WHAT IS TISHA B’AV?
It’s the day, the ninth of the Hebrew month of Av, on which a series of Jewish tragedies took place, notably the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE and the destruction of the Second Temple 656 years later, in 70 CE.
WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?
We Jews should’ve known this day was no good when, on it, Moses’s spies came from the Promised Land with reports of a terrible place littered with walled fortresses and roamed by angry giants. Moses ordered his doubting emissaries killed, but the curse of Tisha B’Av lived on: the First Temple was destroyed on this day in 586 BCE. The Second Temple suffered the same fate exactly 656 years later, in 70 CE. Sixty-five years after that, in 135 CE, the Bar Kokhba revolt failed, its leader was killed, and its flagship city, Betar, was destroyed. Then, one year later, Jerusalem itself was burned, the Temple area plowed, and the fate of the Jews sealed for millennia. As if further insult was needed, in 1492, King Ferdinand of Spain signed the Alhambra Decree, setting Tisha B’Av as the deadline for all of Spain’s Jews to leave for good.
Coming at the end of the Three Weeks of mourning, which began with the 17th of Tammuz, Tisha B’Av signifies the conclusion of the period known as Bein Hameitzarim, or between the straits, a time of reflection and abstinence from pleasure.
In this sermon, which is based on Gen. 40:51-53, Einhorn proposes to maintain the day as a significant landmark in the Jewish calendar, but with a radical change of its message. The reform of this traditional day of mourning is in effect, he maintains, a reform which God had introduced.
Is the present day and its solemn nature meaningful to us also? Do we, indeed, have reason to commemorate the destruction of Jerusalem devoutly? Does the religion of Judaism, from our point of view, still take an interest in the incineration of the holy Temple, in the death of Jewish peoplehood, in the historic event of universal import which, like a hurricane tearing through the autumn leaves, drove Israel away from its motherly soil, scattering its people in all directions– a few here, a few there, forever hunted anew, driven and drawn into the spinning whirlpool, so that they invented the fairytale of the wandering Jew, on whom God has inflicted the horrible punishment of dragging along his tormented life in eternity, phantomlike plodding along through the millennia, his shoulder used as a roadway for all the world to step upon, hoping in vain for the coup de grace from even his most wrathful woe? “No!” say those who are unable to value either the root or the goal of our endeavors; for in their opinion today's commemoration can have no other characteristic than that of mourning Zion and Jerusalem and, where such mourning does not take place, there is, according to them, no room for anything else.
Actually, however, today's commemoration has, particularly for us, no lesser importance than the revelation of Mount Sinai; for -hear and remember this word, my friend!- the reform of Judaism recognizes in the destruction of the Temple and its consequences a deed in which God, in the most solemn and decisive manner, reformed the law God had revealed to Moses. Reform recognizes the decline of the sacrificial cult, of the priesthood, and of the state of Israel, a wise divine revelation to all of Israel, which, though seemingly appearing in conflict with the first one on Mount Horeb, actually is in close harmony with it. Reform recognizes in the flaming Temple mount not a curtailment but rather a continuation of the Divine work of salvation, which had begun on flaming Mount Sinai, marking the real beginning of the priestly mission, the conveyance of the divinity to all the children of this earth, for which Israel had been ordained at the Sinaitic choice.
Oh, how many preachers in Israel today strive in vain to find the words which have the magic power to make the long dried-out source of tears flow once again; who use the radiant glow of phantasy to breathe new meaning into a long since died-out suffering. Mine is a more beautiful and easier task, namely, that of showing forth the pleasing stately flower that has arisen from the decay, the healing change our religious life has undergone threefold through the dispersion of Israel, in that it has gained more freedom, more spiritual depth, and wider dissemination.
The Sinaitic doctrine could never be content with purely external works, but, on the contrary, is everywhere most insistent on the sanctification of the soul, on the removal of any sinful temptation, on the love of God with all of one's heart, soul, and might. Therefore, an attempt to keep its adherents forever under the rule of religious restraint would mean a contradiction of its very spirit. Indeed, Judaism regards self-determination is the very life-breath of piety; it relies on levers of obedience entirely different from the knout. Therefore, the more the word of God was strengthened in the hearts of Israel, the more in the course of centuries God's people followed the call of the prophets and a destiny full of the most miraculous divine guidance, the more they were cleansed from all pagan customs. The more they open their hearts to God the more did the state-aspect of their religious life, and with the Jewish national life as a whole, begin to decay. And when, at last, the love of God had gained full mastery, the holy Temple, and with it the shackles of religious coercion, melted away in its flames, to let freedom emerge from the ashes as the triumphant queen and master. God's people went down into dust, and in their stead arose a religious congreation whose members were to endure scouring and death, not because of their faithlessness, as has been the case until then, but, on the contrary, because of their faithfulness to God. From now on, it was no longer the threatening sword of judgment but rather the heart which was to determine the relationship between God and man, and the divine Maxim: “Ye shall be holy, for I, Adonai your God, am holy,” was to be truly realized.
