Most of my life I’ve had a “future orientation.” As a kid I always saved things for later. When I got prizes of candy in school I would bring it home instead of eating it right away. I once lost out when I tried to bring home an ices, and it melted in my knapsack. I would carefully ration out the goodies I got on Purim, always worried that if I finished it now, I wouldn’t have any later – never mind that my mother kept a cabinet stocked with cookies and candies. I felt that it was important that I have my own nosh available if I wanted it. I would sometimes put things away for when I got married or had kids. Most of that stuff is still in my parents’ attic.
As I got older planning for the future became more realistic and more important. I had to do well in school so I would get into high school and college. I went to bais medrash because I was told that if I didn’t, I would never find a shidduch. (As it turned out, that wasn’t true.) I went to grad school so I could find a job.
I realized recently that the future I’ve been planning for my whole life is right now. I’m married, I have kids, I’m finished with school and have a job (sort of). And… that’s it.
Sure, I still have plans for the future. Like, I’d like to buy a house someday. But I’m not pushing towards those goals the way I used to. My attitude has changed from sacrificing the present for the sake of the future to enjoying the present and letting the future come when it may.
On a somewhat related note: I was thinking this morning about the conservation movement that’s grown up in the last couple of decades. Save the planet for our children and all that. And I was wondering, why bother?
It seems to be driven by our instinct to preserve our species and based on the premise that it is worthwhile for us to make sacrifices in the present so that future generations will survive and progress. But this presupposes that humanity will be able to survive and progress indefinitely. That’s simply not true. In a few billion years the sun will burn out. Even if we colonize other solar systems, all the stars will eventually burn out, and ultimately humanity will die out. What is the difference, ultimately, if that happens in a hundred years or a trillion? Emotionally, we can’t really process a trillion years, and so tend to dismiss this distant inevitability as unimportant. On the other hand, a hundred years from now is within our grandchildren’s lifetime, maybe even our children’s. Still, emotion aside, humanity is doomed. Does it really matter when?
I’ll leave you now to more cheerful thoughts.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
The Virtue of Faith Despite Adversity
A while ago, I wrote a post, “Why Is Faith a Virtue?” Particularly faith in the face of adversity. Why is the greatest tzaddik in the frum world the person who, despite personal tragedy, holds on to their emunah?
I think I have an answer. From conversations that I have had with various frum people I have gotten the impression that many believe that everyone sees the world the same way they do. One person told me outright that “The goyim don’t really believe in their religions the way a frum person has emunah in Hashem.” In their view, everyone really believes in Hashem. The only reason someone wouldn’t believe is if they are pretending. They’ll even say that sometimes a person will pretend so well that he will fool himself into really thinking that he doesn’t believe, but deep down he knows that Hashem in the Borie Olam and Yiddishkeit is the Truth.
As an aside, this might also answer a question I’ve had in Chumash. The meforshim condemn Pharaoh for his answer to Moshe’s demand in the name of Hashem to free the Bnie Yisroel: “Who is this God you speak of?” From Pharaoh’s point of view, this is a perfectly legitimate question. There is even a medrash that says he looked through a book of gods and didn’t find Hashem’s name there. The Egyptians had a whole pantheon of gods, and knew the pantheons of other nations. Why should Pharaoh, the embodiment of Ra on Earth, take orders from a god of slaves, a god whom he had never heard of?
The answer could be in the belief I cited above that everyone really, deep down, knows that Hashem is the Borei Olam. Everyone, even Pharaoh. (Never mind that he had legitimately never heard of Hashem. He just KNEW.) So Pharaoh not bowing to Hashem’s will, and worse, having the audacity to ask who He is, is evil.
In the same way, a person who experiences a tragic event doesn’t go through a logical process where he decides that an omni-benevolent God wouldn’t do such a thing, and therefore decides God doesn’t exist. At best, he knows that God exists, but he’s angry with God, and so refuses to acknowledge Him out of spite. Contrast this with someone who experiences a tragedy and continues to trust in God.
