My good friend Rabbi Josh Gutoff wrote a lovely insightful post about Tisha B’Av over at his blog frost and clouds.

We moderns think and speak about historical time, understanding the difference between “then” and “now”; modernity itself is a product of the development of what we call history. And so the questions that we ask about an event are, “What were its causes?” “What were its effects?” and most important, “Did it really happen then?” The Rabbis, though, trafficked in sacred time, mythic time, for which the essential question was not whether something happened once, but whether it was eternally true.

In terms of understanding the literal physical destruction, the pshat of the day as it were, even if one doesn’t wish for the restoration of sacrifices, there is value in remembering and mourning. Last year at camp, I was a yahadut teacher with a class of 4th graders, most of whom had never heard of Tisha B’Av, like me at their age. I suspected that many of their parents, if they thought about it at all, didn’t observe because they don’t believe in rebuilding the physical Temple, or a return to animal sacrifice.

In order to teach about Tisha B’Av, I overturned the table and benches in our mirpeset-classroom, sat on the floor with the children, and recounted to them what my day was like on September 11th, 2001. Metaphor and symbolism would have been, if not lost on them, probably forgotten forthwith. But these children, who have grown up their whole lives hearing about “September 11th” as this great modern tragedy of which they have no memory, will not soon forget a personal story of what it is like to live in a community as it experiences a great destruction.

On the drash front, I had a conversation with a friend last night, who objects to the idea of fast days other than Yom Kippur on the grounds that they constitute a mythologizing of history which is antithetical to what he believes to be the true purpose of Judaism, that the Temple should not be viewed as a physical historical object that can or should be rebuilt, but that the Temple represents and, in fact is, per se, the unification of heaven and earth. It is entirely metaphorical, and to mourn for, and seek the rebuilding of, the physical Temple is a perversion.

I can appreciate and take this on as well. As a student of Kabbalah, it makes perfect sense to me. The day, however, does not lose its value because it is represented by most as being about a solid place and time in history. It is precisely the rabbis poetic understanding of history to which Rav Josh refers which redeems the day for one who believes as my friend does. The Rabbis, as he notes, do not engage the question of linear historical geo-political narrative to understand the destruction and its meaning. Rather, they tell stories with essential Truth in them to explain what brings about tragedy and destruction. What are the stories that they tell? Are they about the cruelty or injustice of the Roman occupation? Are they about empire building or failed revolutions? No. They are about senseless hatred between people. Sinat Chinam.

This is the essential point, this is the eternal truth, the lesson, of Tisha B’Av. In a sense, the historical destruction is a convenient event upon which to hang a day of observance which has a much more important center. It is not a coincidence that this is one of only two major 25-hour fasts in our calendar- Today should be a day of introspection, like Yom Kippur. However, while on Yom Kippur we focus on sins, primarily wrong actions, on this day we should look even deeper, into our cores, into how we think about each person we encounter.

Whether we are talking physical-literal, or transcendent-metaphorical, it is hatred that brings about destruction. Lack of love, blindness to the Other, to the Self, the I, in each individual, that makes life tragic. It is blindness to the transcendent Truths, to Martin Buber’s model of human relationship, which causes God to hide God’s face from us, leaving us broken and abandoned and starving. When it’s framed in these terms, then you have the metaphor right there in the tradition: the Temple is destroyed because of Sinat Chinam. Tisha B’Av is the day on which we remember what happens when we forget how to love. And so we fast and mourn, and we remember that we must love each other… because lack of love brings about destruction, heartbreak, unbearable pain.

Baseless hatred is the root of all human evil and destruction. Baseless hatred is the root of cruelty and suffering. Baseless hatred is a cycle that can be stopped only when a person makes a decision to stop it. Tisha B’Av is therefore not about a building that was destroyed, a ritual practice that was ended, even a land that was lost or lives that were extinguished. Tisha B’Av is, and must be, about love.

One might say that this should be a day for baseless love to counter baseless hatred. The problem with this thought is that there is no such thing as baseless love. Not for us, anyway. For us, only hatred can be baseless. We are each created in the Divine Image. Each of us owes each other love and kindness. We have every reason to love one another, and no reason to hate. Only God can give baseless love. Only God owes us nothing and gives it anyway.

This is my take, for this year, on what Tisha B’Av is meant to teach us. I wish an easy and meaningful fast to all who do so, and to everyone that all of your contemplations be fruitful.

This is inspired by something Jen wrote about celebrating chanukkah (the post itself is friendslocked, but she’s worth reading in general cause she’s made of awesome).

It’s wonderful being in Israel during Chanukkah and seeing the chanukkiot in the windows and outside the doors here. It’s wonderful to see people lighting big chanukkiot with oil (instead of candles) which doesn’t go out after only half an hour. It’s wonderful to come to shul in the morning and to sing hallel, and on Sunday morning to see the shul’s chanukkiah (which uses big candles) still burning from before havdalah the night before. And it’s wonderful that there’s no gaudy Christmas stuff to compete, so the holiday is its own thing. No one gives presents here. Chanukkah gets to be precisely what it is, a festival of lights, a festival of the Jewish people, something that belongs to us, that we had first, that doesn’t look like a cheap knockoff of the other guy’s birthday party.

