Mourning on Tisha B’Av amidst the reality of ongoing disaster
The calendar shows that we are in the days of “Bein HaMetzarim,” the three weeks between the 17th of Tammuz and the ninth of Av, known as “Telat dePuranuta,” an Aramaic expression meaning “three of calamity.”
Many, or most, Israelis have been experiencing the feeling associated with the current season for nearly 700 days – that is, almost two years in a state of continuous calamity. And most Israelis, to the extent possible, make great effort to continue living as normally as possible: working, earning a living, engaging in creative activities, even hanging out.
Some make that great effort when they are home with their families, between stints of dangerous reserve duty in the Israel Defense Forces. Others, however, have been displaced from their homes. Thousands of bereaved families experience loss every day, and spend their time worrying about their relatives who are wounded in body and soul. All of these people are living with high anxiety, maybe not every moment, but over time, and with few real breathing spells.
The calendar demarcates the days of fasting and mourning without comment on the reality of the times. That said, there are those who compare the time mourned to other times in history. Long have comparisons been made between the Holocaust of the 20th century and the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem in the first century. But this kind of comparison is worth avoiding: it usually results in historical distortion and does not respect the pain, suffering, or anxiety of those who are experiencing a disaster in the here and now.
The fasts established by the sages were not exactly in memory of historical events – no matter how horrific they were. Rather, they memorialize a negative, anomalous reality. An “anomalous reality” is reality when it is characterized by external existential dangers – such as enemies who seek to destroy us – or by internal dangers, such as conflict and division. Thus, a dispute that is not for the sake of heaven or for the clarification of the truth is at risk of resulting in hatred and contempt – a path to self-destruction. But when the negativity itself passes and a return to normalcy takes place, the fasts themselves should be cancelled, becoming things of the past themselves.
That negativity is present in the five fasts that the sages fixed in the calendar to inspire us to deal with the reality of exile and destruction: the Fast of Gedaliah, the 10th of Tevet, the Fast of Esther, the 17th of Tammuz, and the Ninth of Av. The fasts are therefore in place to help us correct the anomalous behavior that brought destruction upon us, and from which we have not been healed to this day.
Three fasts represent three distinct stages: siege, breach of the walls, and destruction of the Temple. The time between these stages, leaves room for hope – perhaps the next stage will not come! It is entirely up to us. Our discussion does not address the historical context of determining each fast on its own. We are discussing here the cultural significance of the fact that for two thousand years Jews have been marking days of fasting associated with destruction. When we are besieged by the enemy, how will we act among ourselves? Will we learn from our ancestors?
Vespasian came and lay siege to Jerusalem for three years. There were three wealthy men there… and there was enough to last the city for 21 years. There were rebels present, and the Rabbis said to them: ‘‘let us go and make peace with the Romans’. They [the rebels] did not allow them to do so and said to them: ‘Let us go and make war with them.’ The Rabbis said to them: ‘We will not be successful’. They [the rebels] arose and burned the stores of wheat and barley, and hunger increased throughout the city. (BT Gittin, 56a)
Through these fasts run the paths of return to normal reality. Departure from the anomalous realities’ characteristic of exile and destruction. These paths are explicitly mentioned in the words of Maimonides:
There are days on which all Jews fast, due to the afflictions that occurred thereupon (thus far Maimonides addresses “history,” but note the continuation – N.R.), in order to rouse the hearts and open paths to repentance, that they may be a remembrance of our evil deeds and the deeds of our fathers which are like our own in the present, since they have caused us the same afflictions that they caused them. That in these remembrances we might return to righteousness, as it is written (Leviticus 26:40): ‘And they shall confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers’… (Maimonides Laws of Fasting 5:1)
Maimonides clearly emphasizes the fact that the fasts address that which is negative in the present. His formulation leaves no room for doubt that fasting was not determined as a historical memory, but as a way of correcting contemporary reality. “A remembrance of our evil deeds.”
Were this anomalous reality to change, the prophet assures us:
Thus says the Lord of Hosts: The fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth, shall be to the house of Judah joy and gladness, and cheerful feasts; therefore, love the truth and peace. (Zechariah 8:19)
The effort to live a normal life during the anomaly of war is a heroic struggle. Let us hope and pray that from this trait that is ingrained in Israeli society, the leadership will also work towards the return of normality: “love the truth and peace.”
