Since moving to Hamilton, I’ve become a big fan of the Ontario Storm Watch Facebook page. Their updates have gotten me through winter snow, summer thunderstorms, and alerted me to the tornado warning near Shai’s summer camp. However, I certainly wasn’t expecting the alert I saw earlier this week, warning of a tsunami watch in British Columbia, in the aftermath of the 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Russia. As news rolled in from far-off places – Japan, Hawaii, loved ones in southern California, it drove home just how interconnected our world is. A geologic event half a world away sent people running for higher, inland ground. We learned this lesson all too well during Covid, when the virus did not need to carry a passport to cross international borders and put down roots.
This Saturday night into Sunday, Jews around the world will commemorate Tisha B’Av, the 9th of Av. According to Jewish tradition, Tisha B’Av marks the day on the Jewish calendar when both the 1st and 2nd Temples in Jerusalem were destroyed, in 586 BCE and 70 CE. The Sages connected many other tragedies that befell the Jewish people throughout history to this date, and as an observance, it became a stand-in for all of the pain, suffering, and trauma we have had to endure over the centuries.
One of the ways we mark Tisha B’Av is with the ritual reading of the book of Lamentations, which recounts the destruction of Jerusalem and the First Temple, in the form of a poetic lament. Its opening words are “אֵיכָה יָשְׁבָה בָדָד הָעִיר – eicha yash’va vadad ha’ir.” Alas! Lonely sits the city. (Lamentations 1:1) Rabbi Zvi Hirschfield lifts up the loneliness in this verse – the core of the suffering was the loneliness and disconnection. In Lamentations, that disconnection was found especially in the breaking of the relationship between the people Israel and God. Tisha B’Av, in many ways, is a way to remember and tell a very particular Jewish story. It is a story about our pain, our suffering, our trauma – and we were alone. We were disconnected.
When we continue to view Jewish history through the lens of Tisha B’Av, we perpetually cast ourselves in this role of being alone, isolated, and disconnected in our pain. I wonder if this narrative holds us back from telling a different story – not one that denies or minimizes Jewish pain throughout history and today, but one that acknowledges it, validates it – and invites us to move beyond the isolation, to recognise the ways in which we are connected to our entire human family. How can we learn from our histories – and build a different reality for our future?
When we see suffering in our towns, our cities, and our world, I hope our story of Tisha B’Av compels us to see the suffering of other human beings and know that that suffering impacts us. That we are not disconnected – that we are all part of the same web of humanity.
