Against Zealots: The Meaning of Tisha B'Av in 2022

Last month, a young man from Las Vegas celebrated a Jewish rite of passage that countless others have performed over the years: After months of preparation, he traveled to Israel to become a Bar Mitzvah. Like so many other Jewish 13 year-olds, his family arranged a ceremony that culminated with chanting from the Torah at the Kotel Ha-Ma’aravi, the Western Wall.

Ultimately, Tisha B’Av is about hope. But it’s hope born from shared experience and loss, from realizing the danger of violent zealotry left unchecked. It’s hope that comes from a recognition that a society does have the ability to change its direction, and share responsibility for its destructive patterns.

The celebration took place at the space that was created by the Israeli government after years of tireless efforts by the non-Orthodox Jewish movements. Set alongside the traditional Western Wall plaza, the space beneath Robinson’s Arch was carved out for egalitarian Jewish worship.

But this seemingly innocuous event was a flashpoint for radical Jewish elements of the far right. Dozens of Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) zealots converged on Seth Mann’s bar mitzvah ceremony, blaring airhorns and screaming vulgar epithets to disrupt the service. They howled that Sam and his guests were “animals,” “Christians,” and—wait for it—“Nazis.” They violently seized the siddurim from which Sam’s family were praying—the Jewish prayerbooks containing the sacred name of G-d—and ripped them to shreds.

And the ineffectual Israeli police stood by, silently and uselessly and refusing to intervene.

Tragically, this scene was predictable. It happened again last week. A teen from Seattle, Lucia da Silva, went to the women’s section of the Wall to celebrate becoming a bat mitzvah. She and her family and guests were met by 100 Haredi thugs who shrieked, blew whistles, and screamed obscenities. Again, the police, as well as the security hired by the Western Wall Heritage Foundation which controls the site, did nothing.

The mindset of the Zealots allows for no alternative expressions of Judaism. Women are forbidden from leading ritual; men and women praying together are heretics. And for those who are threatened by egalitarian expressions of Judaism (which the large majority of American Jews embrace), no expression of opposition, it seems, is beyond the pale. After all, their rabbis condone it.

The time and place of these disasters couldn’t be more painfully ironic: At the remains of the Beit HaMikdash, on the cusp of our most solemn season.

The 9th of Av is the saddest day in the Jewish calendar. The Rabbis maintained that that on this very date both Temples in Jerusalem were destroyed, six hundred years apart: the First by the Babylonians in 586 BCE and the Second by the Romans in 70 CE. Each time the Temple was destroyed, it marked Exile from Jerusalem and a period of political powerlessness, when Jewish communities were forced to live under the authority of others.The Kotel and the contemporary excavations around it are all that remain.

The Rabbis sought to give these historical calamities a spiritual dimension. How could it be, they pondered, that a people who has a covenant with G-d could find themselves in a such a dire and shattered space?

Their answer was not a cosmic one, but an utterly human one. שִׂנְאַת חִנָּם / sinnat chinam they explained: senseless hatred for one another:

לְלַמֶּדְךָ שֶׁשְּׁקוּלָה שִׂנְאַת חִנָּם כְּנֶגֶד שָׁלֹשׁ עֲבֵירוֹת
עֲבוֹדָה זָרָה, גִּלּוּי עֲרָיוֹת, וּשְׁפִיכוּת דָּמִים

This should teach you that sinnat chinam is equal in weight to three other sins:
idol worship, illicit sexual acts, and shedding blood. (Talmud, Yoma 9b)

How burning the irony, how painful the awareness, that today, more than ever, the Western Wall has become the focal point of the hate that percolates within the Jewish world. The snarling faces of the opponents at Lucia’s bat mitzvah and Seth’s bar mitzvah—and the hands that shredded the words of the siddurim—couldn’t be more visceral examples of this.

All this in the days leading up to Tisha B’Av.

I have no doubt in my mind that if the authorities refuse to take a stand, there is a disaster in the making. It is clear to me that the hatred exposed by the most extremist elements of Israeli society is as vicious as it was in the days leading up to the destruction of the Second Temple, when the moral and communal leaders of the community also failed to take a stand against Zealots.

Have we not learned any of the lessons of any of the Tisha B’Avs of our lifetime? The essential message of Tisha B’Av is: Hate kills; unchecked, it inevitably wreaks destruction and forces the Shekhinah into exile.

