Tisha b’Av: Stop Mourning and Start Learning its lessons

If today’s Israel does not learn the lessons of Tisha b’Av they will, God forbid, suffer a third khurban.

The debate about the central meaning of Tisha b’Av goes back more than 1500 years to a debate between Rabbi Judah who said Ei’khah can only mean (learning from) prophetic reproof, and Rabbi Nehemiah who said Ei’khah can only mean mourning and lament. (Midrash Ei’khah Rabba 1:1 end) In reality they are both right.

When Jews in exile were powerless; they could only mourn the destruction of Jerusalem and its Holy Temple. As our Sages said, “Since the day that the Temple was destroyed, there has been no day without its curse…and the curse of each day is greater than that of the one before it” (Sotah 48a, 49a). Or: “Since the day the Temple was destroyed, the sky has not appeared in its full purity.” (Berakhot 59a}; as if the grief over Jerusalem and its Temple’s destruction was even shared by nature itself.

But now, when large numbers of Jews live in the Land of Israel, they have the potential power to determine their own future for weal or woe; and thus it is essential to learn lessons from the past and avoid repeating them in the future.

Since that is indeed the situation now, Jews in Israel and even outside, should stop mourning the past, and start learning the lessons of Tisha b’Av to avoid another disaster. In the State of Israel, where millions of Jews live together in one small geographic area, there are, and have always been, a dozen (sometimes 15-20+) Jewish political and religious parties.

Is a community as divided and fragmented as Israel currently is, not in danger of disintegrating or being destroyed by its enemies? According to Talmud Yerushalmi (Sanhedrin 29c,) “Rabbi Yohanan said that Israel did not go into exile until there were “twenty-four sects [kitot] of minim (disputing groups).”

This means that some divisions (less than two dozen) are normal and necessary; but too much division (more than two dozen) is destructive.

Just as every human body is a total unity divided into many different parts (organs, bones, personality types etc.), social, political and religious bodies are also made up of many different religious, social and political parties and sects.

Thus, while Judaism and the Jewish People have always been one religion and one nation; their one wholeness has always been the sum of many different parts.

In Biblical days, the People of Israel were divided into three or four distinct groups based on the number of Mitsvot they were expected to do.

First, the twelve tribes of Israel were divided into Levites, who were responsible for running the Temple in Jerusalem, and the remaining eleven tribes; with more Mitsvot applying to the Levites than the rest of Israel.

Second, the tribe of Levy was divided into the clan of Kohanim, who were responsible for the Temple service ritual offerings; and the other clans who were just regular Temple Levites, with the Kohanim being responsible to do many more Mitsvot than even the Levites.

Third, all Israelites were divided by gender; with many more Mitsvot applying to men than women.

Although the Jerusalem Temple has not existed for more than nineteen centuries, remnants of these distinctions still do exist in Orthodox Synagogues, where there is a fixed order of four distinct hereditary categories in which Jews are called up to read Torah.

First Kohanim, second Levites, third Jewish men in general and fourth and largest group; Jewish woman, who are not called up to read Torah at all.

In Conservative Synagogues there are only the first three categories, and in Reform Temples where tribal and gender equality is stressed there is only one category: Jews.

The new groups, parties and sects within the Jewish People in the post Biblical period were no longer tribal and inherited. They were geographical and cultural i.e. Hellenistic Jews and Israeli Jews; religious i.e. Scribes Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and political; Herodians, Zealot and Sicari anti-Roman revolutionaries and disciples of the sages/rabbis.

In Medieval times diversity among new groups was reduced and constricted primarily to geography; Sephardim and Ashkenazim and to some extant to philosophy; Karaites, Kabbalists and Talmudists.

However, the Ashkenazim in the modern age are now divided into several religious sects: Hassidim, Anti-hasidim, modern Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Renewal and other smaller groups.

So, is the warning of Rabbi Yohanan that Israel did not go into exile until there were “twenty-four sects [kitot] of minim.” still valid today? Yes and no.

Some divisions are normal and necessary, especially in the realm of religion. As Thomas Jefferson said: “The maxim of civil government being reversed (to) that of religion, where its true form is: “divided we stand, united we fall.” Respectful diversity and pluralism in religion is productive. But when religion gets political then extreme and intolerant division is destructive.

As we have seen, from the time of Jacob’s descendants Israel has been divide into twelve tribes. From the time of Aaron descendants, the tribe of Levy has been separated from the other tribes.

From some time after the Maccabbees the Essenes and the Pharisees separated (Pharisee means separatist) from the Sadducees and by the first century there were over a dozen separate religious and political parties in Israel.

But even so there did not have to be fragmentation and destruction. The sin that caused the destruction of Jerusalem was that political and religious extremism led to unrestricted, unlimited hate.

As Eikhah Rabbah 1:33 teaches: “Why was the First Temple destroyed? Because of three things which existed in it: idolatry, immorality, and bloodshed. …But why was the Second Temple destroyed, since at that time people were involved in study, mitzvot, and deeds of kindness? Because at that time there was senseless hatred among the Jewish people. This teaches that unrestrained hatred is as powerful an evil as idolatry, immorality, and bloodshed combined!”

What kinds of hatred and intolerance plagued Israel then? After the disaster our sages said (note that all of these things were done only by some Jews): Jerusalem was destroyed only because:
her laws were based on the strict letter of the Torah and not interpreted by ways of mercy and kindness,
the morning and evening prayers were abolished.
the school age children who remained untaught.
the people who did not feel shame (at their hatred) toward one another.
no distinction was drawn between the young and the old.
one did not warn or admonish (against hating each) other.
much of scholarship and learning was despised.
there were no longer men of hope and faith in her midst.
(Vilnay, Legends of Jerusalem, citing Shabbat 119b, Yoma 9b, Tosefta Menahot 13:22, Yalkut Shimoni Isaiah 394, Seder Eliyahu Zuta 15:11)

Thus, it was not the variety of parties and sects that doomed Jerusalem in the first century. It was the ‘senseless hatred’ resulting from the strict, uncompromising, overly self-righteous, intolerance of many of the religious parties that doomed Jerusalem.

Even more destructive than the various specific sins of that time, was that the Jewish people and its leaders failed to rebuke and reprove the ‘unrestricted hating” of the extremists in their midst. As Rabbi Hanina taught (Shabbat 119b): “Jerusalem was destroyed only because its inhabitants did not reprove one another. Israel in that generation kept their faces looking down to the ground and did not reprove one another.”

Our sages did decree a special blessing to be said when we see a very large population of Jews, who because of their great numbers must include more sects of Jews than we ourselves would normally associate with: “Blessed is the Sage of Esoterica, for the opinion of each (Jew) is different from the other, just as the face of each (Jew) is different from the other.” (Berakhot 58a)

If all the political and religious leaders of today’s parties and sects constantly taught their own followers to recite this blessing when talking about their ‘loyal opposition” we would be spared a third tragedy.