The following are things that have occurred to me in the past couple of years:

Sukkah decorating should be for us what Christmas tree decorating is for them. We’ve got that activity in our tradition… and our “Christmas tree” thing is cooler than a Christmas tree because not only is it lovely and fragrant (depending on what you use for schach) but you get to frikkin LIVE in it! Do they get to live in their Christmas tree? I think not! And no, I’m not saying that we should copy the Christians with decorating the sukkah like how they decorate Christmas trees… dwelling in a sukkah is a mitzvah, a commandment. Decorating the sukkah is hiddur mitzvah, beautifying the mitzvah. This is BUILT IN to OUR religion. I’m saying we should OWN it, and realize how much we are NOT lacking.

For Chanukkah, here is no reason we shouldn’t have lights. It’s a festival of lights. Banu Choshech LeGaresh for Pete’s sake! There’s nothing about having lights that is inherently Christmas, and if anyone asks, well, we had the frikkin idea first, ya know? Well, not first, but at least before THEY did. Not that it’s a competition… as Jen put it, it’s “about the primal winter scream (help, where is the sun going?! we are hungry! come back, sun!! argh!!!)” and almost every culture has that. See, we’ve always known about Seasonal Affective Disorder. We banish the darkness with little oil lights or candles, because it fits with the story, and because that’s what used to be available for making light. A chanukkiah used to be a significant increase in how much light there was in the house. I see no reason why, in this day and age, we shouldn’t also have twinkly lights to ward off the SAD, without losing our “Jewish Cred” as Jen puts it.

As for the Maccabee cultural isolationism thingy… I’m genuinely torn about that one. This is a holiday of mixed messages and multiple lessons. (The short version: under Greco-Syrian Hellenistic rule, the Israelites began to assimilate, sometimes by force, sometimes under cultural pressure, sometimes by choice. The Maccabees/Chashmonaim [Hasmoneans] who were descended from priestly line fought a war against the Greco-Syrians AND the assimilationist Israelites, regained national sovereignty, kicked out the pagans, and cleansed and rededicated the Temple so that our religious worship could resume.) On the one hand, what did the Chashmonaim do as soon as they won their war against Hellenism and assimilation? They did the most Greek thing they could do and declared a holiday! That’s not something Jews did… we observed the festivals assigned us by God. Greeks declared holidays for military victories. And the Rabbis were extremely disturbed by this so they came up with the oil story. Which brings it into the primal scream realm very nicely and all works out well in the end. But more to the point, we would a) not be here, and b) not be celebrating this holiday or c) doing a lot of the stuff that we do as Jews (including Talmud) were is not for Hellenistic influence.

On the other hand, nor would we be here if we allowed the assimilationist tendency to overrun us, if we allowed ourselves to stop circumcising and gave in to the pressure to worship other gods/adopt other religious practices, even just for show. Which brings us to the Christmas tree/Chanukkah bush thing. The tree may not be so Christian, but neither is it Jewish. It is true that over the course of our history we have assimilated many pagan elements into our religion as have the Christians, but the tree is not one of them. I understand having positive cultural associations with the tree that one might feel like they want to bring into their celebration of Chanukkah… I have those associations too, from Christmas at my Catholic grandparents’ home… but it was always clear to us as children that, while the tree is lovely, it is not ours. I think that it is important to make that distinction. I think that it’s good to consider what will bring us closer to the holistic spirit of what we are celebrating at Chanukkah (I see it as primordial scream, with a healthy dose of maintaining and celebrating our other-ness) which means not shying away from neutral light-bearing sort of stuff, but davka NOT adopting the stuff that has nothing to do with us, that is just jealously copying the neighbors.

Sura Choshech Halah Shchor. Sura Mipnei HaOr.

One of the things I did not get to do on birthright in January 2002 (for those who need a refresher, that was the first trip after September 11th) was to go to the shuk. Beth and Ira decided that it was wrong that I had never been to the shuk and took it upon themselves to remedy this situation.

The Shuk is an experience of all senses. The colors are amazing… there are a lot of things I could say but they’d all sound like dumb clichés, so this will be mostly pictures.

Here Beth is showing me that, as evidenced by the beautiful apricots that this is mishmish season. This made me think of my friend Karam in Brooklyn. He taught me the Arabic expression “بكرة في المشمش” - “Bokra fi al mishmish” which he told me means “tomorrow in the apricot,” and I have heard variously translated as “come back in the apricot season” or “Tomorrow there will be apricots.” Essential meaning, “Yeah, right” or “never gonna happen.”

This is fresh pita. As we approach the pita stand that Beth likes, she explains to me that you don’t want your pita 15 minutes old. She points to the pita coming out of the oven and says “This is what you want.” She picks up a freshly packed “נילון” (That’s “neelon,” plastic bag) of pita and holds it out to me.

“Feel.”

“You have to beg them to take your money,” she explains. “See, he’s walking by and he’s going to ignore me. Again.”

“Fried things, grape leaves, schnitzel, to honor the holy Shabbat”

Stopping for some sweets for Shabbat, Ira points out this place. “See,” he says “where there’s a menu, and it looks like it’s telling you what they have? They don’t mention the pots. See, if you know to peek in the pots, you can get something nice.”

And this, of course, is the infamous David Dagim.

“This is the guy who takes my order,” says Ira.

“And this is the guy who gives me a hard time.”

One of the really lovely things about shopping the shuk is that you get to taste just about everything. The cheese guy gave Ira and me each a slice off a big hunk of really lovely gruyere, while another poured us each a taste of some pretty nice Tishbi wine. Beth and I were handed some dried cranberries by the nut guy and we all tried the mysterious bean salad at the place with the humous and herring.

I am a fan of the shuk.

On the way there, Ira pointed out this sign:

“Doesn’t it look like it says OBGYN?”