Ultimately, Tisha B’Av is about hope. But it’s hope born from shared experience and loss, from realizing the danger of violent zealotry left unchecked. It’s hope that comes from a recognition that a society does have the ability to change its direction, and share responsibility for its destructive patterns.

How should we respond this Tisha B’Av? In four ways:

(1) Fast and pray with special intensity, for the religious imperative of the day is more important than ever.

(2) Support those who are in the trenches of the work for religious freedom in Israel, including Hiddush—For Religious Freedom and Equality, the Israel Religious Action Center, ARZA, Women of the Wall, and the local communities and congregations of the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism and the Masorti movement.

(3) Demand that the Jewish Federations (CJP here in Massachusetts), AIPAC, and other organizations that purport to be big-tent Jewish or Zionist organizations take a firm stand on this issue, which threatens Jewish unity and Israeli security.

(4) Rav Kook taught that the only true antidote for sinnat chinam/senseless hatred is ahavat chinam/senseless love. Not really “senseless,” of course; but loving other people precisely because of every person’s inherent value, having been made in the Image of G-d. Be part of the solution; live the opposite of hate.

We’ll need to have Tisha B’Av again this year. Let’s pray that one of these years we can get it right.

The Tisha B’Av fast in 2022 is Sunday, August 7, delayed one day (to the 10th of Av) because the fast cannot fall on Shabbat.

A Tree with Roots will be hosting a special online Tisha B’Av study at 11:00 am on Sunday. All are welcome: Register here to receive the Zoom link.

The Art - and Challenge - of Compromise

In the wake of the historic decision of the Israeli cabinet to create an expansive egalitarian section at the Western Wall, a lot of soul-searching has ensued. Count me among those who celebrate this as a momentous event for Jewish pluralism in the State of Israel—even as I acknowledge the dismay of those who say too much has been compromised with the haredi authorities who rule the plaza.

Most Reform and Conservative leaders—and other advocates of equal rights for all the streams of Judaism in the Jewish State—consider this agreement to be a milestone after a quarter-century of advocacy by Women of the Wall and their supporters. Anat Hoffman, a tireless champion of human freedom who has so often been the face of this movement, considers it a “win.” 

And yet, there are some voices—especially advocates for Orthodox feminists who want the right to pray with Tallit, Tefillin, and Torah scrolls but not in mixed settings with men—who feel that they have lost too much in the deal. Some of their words are gut-wrenching, such as this critique from Vanessa Ochs.

So did we give away too much? In the Talmud (Sanhedrin 6b), Rabbi Shimon ben Menasya said, “There are times for compromise, and times for not compromising,” and every person who cares about Jewish pluralism in Israel will have to decide for herself or himself which sort of moment this was.

Compromise, by definition, always feels less-than-perfect. In a funny way, “compromise” is the exact opposite of “justice”—and we know the enormously high value that is given to justice in Jewish tradition. When you compromise, by definition you are sacrificing an important element of what is fair or what is deserved from your point of view. Whether or not the sacrifice is worth it is the question at the heart of the compromise’s value. 

Well known is the Jewish virtue of pursuing justice. But is compromise also a Jewish value?

The Talmud recognizes the tension. One Sage, Rabbi Eliezer the son of Rabbi Yose Ha-G’lili, says that compromise (in matters of law) is forbidden; he cites Moses the lawgiver as his model for the administration of blind justice, in all its noble purity. Another Sage, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korcha, calls compromise a Mitzvah; his model is Moses’s brother Aaron, the consummate peacemaker.

Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korcha gets to the crux of the matter about why compromise lies at the heart of a civilized society—and why it’s sometimes so difficult:

It is a Mitzvah to compromise, as it is written:  Execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates (Zechariah 8:16). Anyplace where there is straight justice—there will be no peace; and anyplace where there is peace, there is no straight justice. So what is the justice that abides with peace?  We must say:  Compromise. (Sanhedrin 6b)

I, for one, can’t wait to see the implementation of the new egalitarian plaza at the Western Wall as it unfolds—and I can’t wait to stand side-by-side with any Jew who comes to pour out their heart in prayer. From my point of view, the prospect of egalitarian prayer-space at the Kotel—a space that is beautiful, spiritually exhilarating, and free from molestation or antagonism—is a win. And the compromise itself, although an element of it stings, is part of the grand challenge of Jews living side-by-side with one another in the world’s only Jewish State.