Remember, legitimate disbelief is not a real option. A person either believes and continues to trust in God, or believes and pretends he doesn’t out of anger/spite. Which of these attitudes is the more virtuous? Clearly, the more socially useful (in a non-democratic society anyway), and therefore virtuous attitude, is continued trust in a leader despite an apparently tragic mistake.
I think I have an answer. From conversations that I have had with various frum people I have gotten the impression that many believe that everyone sees the world the same way they do. One person told me outright that “The goyim don’t really believe in their religions the way a frum person has emunah in Hashem.” In their view, everyone really believes in Hashem. The only reason someone wouldn’t believe is if they are pretending. They’ll even say that sometimes a person will pretend so well that he will fool himself into really thinking that he doesn’t believe, but deep down he knows that Hashem in the Borie Olam and Yiddishkeit is the Truth.
As an aside, this might also answer a question I’ve had in Chumash. The meforshim condemn Pharaoh for his answer to Moshe’s demand in the name of Hashem to free the Bnie Yisroel: “Who is this God you speak of?” From Pharaoh’s point of view, this is a perfectly legitimate question. There is even a medrash that says he looked through a book of gods and didn’t find Hashem’s name there. The Egyptians had a whole pantheon of gods, and knew the pantheons of other nations. Why should Pharaoh, the embodiment of Ra on Earth, take orders from a god of slaves, a god whom he had never heard of?
The answer could be in the belief I cited above that everyone really, deep down, knows that Hashem is the Borei Olam. Everyone, even Pharaoh. (Never mind that he had legitimately never heard of Hashem. He just KNEW.) So Pharaoh not bowing to Hashem’s will, and worse, having the audacity to ask who He is, is evil.
In the same way, a person who experiences a tragic event doesn’t go through a logical process where he decides that an omni-benevolent God wouldn’t do such a thing, and therefore decides God doesn’t exist. At best, he knows that God exists, but he’s angry with God, and so refuses to acknowledge Him out of spite. Contrast this with someone who experiences a tragedy and continues to trust in God.
Remember, legitimate disbelief is not a real option. A person either believes and continues to trust in God, or believes and pretends he doesn’t out of anger/spite. Which of these attitudes is the more virtuous? Clearly, the more socially useful (in a non-democratic society anyway), and therefore virtuous attitude, is continued trust in a leader despite an apparently tragic mistake.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Truth in Religion and Science: Working Backwards, Working Forwards
[I know this has been done to death, but I thought I’d write up my own take on it anyway.]
The most basic difference between science and religion, the one that makes them butt heads and complicates any discussion of the two, is their difference in epistemology.
Modern science starts with the assumption that we know nothing, and painstakingly have to establish every assertion as true. There have been studies done to confirm and quantify things that everyone takes for granted, such as that something that is farther away looks smaller than something that is closer. Scientists confirmed that this is true, and more importantly were able to describe the equivalence between distance and size, which has implications for eyewitness testimony. Ideally, research is conducted to confirm or deny and/or measure a specific point. Negative results can be just as informative as positive results. It is a flawed, human process, but one that is self-correcting and that builds on itself. It starts from nothing and, by collecting, investigating, and quantifying data, reaches conclusions. These conclusions are then tested by other scientists to see if they are accurate, and are modified in response to new data. Science works forward, the evidence pointing towards the conclusions.
Religion works in exactly the opposite way. It takes a given premise as a fact, and then looks for evidence to confirm the premise. Most importantly, disconfirming evidence is either devalued or ignored. Since the premise is known to be true, any evidence that shows it is false is de facto flawed. Religion works backwards, with the conclusions determining which evidence is correct.
