“By the waters, the waters of Babylon. We sat down and wept, and wept for thee Zion. We remember, we remember, we remember thee Zion.”

Tonight marks the Jewish holiday of Tisha B’av, one of the saddest days on the Jewish calendar. On this day we commemorate the destruction of both Temples in Jerusalem.. According to the Talmud, in Taanit 4:6, there were actually five tragedies that happened on the 9th of Av.
• The twelve spies that Moses sent to scout out the Land of Israel returned with their report. Only Joshua and Caleb had a positive report.
• The First Temple, built by King Solomon was destroyed in 586BCE and the Israelites sent into exile in Babylon
• The Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70CE.
• The Romans crushed the Bar Kochba revolt and destroyed the city of Betar, killing 10,000 Jews in 132 CE
• The Roman commander Turnus Rufus ordered the site of the Holy Temple plowed under in 133CE.

2000 years later we are still mourning. It is a bad day, and the tragedies on this day have continued throughout history.
• The First Crusade began on this day in 1096. 10,000 Jews in France and the Rhineland were killed that first month alone and in the end 1.2 million Jews perished.
• Jews were expelled from England in 1290 on July 25
• Jews were expelled from France in 1306 on July 21
• Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492 on July 31
• Heinrich Himmler received approval for the Final Solution in 1941 on August 2.

• The fall of the Warsaw ghetto and the deportation of Jews to Treblinka in 1942 on July 23.

While each of these happened on a different secular day, amazingly, they each happened on Tisha B’av. More recently, the bombing of the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires took place on the 10th of Av (the day the Second Temple was still burning!) killing 85 people.

There are plenty of reasons to be sad on Tisha B’av. There may even be reasons to be wary on Tisha B’av. It is important to remember, never to forget. But what do we do with that collective memory? What do we do with the reality that Jews have been gathered from the four corners of the earth and that the State of Israel is again a reality?

When I first went to Israel, in 1977, we observed Tisha B’av. It was a very meaningful service. We sat on the floor. We sang haunting songs. The room was lit by candlelight and there were no electric lights. As teenagers we were given the option of fasting the full day, a half day or not at all. Why a half day? Because now that the State of Israel has been restored, our mourning for the exile might/should be suspended. I opted to fast the full day. There is nothing quite like fasting in Jerusalem in the heat of the summer. You really get that sense of burning heat, burning thirst. There is nothing quite like visiting the remains of the Holy Temple, the Kotel in the evening of Tisha B’av and then going to Yad V’shem in the morning. There is nothing quite like that long walk back from Yad V’shem to the center of Jerusalem with no water and no Coke.

Today only 22% of Israelis themselves fast a full day or at all according to a 2010 poll. Others observe the day by avoiding entertainment, visiting with friends or going to the beach.
The half-day fast makes the most sense to me now. First you might ask, why fast at all? Israel exists. We should be happy. We even sing Ahavah Rabbah when it talks about the ingathering to the tune of Hatikvah, Israel’s national anthem. Ismar Schorsch, the former chancellor of the Jewish Theological Institute said it this way:

“But one day of remembrance, enacted wholeheartedly is sufficient. Three weeks of escalating mournfulness, beginning with the fast day on the 17th of Tammuz, threatens to turn martyrology and victimhood into a world view. The creation of Israel has endowed the Jewish people with an unprecedented degree of power that is ill-served by a festering sense of resentment, an abiding angst over insecurity and a messianic zeal to right past wrongs. To brood on our long history of impotence can only blunt our political judgment in an age when so much has changed and obscure the ideals of justice and righteousness that were to mark the descendants of Abraham and cast a beacon for the world.”

I tend to agree. I get frustrated, even angry, who can only see the world in terms of “Is it good for the Jews or bad for the Jews.” While it has been said that in every generation a new Amalek arises, I can’t look at the world that way. Maybe I am naïve. This past year I read a drash about the difference between Passover Jews and Purim Jews. Yossi Klein Halevi writes:

Jewish history speaks to our generation in the voice of two biblical commands to remember. The first voice commands us to remember that we were strangers in the land of Eypt, and the message of that command is: Don’t be brutal. The second voice commands us to remember how the tribe of Amalek attacked us without provocation while we were wandering in the desert, and the message of that command is: Don’t be naive.

The first command is the voice of Passover, of liberation; the second is the voice of Purim, commemorating our victory over the genocidal threat of Haman, a descendant of Amalek. “Passover Jews” are motivated by empathy with the oppressed; “Purim Jews” are motivated by alertness to threat. Both are essential; one without the other creates an unbalanced Jewish personality, a distortion of Jewish history and values. http://www.hartman.org.il/Blogs_View.asp?Article_Id=1103&Cat_Id=275&Cat_Type=Blogs

So we need both. We need the hope of liberation and welcoming the strangers in a strange land and we need to remember not to forget.

Tisha B’Av in light of all the other calamities is still mournful and fasting is how Jews express their sadness. And while the State of Israel exists, it is not perfect. No human government can be perfect. There are plenty of problems still to be addressed in the modern state of Israel. We are told that the Second Temple was destroyed because of Sinat Chinam, baseless or senseless hatred. This year it seems to be that there are plenty of examples of sinat chinam. This is what I will be mourning on Tisha B’av:
• The baseless hatred that some Jews have shown the Women of the Wall. The fact that eggs were thrown at these women, women just like me, who wish to daven at the wall wearing a tallit or reading from Torah, on Rosh Hodesh Av when we talk about sinat chinam necessitates mourning.
• The baseless hatred that some Jews feel toward the other Jews: Jews that don’t look like Eastern European Jews, Jews that are LBGTQ, Jews that have intermarried. There is no place in Judaism for sinat chinam
• The baseless hatred that some Jews feel toward the other responding out of that place of fear: towards Palestinians, towards Muslims in general. This week we saw the verdict in a trial in Florida. No matter what you think of the not guilty verdict, there is no place in Judaism for the baseless hatred (and fear) of blacks, Hispanics, immigrants. We were once all part of immigrant families.

So yes, I will be mourning this Tisha B’av. However, for me, it is not enough to fast, to refrain from bathing, swimming, entertainment. For me Tisha B’av is a call for action, a call for Tikkun Olam. Last Shabbat was called Shabbat Hazon, the Shabbat of Vision. We have been given a vision of what the world can be. We are partners in G-d’s creation in implementing that vision, a vision of peace, of comfort, where no one will sit under their vine or fig tree and make them afraid. I was pleased to spend yesterday working at a Habitat for Humanity build project, building a house with my fellow congregants. That is part of that vision. And yes, when Tisha B’av is over, I will return to my sense of hope and renewal and comfort that we find in the prophets and in our actions for Tikkun Olam.