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.

575 posts, 407,000 hits = 11 Years of The WP Speaks

Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away.....nope

11 years ago today, Sgt. Pepper did NOT teach me to play....not that either. 

Time is on my side, yes it is....nah, I don't think so.

If I could put time in a bottle....not that either.

Time it was, and what a time it was, it was a time of innocence, a time of confidences

     Long ago, it must be, I have a photograph; preserve your memories; They're all that's left             you.... Closer.

525,600 minutes, 525,000 moments so dear. 525,600 minutes - how do you measure, measure       a year?...much closer

11 years ago today, it was Tisha b'Av, and I wrote my very first blog entry: Welcome To My World. To be honest, I thought it was going to be about moving through widowhood. 

I've been under a great deal of pressure from several sources (you know who you are) to start a blog. Now, all things considered, this was Steve's gigue. He was Ziggy. Ziggy's Joke o'the Day was out there before there were blogs. ZJOD was, in its own way, legendary.

Night after night, yawning with exhaustion, I sat on the couch in his office, listened to him read "the intro," and then edit it on the fly. Oh, how we argued over word choice and sentence structure. The debates were grand, sometimes heated, but always ended with "gimme a kiss and get outta here so I can get this thing out the door." And every night, when he finally stumbled into bed, I would always be just awake enough to feel two pats on the butt, followed by, "You're a good ol' broad, y'know that?" And I always snuggled a little closer.

There are no more pats on the butt. And no one who is going to sit on my sofa and opine at my work. It's a dirty job, and I wish with all my heart that he was here to do it. But he's not.

Well, where to begin? What do I want to say? Oh lordy, such a fertile field and so many things on which I would like to comment. May as well just dive in and immediately get myself into trouble.

I thought I would write honest and wise things about the transition and the rest of that malarkey. I think that lasted about a week. Then I started opining. 575 episodes later, I'm still opining. And I've not missed a week. Okay, there was one "gone fishing" episode because I was sick, and a week of "greatest hits" but I wrote the intros for those. But who's counting?

In the blogosphere, this is considered to be a very long run. I've tried to quit several times, but readers have convinced me otherwise. Not a lot in the way of comments these days, but I get a pretty good dose of email from readers, so I know they're out there. 

407,000+ hits as of today. That's about 37,000 hits a year. It doesn't quite work that way, but that's a good average for someone who does not monetize (accept ads) or advertise. Before the Cookie Wars began in Europe, I had a lot more recorded hits per day, but I don't worry too much. I'm not in this for a buck, I'm in it for the joy of expression. 

11 years ago, in that first episode, I wrote about how the ultra-orthodox Haredim were a threat to Israel's democracy and to the state's relationship with the Jews of the Diaspora, of which I am one. At the time, I had been in Israel once, in 1969, and had spent Tisha b'Av in Jerusalem. That was a watershed experience for me. 

Since then, I've been back to Israel twice and have visited Jerusalem both times. I've seen up close and personal what goes on at the Kotel. I've also witnessed in real time when I stay up later to daven with Women Of The Wall on Rosh Chodesh (New Moon). I've seen the gangs of haredi girls screaming at the women who are there to pray. I've see teenage boys throw trash at the Torah readers. This is how Jews behave toward other Jews? Apparently so. 

Tisha b'Av 5781 - The Kotel - 17July 2021

Saturday night and Sunday, as crowds gathered to mark the destruction of both the first and second Temples, an area had been sectioned off for egalitarian and family prayer. This was a major step in recognizing plurality at the wall. Fat chance. A gang of teenagers began to erect a mechitza, a separation wall between men and women. It was all captured, of course, on video.  The hatred is palpable...and for what? The sound of women's voices lifted in song? Men and women praying together? How do you hate people praying the same words, the same melodies, reading the same Torah you do? If all haredi were united, I might buy the sectarian stuff...but they are not. Ashkenazi haredi hate the Sephardi haredi, and they all hate the Mizrachi haredi. All because of minhag...custom. Baseless, ridiculous hatred for no reason. 

[And here's a fun-filled factoid for those of you who think Israel is European: Mizarchi Jews make up the largest percentage of Israelis. 2018 numbers show a population of 4,000,000 Mizrachi Jews out of the entire population of 9,050,000. And if that's not enough, Jews make up about 74% of Israel's population. Of that 74% non-haredi Jews make up 63% and haredim make up 11%. Can you say "stranglehold," boys and girls?]

11 years, a new government with good intentions, and nothing has changed...yet. The same thoughts I had 11 years ago, I still have: that the diaspora is in danger of being splintered by haredi hate for the rest of the Jewish people. If you don't sign on to their brand (whatever that is) you are not a Jew. The State must come to terms with the reality of this sinat chinam...baseless hatred. 

One would think that with everything going on in Israel, this would no longer be an issue. Ha! Back in 2019, I wrote an episode, Live From Jerusalem:

No, gentle readers, that doesn’t mean life is a Utopian paradise here. It doesn’t mean the government behaves well or that there is no strife. There is. Plenty of it. As I mentioned above, hate is universal and Israel has added a whole classification to internal hate. It has significantly less to do with skin than it does with how you believe. Hate flourishes on an inter-Haredi scale that is terrifying. I am equally as certain that G-d did not have this kind of incredibly poor behavior in mind when Torah was given. Nowhere in any of the canon does it say hate your neighbor, much less hate your fellow Jew.  The Rabbinut has cornered that market on self-loathing and, as hard as it is to believe, antisemitism. Israel is supposed to be a democracy, and happens to be the closest government to a democracy in the entire Middle East. The last two Israeli elections have driven that point far enough home so that it is almost impossible to form a government. But that’s a different rant. 

This rant is about what it means to live here, in Israel, even if I am only a visitor. Just as I consider myself to be a New Yorker living in exile in Minnesota, I am also a Jew who lives in the Diaspora. There are more and more days I wonder if I could survive making aliyah. The thought is never far from my mind (especially these days) because ultimately, this is our home turf. Once you’ve walked on it as a Jew, you get it. It feels different. And you are never the same again.

I stand by what I say in that second paragraph. Jerusalem feels different if you're a Jew. The shit-ass behavior on display Saturday night does not negate that, it only reinforces the idea that the ideological war is not yet over. I wonder if it will ever truly be over, but I want desperately to believe that one day it will. I still believe despite our differences in prayer, observance, and custom, we remain one people. Am Echad....One People, one heart. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

"If I forget you, o, Jerusalem, let my right hand lose its cunning.

May my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth..."

Psalm 137: 5-6

Walking on Second Temple period paving stones: 70 C.E. -  2019