This is a feature of not just religion but of many non-scientific beliefs, including pseudo-sciences. Disturbingly, I’ve found such belief systems in my own profession. Psychology is one of the soft sciences, and in some places it’s so soft it’s fluffy. Classic Freudian psychoanalysis, which has entered popular culture as the definitive form of psychology, is an example of this. Freud never performed research, and based all of his conclusions on a very limited number of case studies from his own practice. He assumed that he and his patients, all of whom were upper-middle-class Viennese, were representative of humanity. He came up with a lot of clever psychological mechanisms to explain their various disorders. When researchers tried to confirm his theories, they found that he had been right about a surprising number of things, but that he had mostly been wrong. Psychology changed from focusing on the subconscious to focusing on observable behavior and to describing cognitive processes. Yet it took decades for traditional psychoanalysis to be abandoned, and it continues to be used today in a modified form.
Another example I came across is William Glasser’s Choice Theory. I first heard of it in a counseling class in grad school, and I thought that it sounded very interesting. But when I got his books from the library and started reading them, I was dismayed to find that they were mostly conjecture. Worse, he claimed that if only everyone would ascribe to, study, and understand his theory, the world would become a Utopia. It sounded like he was trying to start a religion. I still think that the basic premise of his theory, that everything we do is a choice, can be a useful therapeutic tool. Many people feel that their problems are caused by forces they can’t control, and so rationalize not doing anything about them. I think that Impressing on them that their life is a result of their choices can be a powerful motivator for constructive changes. But I don’t think it is anything more than that.
Both classical Freudians and Glasser operate the same way religions do. They assume that a premise is true – neurosis are caused by subconscious pressures, everyone’s problems could be solved if only they would understand that it is their choices that cause them – and pick their evidence to conform to the premise.
On the other hand, there is research that makes me proud of my field, like forensic psychologists quantifying the size an object appears at a given distance, or findings in social psychology like the classic Milgram experiment. These studies produce evidence that can then be used to form theories. Sometimes they are wrong, but the faulty data is eventually weeded out and the theories are stronger for it.
I think that in religion, in science, in every field, we should try to move from evidence to conclusion rather than from conclusion to confirmation. It is the best way we have of knowing what is.
The most basic difference between science and religion, the one that makes them butt heads and complicates any discussion of the two, is their difference in epistemology.
Modern science starts with the assumption that we know nothing, and painstakingly have to establish every assertion as true. There have been studies done to confirm and quantify things that everyone takes for granted, such as that something that is farther away looks smaller than something that is closer. Scientists confirmed that this is true, and more importantly were able to describe the equivalence between distance and size, which has implications for eyewitness testimony. Ideally, research is conducted to confirm or deny and/or measure a specific point. Negative results can be just as informative as positive results. It is a flawed, human process, but one that is self-correcting and that builds on itself. It starts from nothing and, by collecting, investigating, and quantifying data, reaches conclusions. These conclusions are then tested by other scientists to see if they are accurate, and are modified in response to new data. Science works forward, the evidence pointing towards the conclusions.
Religion works in exactly the opposite way. It takes a given premise as a fact, and then looks for evidence to confirm the premise. Most importantly, disconfirming evidence is either devalued or ignored. Since the premise is known to be true, any evidence that shows it is false is de facto flawed. Religion works backwards, with the conclusions determining which evidence is correct.
This is a feature of not just religion but of many non-scientific beliefs, including pseudo-sciences. Disturbingly, I’ve found such belief systems in my own profession. Psychology is one of the soft sciences, and in some places it’s so soft it’s fluffy. Classic Freudian psychoanalysis, which has entered popular culture as the definitive form of psychology, is an example of this. Freud never performed research, and based all of his conclusions on a very limited number of case studies from his own practice. He assumed that he and his patients, all of whom were upper-middle-class Viennese, were representative of humanity. He came up with a lot of clever psychological mechanisms to explain their various disorders. When researchers tried to confirm his theories, they found that he had been right about a surprising number of things, but that he had mostly been wrong. Psychology changed from focusing on the subconscious to focusing on observable behavior and to describing cognitive processes. Yet it took decades for traditional psychoanalysis to be abandoned, and it continues to be used today in a modified form.
