Tisha B’Av is the day that commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Temples. Since 70 C.E., it has become the catch-all to mourn the countless tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people over the past 2,000 years. This extends from the crusades to the pogroms and culminating with the Holocaust.
As an educator, it has been my job for the past 20-plus years to try to explain to my students the meaning and purpose of Tisha B’Av. Thankfully, for so many, including myself, calamities such as those that we recall on this inauspicious day have been like ancient history. It has been my job to speak about my step-grandfather and the stories I heard from him of his time in the Lodz ghetto and the infamous concentration camp Auschwitz. I would tell stories of Jews huddled in cellars in Eastern Europe waiting for the pogrom to be over. Jews in Western Europe praying that the bloodlust of the Crusaders would somehow be satiated before arriving at their home. In other words, like all good educators, I became a storyteller, trying to make ancient history come alive, if only for a moment, to make Tisha B’Av meaningful and relevant.
This Tisha B’Av is different. This Tisha B’Av is only 312 days removed from Oct. 7. Some 309 days ago, I walked through the homes of Nir Oz—one of the numerous kibbutzim in the south of Israel where men, women and children were slaughtered just like the Jews of the Crusades, the pogroms and the Holocaust.
The homes in Nir Oz were burned to the ground, several of them with the families locked inside. Children were killed in front of their parents and parents in front of children. Women and men were sexually tortured and abused. This year, I didn’t need to paint a picture of ancient history; I explained what I saw with my own eyes, what I smelled with my nose, the silence heard by my very own ears. As I explained what I saw, heard and smelled, my students saw my tears as they came down my cheeks as I told them about seeing the home where my friend Omri Michaeli was killed trying to save a young family in Nir Oz.
This Tisha B’Av requires no imagination and no conjuring of feelings. Over 100 hostages are reminding us that Oct. 7 is still happening at this very moment.
Yet something astonishing has occurred. Most Tisha B’Avs are sad, morose, depressing. I believe that this Tisha B’Av is inherently different. Flying around the social-media spheres is a beautiful idea. This past year, Simchat Torah—the happiest day on the Jewish calendar—was turned into Tisha B’Av. Perhaps this year, Tisha B’Av will turn into Simchat Torah.
Built into the very DNA of Tisha B’Av is that it is not only the saddest day of the year but has within it the potential to be the happiest day of the year.
Most years, I dread Tisha B’Av, because it has the sense of “here we go again.” Not this year. Up until the very last minute, I had a sense that this year would be different. In my life, this is the most real of Tisha B’Avs; nothing contrived and nothing artificial is necessary to feel the pain and anguish of this challenging day. This is because I saw with my own eyes the very worst of humanity, especially the cruelty committed by Hamas against my fellow Jews and many other victims, murdered simply because they were in Israel.
At the same time, however, I saw ordinary people become extraordinary in front of my eyes. I saw young men return from all corners of the globe to fight for their people. I saw people give more charity than they could possibly afford. I saw people open their homes to complete and total strangers. I saw people literally make food for an entire army.
Witnessing these acts of everyday people allowed me to tell my students that this year is different: Yes, we have seen the absolute worst that can be done to the Jewish people; acts that we believed were relegated to the trash bin of history but unfortunately have reared their ugly head once again. At the same time, we saw the greatness that can only be defined as legendary and biblical in proportion.
I can only imagine that during the pogroms, Crusades and Holocaust, the Jews on Tisha B’Av prayed for redemption because the world could not take any more suffering, any more of the hell on earth they were living. Our moment is different from all of Jewish history. This is our moment and, because it is our moment, we can be transformative if we so choose. We are living in meaningful and impactful times; they call upon all of us to rise to the occasion.
