Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Addendum to My Last Post

I just had a class on Tishah B'av that I felt was important enough to warrant an addendum to my last post. I'll keep it short.

The class began with the Rabbi enumerating all the times we think about the destruction, much like I did in my post. When we eat, when we pray, when we marry, when we build our homes, and certainly during these 3 weeks. But then he asked the key question: Why? He said he was not looking for the stock response that we must mourn the loss of the Temple. If it were just about mourning, then we would not devote so much time to it. And besides, there is no such thing in Judaism as doing something just to remember. The only reason we do anything is to grow as individuals. So what kind of growth do we get from this? Why is this one aspect of Jewish history so integral to our lives, and what take-home message should we glean, beyond the sadness we feel? Who should we be on the day after Tishah B'av? How should we have changed?

The answer lies in the very cause for the destructions themselves. We know that the first Temple was destroyed because of 3 cardinal sins: idolatry, adultery, and murder. After a mere 70 years, the Temple was rebuilt. The second Temple was destroyed for only one sin: Baseless Hatred. And it has been about 2,000 years, with no rebuilding in sight. We learn from this that we should consider hating other people to be worse than all 3 of the cardinal sins combined. It is the worst thing we can do, to hate someone, to mistreat someone, to disregard someone. The Talmud says that any generation in which the Temple is not rebuilt should consider themselves the ones who destroyed it. This means: we are still mired in the exact same problems they were back then: We are still not loving one another enough, being good enough to eachother, kind enough, helpful enough. In the context of a religious Jew, this could mean that we are paying more attention to ritual laws than those that involve how we treat one another. That we are missing the entire point of being a holy person: holiness does not come from separating onesself, being aloof, judgmental, and putting more effort into our personal observance than into the way we treat others. Holiness means connection, loving kindness, and giving. It means friendship. It means family. It means being kind to strangers, to children, to the elderly, to the poor. It means honoring our parents. It means giving the benefit of the doubt. It means seeing the good in every person.

So, I want to update my last post with this:

May we all learn from the mistakes of our own history, and learn to love one another and be good to one another. We must not let this time pass by without growing closer to those we love, as well as those we dislike. May the pain of the past serve as a reminder that we must be better givers and comforters, better friends and family members, better people.

Sorry, I thought that was important to add in.

Have an easy and meaningful fast if you are fasting.

Love, Shira