Another example I came across is William Glasser’s Choice Theory. I first heard of it in a counseling class in grad school, and I thought that it sounded very interesting. But when I got his books from the library and started reading them, I was dismayed to find that they were mostly conjecture. Worse, he claimed that if only everyone would ascribe to, study, and understand his theory, the world would become a Utopia. It sounded like he was trying to start a religion. I still think that the basic premise of his theory, that everything we do is a choice, can be a useful therapeutic tool. Many people feel that their problems are caused by forces they can’t control, and so rationalize not doing anything about them. I think that Impressing on them that their life is a result of their choices can be a powerful motivator for constructive changes. But I don’t think it is anything more than that.
Both classical Freudians and Glasser operate the same way religions do. They assume that a premise is true – neurosis are caused by subconscious pressures, everyone’s problems could be solved if only they would understand that it is their choices that cause them – and pick their evidence to conform to the premise.
On the other hand, there is research that makes me proud of my field, like forensic psychologists quantifying the size an object appears at a given distance, or findings in social psychology like the classic Milgram experiment. These studies produce evidence that can then be used to form theories. Sometimes they are wrong, but the faulty data is eventually weeded out and the theories are stronger for it.
I think that in religion, in science, in every field, we should try to move from evidence to conclusion rather than from conclusion to confirmation. It is the best way we have of knowing what is.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Ellul, the Month of the Storm God
Here we are in Ellul, the month when we try to convince God to judge us favorably for the coming year. I thought I’d post a few questions about this month I’ve never found decent answers for.
1) I’ll start with my oldest question. In first grade at the beginning of the year I learned that we blow shofer every day during Ellul, except the day before Rosh HaShanah. On Erev Rosh HaShanah we don’t blow the shofer in order to confuse the Satan. Apparently by blowing the shofer we have warned him that Rosh HaShanah is coming, and he has been preparing his case against us. When we stop for a day he thinks he has missed Rosh HaShanah and is confused, which ruins his prosecution of us.
How does this work year after year? Maybe the first time we did this the Satan would be confused, but the hundredth? The thousandth? This is the same being who we are always being warned is super-clever, who is able to lead us astray while making us think that we are being pious, then going to the Heavenly Court with perfect arguments against us. Is he really so dense that after three and a half millennia he hasn’t figured this out?
And once he does figure it out, omitting shofer on Erev Rosh HaShanah is a heads-up that tomorrow is the big day. Kind of counter-productive.
2) I understand that being judged can inspire one to try to better himself. And I can understand that being more careful than usual for a limited time (a month) is easier than doing the same thing indefinitely. But what do people think they gain by adopting extra-pious practices just for Elul? Do they think that God will be fooled into thinking they are better than they really are? Or is it supposed to work like a bribe? “Hey God, I’ll do a little something extra for You, and come Rosh HaShanah You do a little something extra for me.” *Wink*
3) Perhaps the least serious, but the one I find the most annoying, are the cute vorts that darshan the name of the month of Ellul. It is undisputed that we adopted the names we use for the months from the Babylonians. The Babylonians named their months after their gods. So anyone who makes a drasha from the name “Ellul” is finding deeper Jewish meaning in the name of a Babylonian god. I know that most of these vorts are just meant to be cute, but it smacks of historical revisionism to try to find hidden Jewish meaning in the name of a pagan god. Especially since so much of Judaism is designed to be specifically anti-pagan.
****
A quick Google search turns up a Babylonian god named Enlil, who was a weather god. Wikipedia says that it was “sometimes rendered in translations as Ellil in later Akkadian, Hittite, and Canaanite literature.” I don’t know if this is actually where we get Ellul, but seems to be a good possibility. So let’s all try to be better servants of God during this month of the God of Storms.
