Once upon a time in Jerusalem,
Tisha B’Av, 2023.
In the photo, the Western Wall plaza, Tisha B’Av 1937.
Tisha B’av is a day of fasting for the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple because of free hatred.
Tisha B’av ends the three weeks that begin on the 17th of Tammuz, the date when the wall of Jerusalem was breached in the destruction of the Second Temple, and on the Tisha B’Av the two temples were destroyed, set on fire, and burned until the 10th of Av.
On the 9th of Av, other tragic events occurred throughout the generations –
The expulsion of the Jews of England in 1290 by King Edward I,
Deportation of French Jews within one month by order of King Philip IV in 1306,
Expulsion from Spain 1492,
the outbreak of World War I and Germany joining the war,
the imprisonment of French Jews and their deportation to concentration camps,
the action from the Warsaw Ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp,
the burning of the Talmud, the pharaohs of the 18th and 19th centuries in Poland, Ukraine, and Russia,
the riots in the Jewish settlement in Israel – 1929, and more.
Difficult and challenging days, saturated with death and blood are interwoven throughout all the generations of the Jewish people in a constant and chilling chronicle.
It is written that the Second Temple was destroyed because of free hatred, even though the Temple was occupied with the Torah, mitzvahs, and charity at that time.
free hatred is one of the worst qualities in the human soul –
Irrelevant hatred is when a person hates another person or another group for no objective reason, but only because he has a different perception that differs from his friend, or because he belongs to another group.
When each of the parties is sure that they are right and that they have a monopoly on the truth.
During the siege of the Romans in the Second Temple, there were three Jewish armies within the walls that fought each other and did not unite together in the face of the common enemy, thus weakening and abandoning and allowing the Romans to conquer Jerusalem and destroy the Temple, and exile the people from Jerusalem for two thousand years.
Tisha B’Av is not just an historical date that marks events that happened hundreds and thousands of years ago, but a painful and monotonous annual reminder, an open wound that does not heal until the end, that reminds us all of what could happen, God forbid, if we do not learn the lesson and the price of free hatred.
Nowadays, when everything is open, visible, and immediate, it is very easy to see expressions of free hatred within us,
in politics and in the statements of populist and unrestrained politicians, in the social networks that are accessible to anyone who can write terrible things about other people with unforgivable ease,
in jealousy and envy, in blind hatred that drips poison,
on the roads, in the rising violence
towards adults, women, and every person, in a heated discourse, and hate towards brothers for being different in their opinion from us.
The inscription is written on the burned walls of Jerusalem, in large letters that are a constant reminder of where we can reach as a people and a society, if we do not replace the free hatred with free love, and realize that we are all cells of the same body, and we are all brothers.
“And if we are destroyed and the world is destroyed with us by free hatred,
We will return to being built and the world with us will be built by free love.”
Rabbi Kook.
And in the building of Jerusalem, we will rest.
Shabbat Shalom to all, far and near, from Jerusalem.
May we always practice free love.
