This Wednesday night the Fast of the Ninth of Av / Tisha B’Av will begin. It’s a 24 hour fast commemorating the destruction of the first and second temples in Jerusalem, and a record of other Jewish tragedies like the expulsion from Spain in 1492. It’s the saddest day of Jewish history saturated with the tears of Jewish suffering over the centuries. Since October 7 a new date has been added to the long litany (even though this did not occur on nine) – it’s been called Aveilut Chadasha, the new grief. October 7 and 9 Av run seamlessly into one another. And this year, the ninth of Av collapses casually into the 14th of December and Bondi Beach.
It’s easy to surrender to the depressing desolation of this day. Yet there is another way…
The Talmud tells us that this dark day holds the seeds of lightness, the promise of redemption, the birth of the Messiah. The very name of the month – Av – is made up of the first two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, a new beginning, a fresh start.
And, for me, this is where we should start this year, this Tisha B’Av. It’s time to let go of the depression and devastation, it’s time for new hope to replace new grief, Tikvah Chadasha in place of Aveilut Chadasha.
This is not the optimism born out of blindness, but the hope born out of boldness. Yes, the world is a dangerous and wounding place especially for us Jews, for our aching Australian community. But our challenge and responsibility is to counter the anger with action, the antipathy with empathy.
The great survivor, Elie Wiesel, reminded post traumatic holocaust survivors of the words of the Chassidic teacher, Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav:
For heaven’s sake, Jews, do not despair!
He told how this phrase was written as a large sign inside a small, makeshift Shtiebel (prayer house) on the outskirts of the Warsaw Ghetto, where the Bratslaver Hasidim (followers of Rebbe Nachman) would secretly gather to pray, study, and maintain morale despite horrific Nazi persecution. The sign was written in Yiddish and, in the original, it’s all the more powerful: “Gvald, Yidden, zayt zikh nisht m’yayesh!” (translated as “For the love of heaven, Jews, do not despair!”).
In the final, brutal months of the ghetto’s existence, as hunger, disease, and deportations to death camps like Treblinka stripped away humanity, this sign served as a radical act of spiritual resistance.
Wiesel viewed Jewish resilience and joy as profound acts of resistance. Wiesel believed that memory compels us to look at the horrors of history, but also binds us to reject total despair. He famously said, “I don’t have the right to live in despair. No one lives alone. Everyone is my hope. Especially my students”.
Wiesel, like his fellow survivor Victor Frankl, teaches us that we shape our reality, we can choose life in the face of death. And if they could do it, how much more so can we.
And we can do it by starting with words because words matter, especially for us, the “people of the Book”. Indeed on the Shabbat before Tisha B’Av we always start reading the monumental book of Moses called Devarim or The book of words. “These are the words that count”.
We are the people of the strong, passionate words that shook the world at Sinai and continue to shape and influence the essence of just and moral societies. They are the basis of Western civilisation. They remind us that human life matters, that we carry the imprint of divinity, the capacity for courage, the potential and desire to make the world a better place for all. They are not about the idea of power, but the power of our idea.
Just like Moses was called on to speak to a rock at a time of generational change (the Egyptian slave generation making way for the born free generation of the desert ), so we are called on in this time of epochal change to smash the hard rocks of our enemies with our bold words and our strong moral actions.
This is not a time to surrender to the hopeless messages that there is no place for Jews in this world, no space for Jews in Australia. This is rather a time to remind the world that we are here to stay, to remind Australians that we are not going anywhere, that we are part of the fabric of civilisation, that we continue to help weave the cloths that protect Australian culture.
Like Wiesel, I draw hope and courage, comfort and consolation, from the next generation, from our confident bar and bat mitzvah pupils, our resolute and proud university students, the young leaders transforming our community. The Royal Commission is frightening and fearful, but it is also a demonstration of the enlightened and fearsome young people creating our future.
The first chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, recalled how the second temple in the year 70 was in large part brought about by the baseless hatred of Jews for one another. He famously said it will be rebuilt on the unconditional love of Jews for one another. There are, he said, of Jerusalem the people with hearts of stone but there are stones here with hearts of humanity.
With boldness of thought, the passion of moderation, the power of compassion, and the wisdom of action, we can turn rocks into hearts and, in the words of the Psalmist, draw honey from the most steely of stones.
Drashot with a difference