On the eve of the 9th of Av, brotherly hatred burns. She has always been with us, since Cain and Abel, but now she is on steroids. Before we talk about the now, I want to go to the Bible to soften the message.
The prophet Hosea ben Bari was active during the First Temple period in the Kingdom of Israel on the verge of destruction. At the beginning of his prophetic mission, God requires him to marry a prostitute woman with the ambiguous name "Gomer daughter of Devaliem." God commands Hosea to have three children with her, who are in fear of prostitution because their mother is a prostitute. Through the strange and rather terrible metaphor imposed on the prophet, he must rebuke Israel for their religious and moral sins. Most of his prophecies are reproach and calamity, and a few are consolation.
The Gemara in Tractate Pesachim (87, p. 1) presents an enlightening legend that explains the strange command to Hosea, with an explanation with a psychological and national dimension.
According to the Gemara, before the forced marriage, God was angry at the sins of the Israelites, and Hosea, instead of asking for mercy on his brothers, suggested that God replace the nation with another nation. The Almighty thought, "What shall I do to this old man?" and said to Hosea, "Take a whore woman who will give birth to you sons of prostitutes."
After two sons and a daughter are born, God commands Hosea to throw his wife and children off his face. Hosea pleads with God: "G-d, I have sons from her and I cannot remove her or expel her."
The Almighty said to him: "And what are you that your wife is a prostitute and your sons are sons of prostitutes, and you do not know whether yours are the mother of others, they are so Israel who are my sons... And you said to transfer them to another nation."
Got it? To one degree or another, we are all bastards. But brothers. All.
On the eve of Tisha B'Av, I tweeted: "On the one hand, I understand more the hatred that caused the right-wing and left-wing organizations, the CHI and the IL, to fight separately during the US, Britain and the USSR joined forces in fighting against the strongest army in history. On the other hand, in the Holocaust there was no reduction in reasonableness. It wasn't invented until 1947.
"I wonder about the essence of hatred. After all, in 1943 there was no state, there was no High Court of Justice, but the hatred was the same and it prevented Jews from collaborating against the greatest enemy in the history of mankind, an enemy that succeeded in getting Churchill to cooperate with the hated Soviets. Why?"
Commenters on the left argued against me that I was accusing their camp of hatred. I admit, there is some justice in their words. In my opinion, both the left and the right sin with hatred, but the left is more. How dare I say such a thing? Easily. For example, kibbutzim that split into unity in the 50s and are united in a riotous fit of hatred.
Those who believe in Karl Marx-style class struggle owe hatred, because hatred is the fuel. Socialist ideology has been replaced by a ridiculous shatnaz of high-tech militaristic liberalism, but the hatred is the same hatred, as well as the consequences for the other side.
You call them brothers, they answer you - we are not your brothers. Not all of them, because it is really forbidden to generalize, but the wind blows.
On the evening of the 9th of Av, Haaretz published an article about "Tisha B'Av Revolt: In light of the situation, a long list of restaurants will open tonight." Chef Yuval Ben-Neria stated, "In light of the events of recent days, I feel it is my moral duty to remain loyal to my audience and my employees... For our right to live in a democratic and liberal state."
The article is standard clichés, but the comments of subscribers on the Haaretz website are an X-ray reflection of the period, of the enlightened camp, or at least part of it.
Duffy's comment 116, for example: "Tonight the food will have a special taste of freedom! Of human dignity! And it will be wonderful! The taste of freedom and respect is wonderful in all tastes. We have been fed here for too many decades with disgust and slime of lies and manipulation. Religion has become an instrument in which to torment people. So is nationalism. It's time for grace and good taste! Cheers!!!."
Another commenter wrote: "Protest has many faces to her. If only possible, I would embrace Titus' protest and slaughter a pig over the altar. You have brought the country to a place where I thank Titus for destroying the Temple instead of mourning the exile." Really charming, such a sickening response in Haaretz, the magnificent factory of the Schocken family.
The Schocken family, which owned the greatest brand of Hebrew literature - Nobel Prize winner S.Y. Agnon, who in his acceptance speech said: "Out of a historical catastrophe that Titus, the Roman king, destroyed Jerusalem and exiled Israel from his land - I was born in one of the cities of the Diaspora. But at all times, I always seemed to be born in Jerusalem. In a dream, I saw myself standing with my Levite brothers in the Temple singing songs of King David with them."
Another commenter wrote: "Who cares about the destruction of the Temple? Why do you think that the common secular even knows what day it is in the Hebrew calendar? It's irrelevant to our lives, and the historical event doesn't really cause sorrow (do you really think everyone is mourning the destruction of the Temple? With the priests and the sacrifices? You were completely wrong, my dear)."
To this we must answer that Tisha B'Av is not only a day of fast, marking the destruction of the First and Second Temples, the fall of Beitar, the expulsion of the Jews of England and Spain. For the Nazis, the 1942th of Av, like other Jewish holidays, had sadistic significance. The first major Aktion in the Warsaw ghetto in 1941, the trains that left for Treblinka on the <>th of Av. A year earlier, in July <>, on the <>th of Av <>, Hermann Göring instructed Reinhard Heydrich in a letter to begin preparations for the Final Solution.
The 2th of Av, with its historical and social lessons, should have served as a burning beacon from the past. But beyond that it is a national date. It is the day of the Holocaust and the Holocausts of the people of Israel for 000,<> years. Is it possible to renounce Judaism as a religion, to despise Jewish law, but to give up the genetic-national connection to Judea that was destroyed?
We have no right to the land without the historical and religious context. As evidence, the French settlers in Algiers who were expelled from land foreign to them.
If it were not for our connection to the land, a connection whose essence is the Bible and the kingdoms of Israel, the daily prayer and yearning to return to our homeland, we are usurpers.
Do not give up on the righteousness of the path that it entails in the covenant of fate.
Wrong? We'll fix it! If you find a mistake in the article, please share with us