Mourning in America and Israel: Tisha B’Av Thoughts

Throwback Thursday

This Sunday will be Tisha B’Av, the saddest day of the Jewish calendar. I describe it below in a post I wrote eight yearsa ago. We read the Book of Lamentations (tradition states it was written by the prophet Jeremiah), which describes in terrible terms a city conquered and laid waste.

It is impossible to read the Book of Lamentations and not think of Gaza:

My eyes are spent with tears,
My heart is in tumult,
My being melts away^-
Over the ruin of my poor people,
As babes and sucklings languish
In the squares of the city.

They keep asking their mothers,
“Where is bread and wine?”
As they languish like battle-wounded
In the squares of the town,
As their life runs out
In their mothers’ bosoms.

As a Jew and Zionist, I want Israel to thrive and be a light upon the nations. Israeli actions in Gaza are not fulfilling this vision. I hope that Israel can be restored.

It should be stated first that Hamas is ultimately responsible. They started this war—with atrocities of their own. Their entire political project is to make destroy Israel, which requires preventing any kind of peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Throughout their history they have carried out murderous attacks that undermined peace.

If the situation were reversed and Hamas had the massive military advantage, have no illusions. What they would have done to the Israelis would have been magnitudes worse than what Israel has done in Gaza.

This does not absolve Israel of responsibility.

In many cases the Israeli military conducted itself admirably, the war has gone on too long. The military victories have been achieved. Time and again, Israel has squandered military advantage with poor political decision-making.

From the beginning of this war there was no indication of a longer-term Israeli strategy to reduce Hamas’ support and elevate pragmatic Palestinians. Israel has been, throughout its history, terrible at political warfare, preferring military means—that is winning the war and losing the peace.

Hamas, in its conduct, does terrible things. They embed themselves among civilians, divert humanitarian aid, hide in hospitals, and lie and distort. The deaths of their own people are a boon to their cause. In starting this war and prosecuting it, Hamas has cynically pressed its own people towards death and suffering.

But none of this is a surprise.

Israel has been battling Hamas for nearly four decades. It’s ideology and strategy were no mystery. Israel could and should have been planning for all of this from the beginning. They did not. The operational planning for managing the humanitarian tragedies in Gaza was clearly inadequate. The strategy for a post-war Gaza was never developed. Israel squandered an outpouring of global support, falling into the political trap Hamas had set.

I won’t do a full analysis of the complex causes of Israel’s choices. But at the very core is a venal politician desperate to remain in power.

In my post from eight years ago, I meditate on whether our entire edifice of civilization could collapse, bringing the whole world to the state described in the Book of Lamentations.

Our world is seeing a rise in such venal leaders, unchecked by institutions, driving us to ruin.

Mourning in America: Tisha B’Av Thoughts

• August 15, 2016

Today is Tisha B’Av, the saddest day of the Jewish year.

(Tisha B’Av means the 9th day of the month of Av, so technically it is not. It is the 10th of Av today, but because yesterday was Shabbat and we don’t mourn and fast on Shabbat, the day of sadness was pushed to today.)

Tisha B’Av remembers the day the First and then the Second Temples were destroyed (according to legend this occurred on the same day, separating by hundreds of years – round one was the Babylonians, round two the Romans.)

In both cases the city of Jerusalem was besieged and sacked. The people were forced into exile. The suffering was immense. (We read the Book of Lamentations by the Prophet Jeremiah.)

Rembrandt: Jeremiah Laments the Loss of Jerusalem — There are many ways to lose Jerusalem.

The religious theme is that the Jewish people were not faithful to the Lord, but with a return to faith and observance will come redemption. It ends on a hopeful note. Especially now that the great exile is over and there is a Jewish state.

But my mind went elsewhere.

In Lamentations, Jeremiah discusses people – kings and priests even – dying by sword and plague. Mothers cannot feed their children and jackals emerge. A great vibrant city full of life is no more.

Civilization, this vast edifice, appears strong. But so it appeared to the Romans until the Goths burst through. In some profound ways it is built on thin, weak bonds. Our financial system (to take one example) is based on the word of the United States government. When it comes to it, so much of our civilization is based on words – the weakest bond and yet the strongest.

What if it isn’t robust? True, as horrible as the World Wars were, civilization survived. But there were bastions far removed from the fighting to preserve it. That same interconnected world that makes it all seem strong, would allow contagion to spread blindingly fast.

Could a few bad policy decisions start to undo all that has been built, allowing the jackals to emerge?

I would like to think not. The Jewish people survived that and much, much more, and our culture is built on words.

But many other great civilizations fell and disappeared into the dust.

The physical infrastructure that preserves lightning communications is pretty extensive. The resources and expertise to preserve would remain, too much depends on it. They are far stronger bonds than the old Roman roads. But of course the Romans couldn’t imagine their world coming to end and bringing on the Dark Ages either.