1) I’ll start with my oldest question. In first grade at the beginning of the year I learned that we blow shofer every day during Ellul, except the day before Rosh HaShanah. On Erev Rosh HaShanah we don’t blow the shofer in order to confuse the Satan. Apparently by blowing the shofer we have warned him that Rosh HaShanah is coming, and he has been preparing his case against us. When we stop for a day he thinks he has missed Rosh HaShanah and is confused, which ruins his prosecution of us.
How does this work year after year? Maybe the first time we did this the Satan would be confused, but the hundredth? The thousandth? This is the same being who we are always being warned is super-clever, who is able to lead us astray while making us think that we are being pious, then going to the Heavenly Court with perfect arguments against us. Is he really so dense that after three and a half millennia he hasn’t figured this out?
And once he does figure it out, omitting shofer on Erev Rosh HaShanah is a heads-up that tomorrow is the big day. Kind of counter-productive.
2) I understand that being judged can inspire one to try to better himself. And I can understand that being more careful than usual for a limited time (a month) is easier than doing the same thing indefinitely. But what do people think they gain by adopting extra-pious practices just for Elul? Do they think that God will be fooled into thinking they are better than they really are? Or is it supposed to work like a bribe? “Hey God, I’ll do a little something extra for You, and come Rosh HaShanah You do a little something extra for me.” *Wink*
3) Perhaps the least serious, but the one I find the most annoying, are the cute vorts that darshan the name of the month of Ellul. It is undisputed that we adopted the names we use for the months from the Babylonians. The Babylonians named their months after their gods. So anyone who makes a drasha from the name “Ellul” is finding deeper Jewish meaning in the name of a Babylonian god. I know that most of these vorts are just meant to be cute, but it smacks of historical revisionism to try to find hidden Jewish meaning in the name of a pagan god. Especially since so much of Judaism is designed to be specifically anti-pagan.
****
A quick Google search turns up a Babylonian god named Enlil, who was a weather god. Wikipedia says that it was “sometimes rendered in translations as Ellil in later Akkadian, Hittite, and Canaanite literature.” I don’t know if this is actually where we get Ellul, but seems to be a good possibility. So let’s all try to be better servants of God during this month of the God of Storms.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Fences of Tissue Paper
I had an interesting conversation this past Shabbos with one of my wife’s friends. She’s a fairly typical frum girl, went to a somewhat liberal bais-yaakov type school, and is well-educated (master’s degree). She came to visit us Shabbos afternoon, and I’m afraid that the conversation turned to religion. As the conversation moved from minhagim to halachah she realized that I think most of it is nonsense.
It was fascinating how she brought up the typical arguments in favor of Judaism, no doubt gleaned from high-school and seminary hashkafa classes, and how easily I was able to brush them aside with counter-arguments. It was like walking through a security fence made of tissue paper. Of course I didn’t change her mind, but to her credit she readily admitted that I had some good points.
The conversation brought home to me again that most frum Jews (and I imagine most other religious people too) never give much thought to why they believe what they do, and accept the “proofs” they are taught as children without ever evaluating these ideas as adults. Worse, this girl is probably somewhat smarter than average, yet her ignorance of history (even Jewish history), theology, and logic was appalling. Granted, theology isn’t a particular interest of hers, and most of us are ignorant of subjects which don’t interest us, so perhaps she can be excused. But the fact remains that she is going through life with an unexamined belief system, relying on flimsy arguments she was taught as a teenager.
Another interesting thing I noticed was that many of the points that came up I’ve seen around the blog-sphere or have discussed here. I realized that as I write, ideas that have been floating around inside my head for years coalesce into coherent points. It also (unfortunately?) makes them more prominent. For the most part, I’ve managed to compartmentalize. There’s what I believe (or don’t), and there’s what I do. As the ideas become more prominent, it becomes harder to perform the actions without thinking about them. Why bother? Well, that’s another post.
