This past Wednesday, just a few hours before the heavy and painful day of Tisha B’Av, my aunt Devra called. It was time-sensitive and sweet: she wanted to know how to stream our Tisha B’Av commemoration because even though she lives in Kansas City, she’s a remote member of our synagogue and loves our online offerings.
Then she reminded me that July 22nd is my Grandpa Jake’s English yahrzeit. (I commemorate the Hebrew one which falls on the 20th of Tamuz.) But then she told me something chilling that I hadn’t known: on Tisha B’Av in 1941, the entire community where my grandfather was born was liquidated by the Nazis. On that day, his grandfather, David Davidovits (my great-great-grandfather), was murdered, along with my great-great-grandmother Sheindel and countless cousins.
So now, for me, Tisha B’Av isn’t just about the destruction of the First and Second Temples, or the edict of expulsion from Spain, or the beginning of mass deportations from the Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka for extermination. It’s also the more personal tragedies that those who hate us decided, over the years, to perpetrate against us on that day just to rub a little more salt in our wounds.
And speaking of pouring salt on wounds, this week the mayor of New York City released a video which I think can fairly be labeled incitement against Israel and the Jewish People. Purportedly about Israel’s prime minister, it could just as easily be described as a hate screed against anyone who considers themselves a Zionist, a supporter of the national liberation movement of the Jewish people. And since the vast majority of Jews consider themselves Zionists, more broadly, incitement against Jews.
I’m thinking about all of this as we leave Tisha B’av behind and turn to consolation. This Shabbat is called Shabbat Nachamu, the Sabbath of Consolation. We read a passage from the book of Isaiah that comes to comfort the Jewish people, to inspire us to believe that somehow things will get better. For seven Shabbatot in a row, we read passages from Isaiah designed to carry that message forward, leading us to the New Year and to rebirth.
We’ve been reading Isaiah’s words for more than two thousand years and part of the wisdom is that being comforted takes time. It’s not a hug or a word of encouragement, and then we’re done. For someone who has suffered a loss or trauma, it can take years, decades, even. But we believe that in time, it will get better. Sometimes, as a people, we have to think in generational time — in thousands of years.
The other lesson is that we have an obligation to comfort each other. This is a chief concern and a core purpose of any community and it is absolutely central to the life of Am Yisrael.
So after a heavy week communally, and for me personally, I found strength in reflecting on this truth: my Grandpa Jake lived to see, with joy, the birth of the State of Israel. He was privileged to bring me, my siblings, and our whole family there in 1978, for the B’nai Mitzvah of my sister and brother.
And so even in this moment of communal darkness — as antisemitism reaches levels we haven’t seen in our lifetimes, as anti-Israel rhetoric has become so normalized that the mayor of the most Jewish city in America, a mayor who promised to represent all New Yorkers, publishes a message that fans the fire of hatred against Jews — even in such a moment, we do not give up hope. We will comfort one another. We will be comforted by one another.
In that spirit, I invite you to join us tonight in Santa Monica for our annual Beach Shabbat, which often falls on the Sabbath immediately following the ninth of Av. (It’s somewhat painful by the way that I feel duty bound to remind you that extra security precautions will be taken this evening — so you have no reason to be concerned about gathering with fellow Jews in a public space.) Tomorrow morning, join us for Torah study on our campus as we look at this week’s portion, which includes the words of Shema Yisrael.
Together we find comfort. Together we find hope.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Yoshi