Some Post Tish’a B’Av Thoughts

10-05-66 – 10 Av 5773

Yesterday, during Minha, hearing the Sh’liah Ssibur recite the additional words (Nahem) inserted into the T’phila, I asked myself (almost aloud): “What are you doing here?” The standard text, authored and edited in a different time and place, speaks of a Jerusalem in ruins, empty of its Jewish inhabitants – a difficult case to make when more Jews reside in Jerusalem today than at any time in history. In the wake of the Six Day War, former Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv, Rabbi Hayim David HaLewi z’l, expressed his inability to ignore reality and continue reciting the traditional version (‘Ase L’kha Rav, Vol 1, no. 14, pp. 46-47).
Many years ago I published an old-new alternative nusah based on the original text in the Jerusalem Talmud and as quoted by the G’onim and Rishonim, which focuses on the present-day issue of the Temple Mount rather than the historical realities of a bygone age. I did so because that is what the Tora and Halakha demand… unless one understands Tora Judaism to be a kind of virtual construct which need not be in concert with reality. After all, if it’s just a matter of remembering, what’s the difference what you say, as long as you went through the motions?
I once asked my cousin’s son why he fasted on 9th of Av. He responded, as most people would, “Because of the Hurban”.
Your Answer is correct, I said, but incomplete. “It’s not just about remembering what happened in the past. It’s to force you to think about the present, and the future. And what you, we, ‘Am Yisrael should be doing about it.”
As Israeli journalist Uri Elizur recently wrote, the turning point in Jewish history occurred when a sufficient number of Jews realised that the Galuth is no longer a divinely decreed punishment for our sins of long ago, but rather a sin in and of itself which we, by our complacency, passivity and lack of authentic, Tora-based ideology, are guilty of perpetuating. This realization led to establishment of what Moshe Dayan once referred to as the Bayith HaSh’lishi (the Third Commonwealth), i.e. Israel.
Elizur is absolutely correct, but his insight is hardly original. Nearly 900 years ago, in response to the criticism of the Khazar king that the Jewish people’s acceptance of the Tora is selective and its prayers for redemption insincere because they make no concerted effort to return to the Land and reconstitute their sovereignty, thus abdicating their responsibility and mission, Rabbi Judah HaLevi had this to say: “You have shamed me, King of Khazar. It is this very sin that prevented us from achieving that which God intended for the Second Commonwealth. Had the nation returned willingly to the Land when afforded the opportunity [2500 years ago], the Divine Presence was prepared to settle once more in the Second Temple as it had in the First. But only a minority chose to do so; the majority, including their leaders, elected to remain in Babylonia rather than leave their homes and possessions. And God dealt with them accordingly, with the result that their success was limited. For Divine blessing descends according to our actions. Therefore our prayers such as ‘Blessed are You who returns His Divine Presence to Zion’ are as words repeated by a parrot – we do not think about or mean what we say” (Kuzari 2:24).