Shabbat Shalom ~ Devarim 2024

Dear WJC Family,

This Monday night and Tuesday we will mark Tisha B’Av, the single saddest day on the Jewish calendar. Tisha B’Av marks the anniversary of the destruction of both the First and Second Temple, and over the subsequent centuries became a time to lament other tragedies that befell the Jewish people from the Crusades to the Holocaust. To mark the start of the commemoration, we read Megillat Eikha. “Eikha” begging the plaintiff question, “How could these tragedies come to pass?”

With the miracle of the founding of the modern State of Israel in 1948, many rabbis and scholars asked if we should still commemorate the fast. The question was raised again with the triumph of the Six Day War. The question is a fair one: If Tisha B’Av is mourning for exile and alienation from the land and from God, is it still relevant when the Jews are once again sovereign in the land set aside for them by God? It was a hotly debated question for some time and there are even compromise positions issued by our own Conservative Movement (we are good at middle positions) saying that one should fast until the mincha afternoon prayers (note: we have a special afternoon service at 1:45pm on Tuesday), as if to say, we are not fully redeemed surely, but neither are we in the same kind of exile.

Not everyone argued for the idea that a modern Jewish state canceled the necessity for observing Tisha B’Av. Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik gave a notable lecture on the topic entitled, “Shall I Weep In The Fifth Month?” The title is a play on the question asked by the prophet Zecharia in the Bible after his return from the first exile in Babylonia. The prophet asks, “Shall I weep in the fifth month (Av)?” meaning do I need to observe Tisha B’Av now that we have returned? God replies (to paraphrase), do you think that all the ills that caused the first exile have been cured? Tisha B’Av would stand in the time of Zecharia and Soloveitchik argues that the same should apply in this day:

Does Yom Ha-Atzmaut answer the question of “eikha”? Only fools can think so, arrogant fools, and there are many fools of that sort. Can a Jewish government or military success be considered a substitute for all the suffering and killing of the years of Israel’s exile? It is forbidden to say that this is the recompense for six million Jews who were slaughtered. This is an expression of cruelty and a total lack of sensitivity. Does the rejoicing of the Six Day War answer all the questions that arose in the period that preceded it? Are we not as puzzled and confused as we had been before it? Did this triumph lessen our sorrow and calm our spirits? Did it resolve our problems and doubts? Is it not incumbent upon us to repeat, as did Yirmeyahu, the question of “eikha”? As long as God’s will is as obscure as it was during the dark night of the hiding of His face, as long as historical events have not been clarified from a comprehensive and true perspective, as long as the world mocks us because of our faith in a merciful and gracious God, as long as the mystery of “eikha” has not found a solution – it is forbidden to abandon Tisha B’Av. As long as a Jew asks “eikha,” one must continue to fast on Tisha B’Av. Only after we succeed in deciphering the mystery of “eikha” will we be able to abandon the fast of the fifth month.

I have to admit, until this year, I always leaned to the side of Tisha B’Av naysayers. Though I have observed the full fast for many years now, I sometimes wondered if my observance was a kind of slap in the face to the redemption of Israel in modern times. This year, the words of Rav Soloveitchik are the ones that ring in my ears – As long as a Jew asks “eikha,” one must continue to fast on Tisha B’Av. I never imagined that I would be that Jew asking, screaming, “eikha?” That we would be a generation of “eikha?”

But here we are, counting days of mourning that now number in the 300’s and asking “eikha?” Standing at the graves of murdered Jews around the world (as Tami and I did in our tour of Central Europe this summer) while witnessing the surge in Anti-Jewish hate crimes and lamenting, “eikha?” Hoping beyond hope that some of our people held captive are alive in body and spirit and begging, “eikha?”On Monday night and Tuesday, as we have done every day for ten months, and every year for two and a half millennia, we will cry out together, “eikha?” And then, on Wednesday, the 10th of Av, we will attempt again to cling to hope and work to bring about a brighter future.

And as a reminder of that hope, that even in the darkest times and places redemption can spring, I invite you to watch Stu and Danielle Seltzers’ terrific and inspiring recap video of our Ride for the Living experience in Auschwitz and Krakow this past June. May the darkness become light quickly in our days because we use our creativity, intuition, and strength to make it so.

Seltzer – video recap of Ride For The Living- 2024

Shabbat Shalom,