Tisha B'Av 5784

Kotel - buit in 20 B.C.E

Fourteen years ago tonight.....according to the Jewish calendar, I wrote the first episode of The Wifely Person Speaks. It was erev Tisha b'Av and I was feeling overwhelmed by the news coming from Israel coupled with my own feelings of desolation. I wrote:

As I sit at my desk, the sun is setting and Tisha B'Av is starting. My best Tisha B'Av, if one can have a best Tisha B'Av, was in 1969, in Jerusalem, sitting on a hill overlooking the city, and I was the one to chant the opening of Eicha (Lamentations) and I did with the weight of three thousand years of history resting like a mantle on my shoulders. How could I, a kid from Long Island, possibly read these words and imbue them with the meaning they needed to have? What was my reference point? What did I know about suffering? Did I have a place in this chain? The experience was overpowering. Every Tisha B'Av after that was held up in comparison to that one. Over the years there were some more memorable than others.

And then there was last year. I was the widow. I was Jerusalem, desolate, abandoned, unable to hold up my head. I sat on the floor broken and unable to bear the words. They had new, horrible meaning and I hated every reverberating sound. I could not wait for it, all of it, to be over. I wanted to be past this day that grated on my own terrible loss. I could not imagine a worse observance.

This year isn't shaping up to be all that great, either.

I love hearing how Jews do not belong in the Middle East, specifically in Israel or how ICC declared East Jerusalem is occupied Palestinian territory. The Mosque of Omar and Al Aqsa were built in 685 C.E; the first Temple was completed around 975 B.C.E. If you do the math, that means Jerusalem was the capital of Israel for over 1000 years before Islam was even invented. But the Jews don't count as indigenous to the land. Sure. Following that through line, we are occupiers instead of the original inhabitants and therefore should be pushed into the sea for occupying less than 0.1% of the land in the ME that we've been occupying for about 3000 years. 

That means 99.9% of the ME is Arab/Muslim. And we are an existential threat to their wellbeing? Of course, this may be true since little ol' Israel has defeated them in every way waged against us since 1948. 

So now, Hamas and Hezbollah are counting on Iran to do the job for them. According to the Times of Israel, Hezbollah has evacuated its headquarters from a suburb of Beirut in preparation for a war. 

Well, Iran is big on symbolism so everyone is betting they're gonna make their move on Tisha b'Av, the day Jews mourn the destruction of both the First and Second Temple. You can learn a lot about that if you happen to be in Rome and go see the Arch of Titus. Constructed in 81 C.E., there are panels depicting the destruction of Jerusalem and the SECOND Temple...the one Jesus hung out at. And that's still almost 600 years BEFORE Islam even appears in 610 C.E. 

But Jews have no claim on Jerusalem because we never lived there. Give me a frickin' break.

And while we're on the subject, let's mention Psalm 137 from the biblical Book of Psalms. In the Septuagint, the psalm is ascribed to the Prophet Jeremiah with the annotation: 

"For David. By Jeremias, in the Captivity.". 

It's believed to have been written sometime between 597-787 B.C.E., before his return to Jerusalem in 538 B.C.E. 

 PSALM 137

silver shekel - 2200 years old

Jerusalem is never far from our hearts, our minds, our prayers. It is the heart of our homeland...even if I'm not the biggest fan of hanging around that city. Okay, I prefer Herzliya and the rest of the coast. You know...there's a beach involved. But Israel is the motherland, the homeland, the place were our language has been spoken...even in Herzliya...for thousands of years. Inscriptions in ancient cemeteries are in Hebrew we can still read. This coin is from the second year of the revolt, struck in 67-68 C.E. In other words, this is the homeland.

And just so you know the concerns are real, here are some not-so-random events that occurred around 9th of Av:

·      The Jews were expelled from England on 18 July 1290 (Av 9, 5050).
·      The Jews were expelled from France on 22 July 1306 (Av 10, 5066).
·      The Jews were expelled from Spain on 31 July 1492 (Av 7, 5252).
·      Germany entered World War I on 1–2 August 1914 (Av 9–10, 5674), which caused massive upheaval in European Jewry and whose aftermath led to World War II and the Holocaust.
·      On 2 August 1941 (Av 9, 5701), SS commander Heinrich Himmler formally received approval from the Nazi Party for "The Final Solution," which marked the beginning of the Holocaust during which almost one third of the world's Jewish population was murdered.
·      On 23 July 1942 (Av 9, 5702), the mass deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka began.

So I'm gonna stop here. My heart and my head are in the east tonight. Tomorrow is a nerve-wracking day for Jews anyway, and right now, even more so. 

The Wifely Person' Tip o'the Week

Try to get a good night's sleep tonight.

And, for those who observe, have an easy fast.