say the Sages, was destroyed because the people sinned through murder, adultery and idol worship. Pretty grievous sins, you'd think, but that temple was rebuilt less than a hundred years later. The second temple was destroyed because the people sinned through causeless hatred - sounds like a much lesser sin, but the temple hasn't been rebuilt yet, and that was about 2,000 years ago.
On the other hand, say the Sages, this is actually good news, because it teaches us the precise remedy for the temple's destruction. If we lost it because of causeless hatred, then clearly we will get it back through causeless love. And indeed, for all the pain we recall and re-experience on Tisha B'Av, the Sages teach that it will be (probably already has been) the Messiah's birthday.
There are plenty of Jews in the world who would consider me either a poor Jew or not a Jew at all because I'm lax in my observances, because of my politics, because I express a lukewarm support for the Gaza pullout and the security fence on the West Bank, or for any one of a number of reasons. Those folks would probably say I have no business waiting for the Messiah's arrival. It's hard for me to feel anything but anger toward them. The lesson of Tisha B'Av is a difficult one, but clear - I and those of my Jewish brothers and sisters who lack patience with me, whether more or less pious, need to embrace each other wholeheartedly if we're to have any hope of living to see the Messianic age.
For that matter, the same thing goes for me and those of my brothers and sisters of all persuasions. This is not just a matter of "Can't we all just get along?" The message is "Choose causeless love, or causeless hatred will choose us." I'm ready to choose.
Benshlomo says, We want Mashiach now, we don't want to wait.
We fast and pray and read Lamentations, and remember all the other disasters in our history - the expulsion from Spain, the pogroms in Russia and Poland, the Holocaust. It's not a happy time, but it's important.
Midrash teaches that God chose this date for our loss because it's also the anniversary of the day some months after the Exodus from Egypt when the spies returned to the Hebrew camp and ten of them reported that the land was good, but the cities strong and people enormous. The people went to their tents and cried for fear, saying "God must hate us for bringing us here to die by the sword." In some ways that was even worse than the sin of the Golden Calf - God, as it were, said "It's enough that the people keep disobeying me and rebelling against Moses after all the miracles I've shown them, but to say that I hate them after all that? The minds of these people have been crippled by the slavery they grew up in. These people aren't ready to go into the Holy Land - they'll all die in the wilderness and their children will go in."
So from that day forward, this is the day that God's anger expresses itself against us for our sins, and the results have been devastating.
It's also worth mentioning that Midrash teaches different reasons for the destruction of the two temples. The first one, say the Sages, was destroyed because the people sinned through murder, adultery and idol worship. Pretty grievous sins, you'd think, but that temple was rebuilt less than a hundred years later. The second temple was destroyed because the people sinned through causeless hatred - sounds like a much lesser sin, but the temple hasn't been rebuilt yet, and that was about 2,000 years ago.
On the other hand, say the Sages, this is actually good news, because it teaches us the precise remedy for the temple's destruction. If we lost it because of causeless hatred, then clearly we will get it back through causeless love. And indeed, for all the pain we recall and re-experience on Tisha B'Av, the Sages teach that it will be (probably already has been) the Messiah's birthday.
There are plenty of Jews in the world who would consider me either a poor Jew or not a Jew at all because I'm lax in my observances, because of my politics, because I express a lukewarm support for the Gaza pullout and the security fence on the West Bank, or for any one of a number of reasons. Those folks would probably say I have no business waiting for the Messiah's arrival. It's hard for me to feel anything but anger toward them. The lesson of Tisha B'Av is a difficult one, but clear - I and those of my Jewish brothers and sisters who lack patience with me, whether more or less pious, need to embrace each other wholeheartedly if we're to have any hope of living to see the Messianic age.
For that matter, the same thing goes for me and those of my brothers and sisters of all persuasions. This is not just a matter of "Can't we all just get along?" The message is "Choose causeless love, or causeless hatred will choose us." I'm ready to choose.
Benshlomo says, We want Mashiach now, we don't want to wait.
posted by benshlomo at 3:29 PM
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