That is the name in Hebrew, for today, the ninth day of the month of Av in the Jewish lunar calendar. It is a day when millions of Jews around the world will be doing one or more of the following: fasting, discussion groups, presentations, special prayers, looking back and forward in time to find answers. They will officially be mourning the destruction of both Temples, the First and the Second, and the inevitable dismantling of the Jewish state. It will also be mourning the blindness of the world to the fact that these Temples were built on what is called Temple Mount, thus Jews have every right to pray there in orderly manner. Yet today, if they are seen to even be moving lips, voicelessly, they are subject to arrest. Truly, a day of mourning. What we have lost.
But there is far more to the day; it has become a day of tragedy, of dread, of awful events, a cursed day. Tragedy after tragedy have been linked to this day, yet also a day when it is said that the Messiah will be born. But until then, we Jews look upon that day with squinted eyes, worrying, wondering, what is next. Even as we recite The Book of Lamentations, or Eichah, recite special kinnot, prayers, fast, and remember, we wonder. What is next?
There is always a next. History has shown us so. In the atmosphere of today, this past Friday, a Jew was set upon in NYC and dreadfully beaten. Why? Because he was obviously a Jew, thus free prey for all monsters of the world. A horrifying echo of the past, not restricted to the Holocaust. Jews have been subject to this murderous behavior from time immemorial. We wonder all through today, when is it enough? When does it stop? In fact, for many Jews, most Jews, throughout history, that has been a perpetual existential reality, a permanent question in our lives. Today, you wonder? Today is the same as anti - Semitism grows by leaps and bounds, as monsters in human form repeat the behavior of so many, too many, through the millennia.
A bit of a history lesson and perhaps an understanding re this day of eternal tragedy and what thinking and worry goes on in the heads of most Jews at one time or another. For some, still, always a concern, always a reality of ugliness. Of repetition of history in all its inhumanity.
The Biblical twelve spies returned from Canaan, speaking derogatory words. The consequence: a delay in the entry of the Israelites into their Promised Land and all the historical echoes.
Both Temples were destroyed, much of the underlying cause being a lack of unity among the nation, leaving them open to destruction. Hmmm. The destruction of the Second Temple began the official Galut, or Exile, of Jews from their homeland, building a Diaspora of Jews, never ever to be fully welcomed or feel at home anywhere.
A rebellion by Bar Kochba was put down, over a half million Jews killed, and the grounds of the Temple were plowed under.
The First Crusade began along with the murder of thousands of Jews in Europe and the destruction of Jewish communities.
A Day of Expulsion and Exile - England, France, Spain where the Inquisition dug its frightful claws into so many, to be echoed down through history, until we were told basically, Jews could not live here, there - not anywhere - The Holocaust. And not much of this thinking has changed in the minds and hearts of too many.
WWI - Germany joined the War. Jews suffered great oppression directed at them as lands changed hands, throughout the war and afterwards. Always a convenient enemy, a pressure relief valve, a substitute enemy, shall we say.
1941 - official permission to enact the Final Solution - the murdering of ALL Jews in ALL countries of the world.
1942 - the beginning of the mass deportation of the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka, slaughtered, in that accursed death camp.
1994 - The bombing of the AMIA center in Buenos Aires, with a toll of 85 dead and over 300 wounded.
Every year this day rolls around and we wonder - what is next? G-d willing, one day it will prove to redeem itself, turn darkness into light, chase the darkness of the world away. Light destroys the power of darkness and perhaps, just perhaps....one day, one year, someday. Until then, we remember, we commemorate, we mourn and we hope. We hope our prayers are heard and answered. Soon and with positive result. One day.
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