It was fascinating how she brought up the typical arguments in favor of Judaism, no doubt gleaned from high-school and seminary hashkafa classes, and how easily I was able to brush them aside with counter-arguments. It was like walking through a security fence made of tissue paper. Of course I didn’t change her mind, but to her credit she readily admitted that I had some good points.
The conversation brought home to me again that most frum Jews (and I imagine most other religious people too) never give much thought to why they believe what they do, and accept the “proofs” they are taught as children without ever evaluating these ideas as adults. Worse, this girl is probably somewhat smarter than average, yet her ignorance of history (even Jewish history), theology, and logic was appalling. Granted, theology isn’t a particular interest of hers, and most of us are ignorant of subjects which don’t interest us, so perhaps she can be excused. But the fact remains that she is going through life with an unexamined belief system, relying on flimsy arguments she was taught as a teenager.
Another interesting thing I noticed was that many of the points that came up I’ve seen around the blog-sphere or have discussed here. I realized that as I write, ideas that have been floating around inside my head for years coalesce into coherent points. It also (unfortunately?) makes them more prominent. For the most part, I’ve managed to compartmentalize. There’s what I believe (or don’t), and there’s what I do. As the ideas become more prominent, it becomes harder to perform the actions without thinking about them. Why bother? Well, that’s another post.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll
[I wrote this back in March and never got around to posting it.]
This morning on the news I saw a profile piece of a woman who was apparently a famous singer in the 60’s. The piece covered her life from her rise to stardom in her late teens; through an early marriage which she abandoned a few years later, rocky relationships with male singers, and drug addictions; and ended triumphantly with her rebuilt career and latest album release.
What struck me was that her biography matched so well with the yeshivish caricature of non-frum life as ruled by passions and inevitably hedonistic.
I wonder if modern celebrity culture could be reinforcing those stereotypes. In many science fiction stories characters worry about aliens judging humanity based on what we broadcast. Obviously, the aliens would get an extremely distorted view of human culture if their only exposure was radio and TV broadcasts. Yeshivish society, which goes out of its way to isolate itself from the rest of the world, knows of the world only through cultural osmosis. Big stories usually manage to leak through, perhaps from someone who listens to the news on the radio. The stories get passed around, and the result is a distorted version of the news show’s 10-second blurb caricaturing the latest celebrity scandal. These stories are repeated as proof that the outside world is morally corrupt.
I don’t have any evidence that this actually happens aside from some limited personal experience, but its an interesting thought.
This morning on the news I saw a profile piece of a woman who was apparently a famous singer in the 60’s. The piece covered her life from her rise to stardom in her late teens; through an early marriage which she abandoned a few years later, rocky relationships with male singers, and drug addictions; and ended triumphantly with her rebuilt career and latest album release.
What struck me was that her biography matched so well with the yeshivish caricature of non-frum life as ruled by passions and inevitably hedonistic.
I wonder if modern celebrity culture could be reinforcing those stereotypes. In many science fiction stories characters worry about aliens judging humanity based on what we broadcast. Obviously, the aliens would get an extremely distorted view of human culture if their only exposure was radio and TV broadcasts. Yeshivish society, which goes out of its way to isolate itself from the rest of the world, knows of the world only through cultural osmosis. Big stories usually manage to leak through, perhaps from someone who listens to the news on the radio. The stories get passed around, and the result is a distorted version of the news show’s 10-second blurb caricaturing the latest celebrity scandal. These stories are repeated as proof that the outside world is morally corrupt.
I don’t have any evidence that this actually happens aside from some limited personal experience, but its an interesting thought.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
For Whom do We Mourn
Today is Tisha B’Av. And I have to ask myself, why am I fasting? I don’t care that there isn’t a Bais Hamikdash, and I wouldn’t be particularly happy if the Bayis Shlishi was built. What’s more, the date itself is of dubious significance. The Bayis Rishon may have been destroyed on 9 Av, the Bayis Shaini probably wasn’t, and as for all those other things that are supposed to have happened on Tisha B’Av, most didn’t. Not to mention the many, many tragedies that undisputedly happened on other days. Why then fast today? Why mourn?
