A thread on Tisha B'av (1/10)

Tisha B'av is a peculiar holiday. Simplified, we're supposed to mourn calamities in Jewish history and many actually occurred on this date.

There's 355 days in the Jewish calendar. The odds are good over thousands of years of calamities that some will fall on this date. (2/10)

More to the point, among the calamities we are meant to mourn are the destruction of the first and second Temples.

A peculiar thing for Zionist Jews. There is a Jewish state which can build a third Temple. It (rightly) chooses not to for political reasons. Why mourn? (3/10)

I no longer approach Tisha B'av as a moment just for mourning.

There is enough pain in each lived Jewish experience that we as a people carry every day. Do we really need a day on the calendar for it? (4/10)

For me, this holiday is a challenge on the grounds of Sinat Chinam, baseless hatred.

Our sages teach that the true cause of the destruction of the Temple under the Romans was not their actions, but ours.

Our baseless hatred of each other. (5/10)

I used to be very dismissive of this. For someone who spent years learning about decision making in government, why countries go to war, why empires form, etc... the explanation of Roman expansion into Judea that focused on an intra-Jewish beef left much to be desired. (6/10)

But I am older now. I have watched my own countrymen embrace foreign interference because they concluded that their domestic opponents were in fact enemies and so the ends justified the means.

I fear for my country if more people come to see their opponents as enemies. (7/10)

It's not just in America. There are so many fault lines in the Jewish world today.

It is easy, particularly when you know in your heart that what you are doing is right and just and that what your opponents are doing is wrong and cruel, to hate your opponents. (8/10)

And at heated moments I do. I am human, after all.

Tisha B'av in my eyes is the holiday that challenges us to do better. To not be a slave to our passions and resentments, but rather the master of them. Left unchecked, hatred is our downfall.

(9/10)

I don't know that this year is the year that I will meet this challenge. I don't know that any year will be. But I know that this call I wish to answer.

I hope you do too.

Every moment you have a chance to be better than your hatreds is worth it. (10/10)