Encino, Calif. (JTA) — “If it weren’t for summer camp, no one in modern America would be observing Tisha B’Av,” said Morley Feinstein, senior rabbi of Los Angeles’ University Synagogue.
Yes, timing is everything. Or not. For while Tisha B’Av is the saddest day on the Jewish calendar as well as, my son Zack, 19, insists, “a critical holiday,” it is also controversial.
For some Jews, Tisha B’Av is the day to mourn the destruction of the temples in Jerusalem, in 586 BCE and 70 CE, which led to exile from the land of Israel. They observe a 25-hour fast, from sundown to nightfall, and during the evening service, sit on the floor chanting lamentations and other somber prayers. For them, Tisha B’Av is “an eternal day of mourning,” according to a midrash.
For others, Tisha B’Av is less doleful and, in some instances, even disregarded because the temple, with its animal sacrifices and non-egalitarian priestly roles, is not of paramount importance. Additionally, many Jews view the temples’ destruction as even less noteworthy since the birth of Israel and the reunification of Jerusalem ended our exile.
Still, various groups are drawing up blueprints for a third temple, as well as training members of the priestly caste to serve as future priests; recreating musical instruments once used in temple worship; breeding red heifers, whose ashes are needed to purify the high priest; and practicing animal sacrifice.
Yet others are convinced that, as 19th-century Rabbi David Einhorn proclaimed, “the day of sorrow and fasting has become a day of gladness.” They believe, as Einhorn did, that the destruction of the temple, and subsequent exile to all parts of the globe, has enabled the Jews to become a “light unto the nations,” as Isaiah prophesied (42:6, 49:6).
To complicate matters, many Jews believe that Tisha B’Av is also the time to mourn other tragedies that fell on this date: the fall of Betar, the last stronghold of the Bar-Kochba Revolt, in 135 CE; the Jews’ expulsion from Spain in 1492; the forced move into the Rome Ghetto in 1555; and the beginning of deportations from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka in 1942.
Many want to use Tisha B’Av to mourn the Holocaust. Some want to mark the August 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Others adamantly oppose making Tisha B’Av a repository for all tragedies, especially the Holocaust.
‘ Memory is history’
The Talmud states, “Why was the first temple destroyed? Because of idolatry, incest and spilling of blood within it. And why the second? Because of groundless hatred.”
Some Jews believe we need to mend our sinful ways, to better incorporate Jewish values into our lives, to make ourselves more pleasing to God. Others disagree, including Feinstein, who says, “Blaming the victim for the crime is bad theology. And it’s a theology that doesn’t work in the 21st century.”
But the truth is, whatever beliefs we hold concerning the temple’s past and future, its destruction and the devastation that followed are part of our history. As Isaac Leib Peretz, a late 19th-century writer, said, “A people’s memory is history; and as a man without a memory, so a people without a history cannot grow wiser, better.”
In our early history, three times a year, at Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot, we made pilgrimages to Jerusalem to sacrifice animals on the temple altar to praise, thank and relate to God.
The demise of the temple ended that simpler, more contained world, severing our connection with God, dispersing us in many directions and forcing us to learn to communicate with God through prayer and good deeds.
“The physical dislocation was difficult, but the spiritual dislocation was much worse. It’s as pertinent a problem as ever,” Zack said.
And so, on Erev Tisha B’Av, Zack will commemorate the holiday at Camp Alonim north of Los Angeles, where he’s spent most every summer since he was 7.
There, with the entire camp, he will go out into a large pasture with three bonfires burning, looking up at the same moon the Jews stared at almost 3,000 years ago and reflect on what historian Flavius Josephus called a “pestilential destruction.”
The rest of our family will attend a candlelight service at University Synagogue where Feinstein will remind us that we have to mark the sad events in our history, but we also have to remember the many more glorious and wondrous things.
Yes, out of tragedy comes hope and renewal.
Jane Ulman is a freelance writer in Encino, Calif. She is the mother of four sons.
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