Unlike many religious rituals, I think it is relatively easy to find meaning in Tisha B’Av. True, most of the tragedies in Jewish history did not happen today. But once we accept that, and see Tisha B’Av as a day somewhat arbitrarily chosen to commemorate Jewish tragedies, it can have real meaning. Its like Americans celebrating Veterans Day on November eleventh, the day WWI ended. Most of the soldiers in America’s history didn’t fight in WWI, but this is the day somewhat arbitrarily chosen to honor them. Tisha B’Av, whatever its historical significance (or lack thereof) can similarly serve as a day to remember and mourn the people lost in Jewish tragedies.
We mourn today for them:
For the Jews who (may have) suffered in Mitzrayim.
For the Jews killed by the Pilishtim.
For the Jews killed by the Babylonians.
For the Jews killed by the Seleucids.
For the Jews killed by the Romans
For the Jews oppressed and expelled by the Christian governments of Europe.
For the Jews of the Rhine Valley killed during the Crusades.
For the Jews massacred at York.
For the Jews oppressed by the Caliphate.
For the Jews expelled from Spain and who suffered under the Inquisition.
For the Jews killed in the pogroms of Central and Eastern Europe.
For my grandmother, who grew up watching the Nazis march past her parent’s Berlin apartment singing Deutschland Uber Alles, and who’s best friend was killed in Auschwitz.
For my great-grandfather, who’s Iron Cross from WWI lies at the bottom of the North Atlantic, sent there with the rest of his worldly possessions by a German U-boat when it torpedoed the ship on which he was fleeing from the Gestapo.
For my wife’s grandmother, who still has blue numbers on her arm.
For the millions who were not as fortunate as my relatives.
For those persecuted and expelled from Muslim countries in the 1950s.
For those who continue to be persecuted today because they are Jews.
For them we mourn.
Unlike many religious rituals, I think it is relatively easy to find meaning in Tisha B’Av. True, most of the tragedies in Jewish history did not happen today. But once we accept that, and see Tisha B’Av as a day somewhat arbitrarily chosen to commemorate Jewish tragedies, it can have real meaning. Its like Americans celebrating Veterans Day on November eleventh, the day WWI ended. Most of the soldiers in America’s history didn’t fight in WWI, but this is the day somewhat arbitrarily chosen to honor them. Tisha B’Av, whatever its historical significance (or lack thereof) can similarly serve as a day to remember and mourn the people lost in Jewish tragedies.
We mourn today for them:
For the Jews who (may have) suffered in Mitzrayim.
For the Jews killed by the Pilishtim.
For the Jews killed by the Babylonians.
For the Jews killed by the Seleucids.
For the Jews killed by the Romans
For the Jews oppressed and expelled by the Christian governments of Europe.
For the Jews of the Rhine Valley killed during the Crusades.
For the Jews massacred at York.
For the Jews oppressed by the Caliphate.
For the Jews expelled from Spain and who suffered under the Inquisition.
For the Jews killed in the pogroms of Central and Eastern Europe.
For my grandmother, who grew up watching the Nazis march past her parent’s Berlin apartment singing Deutschland Uber Alles, and who’s best friend was killed in Auschwitz.
For my great-grandfather, who’s Iron Cross from WWI lies at the bottom of the North Atlantic, sent there with the rest of his worldly possessions by a German U-boat when it torpedoed the ship on which he was fleeing from the Gestapo.
For my wife’s grandmother, who still has blue numbers on her arm.
For the millions who were not as fortunate as my relatives.
For those persecuted and expelled from Muslim countries in the 1950s.
For those who continue to be persecuted today because they are Jews.
For them we mourn.
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