by Rabbi Josh Knobel
This week, Jews throughout the world will observe Tisha B’Av, or the ninth of Av, a day set aside for mourning the destruction of the two Holy Temples in Jerusalem – the crumbling of the great walls of our nation’s ancestral home.
Fashioned after the tragic defeat of the Judeans at the hand of the Romans in the year 70, the observance of Tisha B’Av ushered in an era of introspection among our sages. Attempting to examine the role they played in creating a world without a Temple, the sages recognized that the Jews’ unwillingness to set aside their agendas and cooperate with one another, a failure termed sinat hinam by our rabbis, made Judea ripe for conquering. So involved were the Jews in their own petty and violent bickering that they made an attractive and easy target for the Romans.
In an era of flourishing Jewish life, in which Jews once more possess a kingdom of their own in Israel, a day of mourning on behalf of the Jewish nation’s plight seems far less significant than at its inauguration. However, just as the implementation of Tisha B’Av sought to help stateless Jews consider how failing to live up to their values led them to lose their home, so, too, can Tisha B’Av help us consider how to best live according to our values in the Jewish homes we’ve secured… in Israel, in America, and around the world.
The principal lesson of Tisha B’Av is that the era of introspection it encourages arrived far too late to help our ancestors, but not too late for us. The time is now to consider how best to live among our fellow Jews and our non-Jewish neighbors and how best to create Jewish communities that live up to our Jewish values.