These
are the challenges we confront in observing the holiday of Tisha b'Av,
the Fast of the 9th of Av, which we will observe this Saturday night. It is a holiday
marking the destruction of the First Temple in 586BCE and the Second in
70CE and it is also a holiday that commemorates the many other disasters
that have befallen the Jewish people over the years.
Some
in Conservative Judaism raise objections to the holiday. Some say that
with the establishment of the modern state of Israel, it is no longer
necessary to mark a holiday that has at it's core the remembrance of our
dispersal from Israel, neglecting the many other catastrophes that we
also remember, and neglecting that as Jews we have survived precisely because
we remember our past; even when we are comfortable and protected we
remember that often times we have not been. Then there are others who
simply object to a fast day and all its attendant rituals as being out
of step with the modern world, ignoring what I've mentioned before, that
it is not a bad thing in our lives of too much to be without for a
little while.
We
should reject these challenges as at the same time we embrace the
observance of this difficult holiday. Not only for the reasons I have
mentioned already, namely that as Jews we have an obligation to remember
our past, relive it, and also remember that life is meant to be
meaningful, not easy. But we should also observe the holiday for
another reason as well.
Maimonides
quotes Lamentations, which we read on this day, "It is not from the
mouth of the Most High that good and evil comes" to remind us that evil
is part of our world, and holidays like Tisha b'Av remind us that we
have an obligation to confront it. That doing so is difficult yet that
it has been a challenge the Jewish People have had to face numerous
times. So may we do this year and always.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Benson
No comments:
Post a Comment