In two days, on the night of Tisha B'Av, I will go as usual to attend one of the "Tonight We Don't Learn Torah" meetings.
This year it will happen in Hadera. I will share the stage with Aliza Lavi, Gil Kopatsch, Rabbi Avi Novis Deutsch and Adv. Gilad Sher. Here, I also did an advertisement. Come en masse.
In my opinion, I have not missed participation in such an event since the day these dialogue gatherings began in their various frameworks. I usually make a living from my public appearances, but I go to this event regularly free of charge (for me, by the way, this is the deep meaning of the phrase "unconditional love").
I once asked myself: If I hadn't been on stage, would I have also gone to sit in the audience? My clear answer today is: Yes. I don't usually go to demonstrations, nor do I recommend anyone go. A matter of taste. To places like this, where there is an opportunity to meet people from the other side and talk, it is a mitzvah to go. A great mitzvah.
I recently conducted an examination with myself, following which I reached a clear conclusion: What bothers me more and annoys me and clouds my spirits, browsing the feed of people on my side who express and echo my opinion and position, or browsing the opposite feed, of people expressing the opposite opinion, which angers and infuriates me? Ask yourself this question and you'll get a clear answer: browsing my feed is more annoying. Encountering my opinions, especially when they are well articulated and polemic, makes me much more irritated than encountering opposing opinions, however annoying.
This is probably also related to the herd situation well described in Freud's famous book "Crowd Psychology and Analysis of the Self" (which, oddly enough, is hardly mentioned in discussions of the period and its demonstrations, although it is as if it had been written about it). An individual's situation changes dramatically when he is part of a group.
"The most remarkable thing about a psychological mass is that whoever the individuals comprise it, whether their lifestyles are similar or not, as are the occupations, character and IQ of the people, from the very fact that they become a mass, they are bought as if they were a collective soul, by virtue of which they feel, think and act differently than any of them would have felt, thought and acted if they had stood alone" (Le Bon, from the above). And so on, many precise distinctions, each of which can be met on the street these very days.
And here, and almost anyone can attest to this, every encounter with people on the other side is relaxing. Causes good results. Creates optimism. Most of the bitterness and anger was born in front of television – no matter what channel – and Twitter.
When a person is close to himself and his group, the other side is far away. I see this three times a week, when I meet with a diverse audience, and it gives me tremendous optimism. There are also arguments, of course, unnecessary and repetitive, but the bottom line is optimism.
Therefore, it doesn't matter at all what you talk about at the Tisha B'Av night meetings. About unconditional love, about unfounded hatred, about destruction and revival, about joy and Rothman, and even about the weather and where we go in freedom. The main thing is to be together. People from different sides who want to meet people from different sides.
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