Tisha be'Av, Tu be'Av and a harrowing hostage account

Just over a week ago, on the night of Tisha Be’Av, I started making my way through Eli Sharabi’s account of his experiences as a hostage in Gaza. The book is direct and to the point, providing readers with the impression that they have a constant birds-eye view of Eli’s suffering and survival techniques throughout his time in captivity.

While the whole book creates a tension and anxiety that makes it difficult to put down, there is one particular passage that jumped out at me from the page. This passage relates how, at one point of his ordeal, he was confined into a small tunnel area together with a number of other hostages. Their captors would provide meagre meals of pitta and dips to the entire group without apportioning food between them.

Eli is struck by the way in which the hostages seem to split into two groups: those who are single and do not have children instinctively grab what they can to assuage their persistent hunger while those who are married with children approach automatically with a different perspective. They identify the needs of the whole group as those of their own and look for a way to apportion the food fairly.

Upon reading this my mind jumped to a teaching in the Tosefta Sanhedrin (chap. 7) that one who is a eunuch or one without children is disqualified from presiding over capital cases. As it was explained to me, a person who is in a full marital and family relationship looks at the world, and in particular, people, in a different way. This is not a criticism of those who are not in such a situation – but it would explain why Judaism (and perhaps religion in general) places such an emphasis on the pivotal role of family.

With Tu Be’Av – often referred to as the Jewish Valentine’s Day – being marked yesterday, it is a timely reminder of how sexual activity is not restricted or seen as negative by the Torah. Rather, the Torah seeks to channel such activity in a manner that minimises its ability to influence the mind towards viewing sex from a purely self-centred perspective. This is why Jewish law promotes sexual intercourse within the strict confines of marriage – a meaningful relationship based on mutual love and respect. In the context of a relationship of this nature, which is predicated on giving rather than taking, an activity which could otherwise embody the most extreme form of self-gratification and even exploitation now becomes an opportunity to superimpose a higher set of values upon the person’s inherently selfish focus.

The notion that sexuality can be profoundly transformed and elevated when placed in the context of marriage is developed by Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, who writes:

“If you should inquire as to the essence and meaning of the institution of marriage, I would say that through marriage the miraculous transition from the I-it contact to the I-you relationship occurs. Marriage personalizes sexuality as the joint experience of the I and the you.”

It would seem that Eli Sharabi’s anecdote that individuals who have experienced this form of relationship gain an altogether different way of relating to all other people that they encounter – not just those in their immediate family.

Rav Soloveitchik taught in this vein that two different people can perform an identical act of kindness – yet the attitudes that govern these acts can make them effectively worlds apart.

A regular person, he writes, will perform an act of charity, giving a coin to a poor person.

Regarding a normal act of kindness:

“I am committed to genuinely helping a poor man, am genuinely committed to furthering his wellbeing … [M]y personality is still individual, still unique, still all-exclusive. I help out the Thou but he remains other to me.”

For a person who has truly internalised the Torah’s message of loving others as themselves, however:

“my personality shifts from being all-exclusive to being all-inclusive. The poor man is no longer an other separate from me. In God-like fashion my helping him out becomes a way of letting him share in my existence and reality. My helping him out thus becomes an act of imitatio Dei, an act of God-like hesed in the sense that I do not simple give to him, but I identify with him”.

A profound message contained in just one small passage of Eli Sharabi’s powerful and educational account of how to survive and retain one’s human dignity in the most challenging and degrading circumstances.

We continue to pray constantly for the rest of the hostages – including some of Eli’s tunnel-mates – to be released immediately.

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Tu be'Av: sex and marriage in Jewish thought

According to the Mishna, Tu Be'Av was a joyous holiday in the days of the Mikdash, on which the unmarried girls of Jerusalem dressed in white garments, and went out to dance in the vineyards. The Talmud records that “whoever did not have a wife would go there” to find himself a bride. In modern times the day has evolved into a romantic Jewish holiday that is sometimes compared to Valentine's Day.

This most unusual date in the Jewish calendar brings into focus Judaism’s attitude to marriage and sexual relationships. Judaism Reclaimed draws upon and develops the understanding that the Torah does not typically seek to deny its adherents involvement in the physical world. Rather it attempts to channel such activity so as to elevate people intellectually, morally and spiritually.

A notable example of this is food. The Torah does not seek to outlaw gastronomical pleasures. Rather it operates to curb excesses; prohibiting certain combinations of foods and legislating ritual slaughter and a ban on eating from live animals in order to prevent avoidable suffering. Keeping a kosher kitchen often requires one to master and apply intricate halachic details such as those involving different forms of combinations and nullifications of meat and milk. Avot teaches further regarding mealtimes that “where three people ate together at the same table but no Torah is spoken between them, it is as if they partook of an idolatrous sacrifice”. The process of eating – which seemingly relates to the more animalistic side of human conduct – is thus morally, intellectually and spiritually elevated through halachic guidance.

Similarly, with regard to sexual activity, the Torah does not seek to restrict all involvement in the physical world. Rather, it seeks to channel such activity in a manner that minimises its ability to influence the mind towards viewing sex from a purely self-centred perspective. This is why Jewish law promotes sexual intercourse only within the strict confines of marriage – a meaningful relationship based on mutual love and respect. In the context of a relationship of this nature, which is predicated on giving rather than taking, an activity which could otherwise embody the most extreme form of self-gratification and even exploitation now becomes an opportunity to superimpose a higher set of values upon the person’s inherently selfish focus.

The notion that sexuality can be profoundly transformed and elevated when placed in the context of marriage is developed by Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, who writes:

“If you should inquire as to the essence and meaning of the institution of marriage, I would say that through marriage the miraculous transition from the I-it contact to the I-you relationship occurs. Marriage personalizes sexuality as the joint experience of the I and the you.”

This theme is further explored by Rabbi Shagar in his essay “Love, Romance and Covenant”, where he concludes that “The chaos of sexuality, which first appears as the antithesis of marriage, as something to be suppressed by marriage, is ultimately synthesised with it, raising it up so that the relationship becomes an intimate partnership of body and soul”.

The Mishnah in Ta’anit which details the Tu Be’Av customs can be seen to contain strong indications of the role of marriage in transforming and elevating sexuality.

There were no days of joy in Israel greater than the fifteenth of Av and Yom Kippur. On these days the daughters of Jerusalem would go out in borrowed white garments in order not to shame anyone who had none...The daughters of Jerusalem came out and dance in the vineyards. What would they say? Young man, lift up your eyes and see what you choose for yourself. Do not set your eyes on beauty but set your eyes on the family. “Grace is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman that fears the Lord, she shall be praised”

Having associated the vineyard dancing of young maidens with the holiness and purity of Yom Kippur, the Mishnah describes how the focus of matchmaking is not the vanity of lustful beauty but rather on fear of Heaven and the sacred task of raising a family based on Jewish values and teachings.

A somewhat different Valentine’s Day.

First posted to Facebook 11 August 2022, here.