As Tisha Be’Av fast approaches we can brace ourselves for the usual traditional messages about why the Temple was destroyed. The baseless hatred that afflicted ancient Israel and how we must look to love one another more in order to merit redemption. Writing from my neighbourhood in “protest-land” near the Knesset – it seems that Tisha Be’Avs come and go, the messages get repeated, yet we as a nation grow ever further apart.
Over the past year I’ve witnessed first-hand the hatred and poisonous rhetoric which all-too-easily spills over into violence (one of our kids recently chose a bad time to walk down the street…). Even Tishe Be’av itself has seen rival groups scuffling over religious/political matters.
The result is a nation made up of a series of distinct social, political and religious groupings, each of which is becoming increasingly separated and insulated from the others. One speaks to those who identify with religiously observant sectors who are unable to fathom how their secular counterparts might view them and their representatives as indulging in hypocritically pious externalities along with grubby and sometimes even corrupt political machinations. Meanwhile the outright hostility we received initially from some secular Israeli neighbours aghast at the thought of a religious family moving into their building (until we were able to get to know and eventually befriend them) was tragically eye-opening.
An early chapter of Judaism Reclaimed examines rabbinic sources which emphasise how national providence is primarily determined by national unity – to an even greater extent than it is affected by the committal of the three cardinal sins. Yet a prior step before we even discuss “unity” is the recognition that we are part of the same wider group to begin with – that we are all in the same boat even as we may try to steer it in different directions.
Instead of letting Tisha Be’Av become a caricature of the continuing crisis – sitting on the floor among likeminded lamenters sadly shaking our heads at “others” who practice baseless hatred – let it motivate us instead to make a firm commitment. To reach out beyond our comfort zone. To embrace and seek to understand the Other whenever they might cross our path.
Rather than lazily categorising and defining people based upon their political or religious affiliation we can attempt to see them first and foremost as fellow human beings and Jews – albeit ones who possess beliefs with which we may deeply disagree. Rather than thinking (or even shouting) “traitors” “parasites” “fascists” or making disparaging comments about “stupid …ists”, we can strive to see the humanity within people different from ourselves – people who on the whole are devoted friends, loving family members yet who hold a contrasting set of beliefs about how our little country and nation can be improved.
If we are able to collectively succeed in this realignment then we can look forward to a very different 9th of Av experience in years to come. Until such a time we can continue to mourn the destructive divisiveness of the past, safe in the knowledge that we are emulating our ancestors’ faults and repeating their deadly disunity and critical errors in our own modern era.
First posted on Facebook 26 July 2023., here