From the ashes of that one Temple thousands of places of worship came forth; from the grave of animal sacrifice and separate priesthood rose the magnificent phenomenon of the congregation of priests scattered over the entire world, who offered themselves as sacrifices in the holy service of God. From the ruins of a pompous cult that flattered our hearts by its appeal to sensuality, we received the Divine service of the noblest and simplest forms, borne by the strength of world-conquering truth, shaded by the cherubs' wings of prayer and Torah, far from the art of flattery and deception, but powerful in edification, stimulation, and exaltation. And should we not be able to find in this rich inner development an adequate replacement for that external pageantry? To be sure, there are some who, in complete denial of our history, consider the ceremonial law as the core of Judaism and who deplore the immense unbridgeable gap that has separated us from it through the dispersion of Israel. We, however, rejoice over it, for through this gap a ray of light has penetrated the heart of Israel which in dispersion bore fruit thousandfold. In this respect, Israel, like Joseph of old, lost a coat of many colors and like him wandered into exile, to grow up into the prince of God and to become fruitful in the land of his oppression!
Israel was chosen by Adonai to be the receptacle for the balm of the Sinaitic doctrine; indeed it was predestined to cause all parts of the earth to become suffused with the exquisite fragrance of this balm. Before the destruction of Jerusalem, Israel was hidden in the corner and concealed by the heavy mantle of the ceremonial law and its distinct national characteristics, and, therefore, could not fulfill its destiny. Now, in obedience to Adonai it had to come forth from its isolation to be forced from place to place, from land to land, and see it's old insulating hulk punctured in every place, in order to permit the pleasing aroma of its precious balm to penetrate everywhere.
And just as Joseph bore two children in exile and was made fruitful by Adonai in a land that he had entered as a slave, so, near that stream, born from his loins, two mighty torrential currents rose, Christianity and Islam, two gigantic sons, eternally nourished by a never-aging mother. It is their mission to prepare the nations in the outer court for their admission into the mother's sanctuary. Yes, my beloved! If our heart wants to bleed in memory of the countless martyrs who were sacrificed for the holy cause of God and the nameless sufferings which our tribe had to endure for almost two thousand years, ever since the day we had to leave our homeland, then let us think of the glorious goal of the sufferings and sacrifices, the many millions who do not belong to our house, but who, nevertheless, owe us their noblest and best.
We should think of the countless, proud churches reaching far into the skies, in which other non-Israelitish congregations raise their souls the heavens and prayer, reciting our Psalms. There shall be in our hearts not only comfort– nay, a joyful pride and heavenly jubilation shall thrill our being, because of the magnificent, glorious thing God has done for his people, and because of the even greater and nobler future which awaits us. No! We must not weep over the ruins of Jerusalem; for beyom she-neherav bet ha-mikdash nolad ha-moshiah — the Messiah was born in those very ruins! Israel lost the structure of wood and stone so that he might win more souls for God. It lost its homeland so that it might conquer the world. To be sure, its sons despaired when they saw the Temple go down in flames; but God sees farther than man. God recognized in the fallen Temple merely the foundation and cornerstone for the house of prayer for all people. Before God's eyes, God could then already view an altogether different scene of distant millennia, unfolding from the dismal devastation; the miraculous sight of a sea of light flowing forth from the flaming fire, and Israel no longer wailing and weeping, but on the contrary, radiant in its messianic glory, shouting with exultation; “God hath made me forget all my toil and all my father's house… Got hath made me fruitful in the land of my affliction. God hath made my seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which upon the seashore.”
Ludwig Philippson's moderation is apparent on all issues. He takes note of the point of view of Einhorn, but he finds reason to maintain the traditional observance.
On the ninth of Av, 660 years apart, the first and second Temples fell under the sword and incendiary torch of the Chaldeans and Romans. While the first fall was followed by the captivity of Babylon and the subsequent return to Palestine, the destruction of the second Temple was followed by the complete dispersion of the people across the entire earth, resulting in what is now in already eighteen-centuries old period of humiliation, exclusion, and persecution which afforded only rarely the hope of tranquility and exaltation, and which in the last century has seemed to point toward new developments and toward a freer civic position for the Jew.
Some take the viewpoint of modern times, that there was a higher reason which removed the Jewish nation from Palestine, so as to be witness to and bearer of the revealed religion of the One and Only amidst all mankind, thus stretching the narrow boundaries of a humble country to encompass the whole world. This viewpoint reflects the teaching that divine providence combines a higher, universal goal with all the events and destinies of men. But even if one accepts this view, the ninth of Av is and must remain a dismal day of mourning, since it embodies the memory of such formidable ruin, such frightful events, the cessation of worship in the Temple, the loss of independence and that of a visible central point, and the innumerable horrors which from then on bore down upon Judah's dispersed little band. Neither civic emancipation nor the most magnificent successes of intellectual development can minimize the sad character of the day. You may institute a holiday for having attained civic liberties, yet what the ninth Av contains in utterly sad and touching memories cannot be blotted out by any blessed turn of our destiny. For it is, after all, only a minute fraction of the Jewish race over whom the sun of freedom has risen. Even European countries, in which the greatest number of our coreligionists live, have a present merely discontinued the practice of persecution and oppression, but not that of exclusion and restrictions of all sorts. Therefore, the synagogue has justifiably appointed this day, which mourns the destruction of the Temple and that of Jerusalem, as the most meaningful day of fasting and mourning in the year.