While we can’t possibly compare the destruction of the center of Jewish worship in the first century with a flood threatening a Midwestern city, in both cases citizens battle day and night to fend off an external threat.
Nechama: 9 Av 5771
A few days after many in Southern California panicked about the “devastating” impacts of closing ten miles of Interstate 405 over a weekend in mid-July, I spotted a news item about a real disaster that gave me pause. I read that Omaha, Nebraska would be suspending their sandbagging operations due to extreme heat. This, I thought, was double jeopardy and completely unfair to Omaha, which has been fighting flooding on the Missouri River day after day for nearly two months. The city has deployed nearly 200,000 sandbags and installed 79 emergency pumps to keep the water back. Battalion Chief Shane Hunter of the Omaha Fire Department spoke about Omahans, "The city has stayed dry for one reason and one reason only: The people who are out there working — with boots on feet, gloves on hands ... that are getting muddy and dirty in horrible conditions — with insects, heat exhaustion — they're doing that work, they're keeping the city dry.”
The image of the citizens of a city fighting to protect themselves from an outside force reminds me during this time of year of the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans in the year 70 CE. Indeed, the day that the Omaha sandbagging ceased temporarily due to extreme heat was the 17th of Tammuz on the Hebrew calendar, a day that is remembered as the day that the Romans broke through the city walls of Jerusalem some 1,941 years ago. The 17th of Tammuz marks the beginning of a period of mourning in the Jewish tradition simply known as “the three weeks,” a time when it is inappropriate to hold weddings and other celebrations. The three weeks recall the time between the breech of the Jerusalem city walls and the destruction of the Second Temple.
The destruction of the Temple, which we remember on Tisha b’Av (literally, the 9th of the month of Av on the Hebrew calendar), has become a catchall day for the remembrance of Jewish catastrophe and disaster. We connect a series of tragic events to Tisha b’Av: the First Temple in Jerusalem was also destroyed on that day, the Jewish revolt of the second century had its final defeat, the Jews were expelled from England in 1290 and from Spain in 1492, and World War I began (which was a precursor to the Second World War and the Holocaust). Like Yom Kippur, the 9th of Av is a solemn day which includes a 25-hour fast from sunset to sundown the following day. In synagogue we recite Lamentations and sit on the floor as mourners would.
While we can’t possibly compare the destruction of the center of Jewish worship in the first century with a flood threatening a Midwestern city, in both cases citizens battle day and night to fend off an external threat. Once the waters abate in the region, Nechama will be there, providing comfort and hope to those whose homes have been damaged by the flood waters. Our prayers go out to those who are fighting this modern siege of their city and pray that the efforts of those who are working against nature will succeed.
Matt Rosenberg is a Rabbinical Student at American Jewish University in California and a Nechama volunteer. He can be reached at [email protected]