By Leah Garber
For these things do I weep,
My eyes flow with tears:
Far from me is any comforter
Who might revive my spirit;
My children are forlorn,
For the foe has prevailed.
—Megillat Eikhah, Book of Lamentations, 1:16
Across the Jewish world, Jews mourn today, marking Tisha B’Av, the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av and the saddest day on the Jewish calendar. By participating in a 25-hour fast, reading the Book of Lamentations, and observing other acts of mourning, we commemorate a number of disasters that befell us throughout our history. Key among them are the destruction of Solomon’s Temple by the Neo-Babylonian Empire in the sixth century B.C.E. and the destruction of the Second Temple by the Roman Empire in Jerusalem in 70 C.E.
After the destruction of the First Temple, the people were exiled to Babylon and the Land of Israel remained desolate. Following the destruction of the Second Temple, the work of the Temple priests ceased, and the people were dispersed across the Jewish world to this very day. Over time, Tisha B’Av has come to be a Jewish day of mourning not only for these events but also for later tragedies that occurred on or near the 9th of Av, several during the Holocaust, and most recently the bombing of the Jewish community center, Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) in Buenos Aires that killed 85 and injured 300 on the 10th of Av in 1994.
For nearly 2,000 years, Jews have been gathering in synagogues, lamenting the destruction, the exile, the loss of sovereignty, and the many calamities that have befallen us. On the eve of the 9th, as the sun sets, the mood changes, adapting itself to the atmosphere of the day. Restaurants, shopping malls, theaters, and other places of entertainment are closed, respecting the day of mourning. The plaza of the Western Wall in Jerusalem, the last remnant of the Temple, is filled with people who sit on the floor, as is customary for mourning, and chant laments. Israeli television and radio adapt to the day’s atmosphere, broadcasting appropriate programs, without commercials.
The First Temple, a symbol of Jewish unity and sovereignty, was built by King Solomon only after he was able to unite the people, bringing the kingdoms of Judah and Israel together as one and leaving internal power struggles and civil disputes behind. The Second Temple was destroyed due to baseless hatred among Jews. As unity shattered, trampled on by internal strife that disintegrated internal cohesion, the glue that held the Temple together lost its ability to do so, leading to its destruction and the dispersion of Jews throughout the diasporas.
Last year we were terribly immersed in internal divisions. The judiciary reform which the government tried to pass brought hundreds of thousands to the streets every week in protest—both for and against. With deep concern, we witnessed how our beloved country, more divided than ever, loses itself to factions and disputes, forgetting that what unites us is so much greater than the division. Last year, on the 9th of Av, we lamented the gratuitous hatred that was spreading like wildfire, burning with it our common denominator, destroying the building blocks.
At the lowest point of the disputes, after shameful events that occurred during Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, we hit rock bottom. We were weak, exhausted, a step away from separation, and closer than ever to realizing what can result from brotherly hatred. At that precise moment, the cruelest enemy took advantage of our weaknesses, attacking us with unrelenting malice. As history has repeatedly shown us, as it did on October 7, when we are divided, we are vulnerable, exposed, an easy target.
The 10 months since that blackest day have been the hardest since the founding of the state. We have endured 10 months in which 115 of us are still in captivity—in subhuman conditions and without hope. Ten months of non-stop fighting on seven fronts. Ten months in which soldiers and civilians are paying the ultimate price for the right to live here. Ten months during which half of the country has been painted black by fire, gray by smoke, and in which birdsong has morphed into sirens and the noise of machine guns. Ten months in which our political leadership returned to clashing with one another, right and left, religious and secular, as if it was till October 6. Ten months of hopelessness and one long cry of despair.
Last night, when I read the Book of Lamentations, I felt as if the words that were written nearly 2,000 years ago had been written today. They stabbed at my heart, pierced my soul. The lamentation for the destruction of the two Temples is the cry for the destruction of Kibbutz Be’eri, Kibbutz Nir Oz, and Kibbutz Kfar Aza. It is today’s lamentation for 1,200 innocent and brutally murdered souls. It is the weep for babies who were burned alive, the grief for dismembered corpses. I cried for my slandered people, for my beloved country and its breached borders that allowed the hand of a murderer to grab my people, to kill my brothers and sisters, and to present an existential threat to all of us.
Since October 7, every news broadcast is a lament, every mention of another soldier, child, or Israeli killed is a lament. Every cry of a bereaved family that is recently added to those who have lost a loved one is a lament.
Listen to this full lamentation for Kibbutz Be’eri by Yagel Haroush.
“O how has my well
Become my grave
And my day of light
Become my darkness
And every fruit destroyed
And my song overthrown
My eyes fill with water
From the depths of my despair”
***
On the night of October 7, Yonatan Deutsch and his friends from the IDF Maglan unit arrived at Kibbutz Nahal Oz to rescue besieged residents. Yonatan rescued Shachaf Moshkowitz. At the end of a long day-and-a-half entrenched in her home shelter, surrounded by murderous terrorists who set fire to nearby homes, killing her friends and kidnapping her neighbors, Shachaf was overjoyed to see Yonatan’s kind, smiling, reassuring face welcoming her back to life. Once Yonatan and his unit evacuated the residents of Nahal Oz, including Shachaf, she thanked him for saving her life, and gave him a Star of David necklace and a wish that it would protect him during the fighting. For nine rough months of fighting, it did. Until it didn’t.
In a few months, Yonatan and his beloved girlfriend, Emuna, were to stand together, wrapped with Yonatan’s tallit, under their wedding canopy, embarking on their new journey together. Instead, Emuna stands over Yonatan’s grave, where his coffin wrapped with his tallit sets him off to an entirely different journey after he was murdered by evil terrorists who sprayed bullets at the car he was driving along a peaceful road in the Jordan Valley on his way to his fiancée on Sunday afternoon.
Many accompanied him on his last journey. They paid tribute to the 23-year-old young man who strove to help others throughout his life, to volunteer, to lend a hand. After nine months of fighting in Gaza, evil caught him in the borders of his beloved country. While he was driving, perhaps thinking about the long, full life he would enjoy at the side of his beloved, murderers cut short the thread of his life and condemned another family in Israel to bereavement.
Tisha B’Av this year is a day of mourning for the destruction of October 7. It is a day of mourning that began 312 days ago.
What lessons will be learned from the October 7 destruction? Will we unite once again, shed disputes, and celebrate the unifier? Will our leaders finally see us, the people they serve, and stop their self-interested political debates? Will we draw from each other the mental and emotional strength required to rebuild what was destroyed, plant what was uprooted, repair what was broken, and embrace freely, so that next year on Tisha B’Av, while mourning the loss, we will at least do so together, as one people, deserving of our beloved homeland and nation?
Why have You forgotten us utterly,
Forsaken us for all time?
Take us back, O LORD, to Yourself,
And let us come back;
Renew our days as of old!
–Megillat Eikhah, Book of Lamentations, 5:20-21
Together, united, we will overcome.
Leah Garber is a senior vice president of JCC Association of North America and director of its Center for Israel Engagement in Jerusalem.
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