We are now in one of the most horrifying, saddest periods of time in Jewish history. It is when we mourn the destruction of the Second Temple and yet again more grief, horror and exile. One can understand how the constant fire and destruction rained upon the people of Israel have left a mark on their universal soul, an inherited genetic trauma. Proven time and again to recur, no matter the century and year, no matter the country, no matter the interwoven contributions of the Jewish nation, of the State of Israel into the fabric of the world.
On Thursday we fast and we pray and we mourn a violent period in our history, one whose echoes followed us through the centuries, one which we mourn today, even as there are sparks of hope in a seemingly hopeless world. What is that spark? It is the hope that someday relatively soon led into Jerusalem on a white donkey will be the culmination of what has been the one dream of the Jewish nation since time immemorial.
The coming of the Messiah, a time of peace and goodwill, a time when all will live righteously in harmony, the actualization of all the dreams and metaphors and allegories of Jewish literature, from the sacred to the profane. The revelation that Jews have been waiting for since the time of their birth as the Jewish nation, the People of the Book.
But in the meanwhile, we must wait We can dream, we can prepare. We can imagine the glorious time of the rebuilding of the Temple; this time a permanent rebuilding. It is hopefully a time when the people of the world and the people of the Jewish nation understand what it means to live a righteous life. To be accepting of differences among people. To manage to weave all the differences into a picture of harmony of the proverbial scene of the lion sleeping with the lambs. Of swords and weapons disappearing, to emerge from the fire as plowshares, ready to till the earth of this planet, of this world, that G-d has gifted to us.
Along with that beautiful scene of serenity, one can call it also a time when the debts of the individuals and nations of this world must be called and repaid in one manner or another. The Jewish people are well acquainted with such times. Often and understandably, they conflated the latest violence with the violence and upheaval that will come along with the appearance of the true Messiah.
In fact, during some of these violent periods of history, be it the slashes of the Crusaders or the raids of the Cossacks, or the scientifically planned extermination of the Jewish people via the Nazis and others of their ilk, the despair often gave rise to desperately sought elements of hope, of the temporary nature of the awful times and of the bright light of the Messiah growing ever brighter, ever closer. The bloodshed and violence and despair of such times gave rise to the seeking of that Messiah and too often, repeatedly so, a false Messiah was declared found, or self-announced, and the end result was more despair as the truth emerged and the false hope disintegrated.
We seek redemption. We seek an end to the copy paste methodology running through the history of humanity. We despair time and again when the humane is divorced from humankind, trampled upon, deemed irrelevant and even harmful to the ambitions of those who deem themselves the royalty of mankind, immune from all laws, legal and moral.
At such times, the violence and rampant hate and uncertainty inevitably rains down upon the Jews, deemed the source and the cause of all woes of the world, hence, of necessity, there should be a total isolation of them and an inevitable extermination. Such has been the history of the world at large and of the Jewish people in particular. Jewish people are caught, always, in the middle of that hate drowning the world, swirling around. Leaders and their base followers take advantage and use the ugliness of the times to destroy those who stand in their way. It could be a sect of religion, a tribe or caste, any pathetic reason deemed useful by those seemingly 'bespoken' souls for Evil, and always, the Jewish People.
Thus, what we are mourning during this period of time is not "only” the destruction of the Second Temple but the shattering of a hope. A permanent home for the People of the Book. To live in peace, to prosper, to raise families, to contribute to the world and leave the world a better place for their having been part of it.
Eichah, the Book of Lamentations, where and when we sat alone, as usual, as always, as we cried on the banks of a river, as we wondered how did we reach this point, that spark of hope was able to be seen and to be internalized by the Daughter of Zion. Even in the depths of despair, she received comfort. There will be a better time, that this will not be the eternal condition of the Jewish people.
And indeed, history has borne out the truth of that promise. Even as we mourn the losses of our past and contemplate the horror of current losses and the probability of more to come, we can build a firm basis for a better future. A time of promise and peace. Hope and an encouragement borne out many, many times in the books of the Bible, a reassurance that as bad as it has been, as it could be, always know that we are the Children of the Lord. We will always have a chance to think, to contemplate and to return from any wrong paths onto which we have strayed, along with the rest of a sorely disappointing humanity at large.
A most telling and encouraging message of hope is from Isaiah 56:5 -
“To them, I will give in my house and within my walls, a place and a name... an everlasting name that shall not be cut off."
A permanent home never to be forced out, never to be exiled, never again to be unsure of our welcome and acceptance within humanity.
Always to know and for the world to know we stand in direct line from within our history to the reestablishment and the reinvigorating of the State of Israel. A state of and for the Jews, promised to them, for them, by the Lord to Avraham Avinu, Abraham, our founding father. Validated by history. Validated by blood, by sacrifice and validated by the will of the Lord Above.
Yesterday, today, tomorrow.
Always the same but capable of changing. It is up to us to create an opening and an opportunity for the fulfillment of our righteous and proper role in the world.
I recommend reading two books, very different. One is the Book of Lamentations, basically an explication of it, written by Joshua A. Berman, a professor, scholar and author of note and brilliance.
I also recommend a very different book which I unexpectedly came across. It is titled Justice for Some, written by Reid S. Cherner. A book most intriguing, most confusing, most enlightening and most frustrating. Well worth a read.
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