{"id":8147,"date":"2013-07-12T10:46:12","date_gmt":"2013-07-12T16:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=8147"},"modified":"2013-07-12T10:46:12","modified_gmt":"2013-07-12T16:46:12","slug":"a-heretical-view-of-tisha-bav","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/a-heretical-view-of-tisha-bav\/","title":{"rendered":"A heretical view of Tisha B’Av"},"content":{"rendered":"

By TED ROBERTS, the SCRIBBLER ON THE ROOF<\/em><\/p>\n

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The Almighty, who can see beyond the curve of the horizon of time, sees the temptations and snares set by the Amalakites, Jebusites, Amorites, and Philistines to entrap his people.\u00a0 He lectures Israel, his young one, incessantly.\u00a0 He seeks to impress them with his power.\u00a0 He splits oceans, he creates a constitution that we call the Chumash – he uses pillars of fire and smoke to guide them through this sandy deathtrap.\u00a0 He incessantly warns them to stay away from the idol worshiping heathens of the arid wilderness.\u00a0 He obsesses on loyalty because he is a G d of morality, while the gods of this new world have
\nno interest in crime and punishment, mercy and justice, mitzvot<\/em> and goodness.<\/p>\n

So what do our primitive ancestors do the first time Father Moses leaves them unattended?\u00a0 Exactly what the mighty G d of miracles forbade – they build, and worship with abandon, two golden bulls. Just like their pagan neighbors.\u00a0 Totally oblivious to miracles and sermons, they worship their inanimate idols.\u00a0 Gd must have done a
\ndivine double take as he glared down from his mountaintop.\u00a0 So much for loyalty.\u00a0 Well, good thing I sent Moshe with Torah, He\u2019s thinking.\u00a0 But maybe it should have been ten books.\u00a0 These people need rules.<\/p>\n

Sad to say, our misbehavior continued.\u00a0 We continued to barbecue beasts like our neighbors.\u00a0 Prayer?\u00a0 Unheard of.\u00a0 Beneficial deeds?\u00a0 Who cares.\u00a0 We continue to barbecue so our Gd may enjoy the fragrance.\u00a0 Our Creator\u2019s nightmare comes true.\u00a0 We worship randomly and indiscriminately.\u00a0 Dumb and dumber, we send scent and smoke\u00a0 heavenward just like the Joneses next door.\u00a0 Eventually, all this mimicry culminates in the Temple, which I\u2019ve been trying to get to for two pages.\u00a0 The Temple is a giant butcher shop – a racket for the Levites and a cloud on our history that almost smothers the real
\nJudaism.<\/p>\n

Obviously, we can\u2019t glory in its destruction since Jerusalem, too, suffered and there was terrible loss of life both in the Babylonian and Roman destructions.<\/p>\n

But as our sages say, the fall of a great Oak permits sunlight to nourish a thousand new seedlings on the forest floor.\u00a0 Destruction often clears the ground for\u00a0 follow-on cultural new growth.<\/p>\n

The leveling of the Temple took Judaism out of the hands of priests and Levites and put it in our hearts, put it in our home, gave a role to our women.\u00a0 And over hundreds of years we – along with other religions – dropped the sacrificial concept.<\/p>\n

High places, sacred groves, granite alters lost their magic.\u00a0 Deeds and morality overturned sacrifice.\u00a0 Who needed a temple?\u00a0 For this invisible G d – is and was a warmth in your heart.\u00a0 Indestructible, never to be destroyed.\u00a0 Let us worship Him instead of feeding him
\nlivestock.\u00a0 Our prophets chorus this from 700 BC on.<\/p>\n

And who knew – certainly history doesn\u2019t comment – but the watching world – seeing our Temple in flames but Judaism, still alive – learned the same lesson.\u00a0 So, maybe there\u2019s a bright side to Tisha B’Av.<\/p>\n

Sometimes in the study of history we need to reexamine events and institutions that have been acceptable for millennia of dull tradition – not logic, but tradition.\u00a0 Tisha B’Av reminds me that one of those icons is our Temple.\u00a0 From what we read in the Talmud and Chumash, it was the heartbeat of Judaism.\u00a0 Really?\u00a0 An abbatoir drenched in the blood of victims – a government employment office for Cohans and Levites.\u00a0 And a shameful identification with the customs of our heathen Canaanite neighbors – maybe not quite as bad.\u00a0 A lamb took the place of your newborn infant.\u00a0 And we disclaimed sexual activity to
\nspur crop and livestock propagation.\u00a0 Yes, we had the good taste to eliminate that.\u00a0 So, let\u2019s not be too hard on our forbears.\u00a0 But basically our Temple was little more than an elaboration of our neighbor\u2019s primitive habits of worship.\u00a0 Exactly what our invisible,
\nmorally-obsessed G d in the Chumash told us to avoid.<\/p>\n

It was based on the oldest superstition in the world – Jewish or non-Jewish.\u00a0 Before you sip your wine, spill a bit on the ground from whence it came.\u00a0 The gods of fire, earth, wind, and sun and fertility need a little graft – a small donation or they\u2019d never give us more
\nwine or rib steak or lamb chops or bread.\u00a0 The gods must be appeased. Furthermore, insisted the heathens, you needed children to help you work the land, so on occasion you\u2019d murder one of them as the ultimate sacrifice.\u00a0 Such were the beliefs of mankind 3,000 to 5,000 years ago.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t open a new business on Tisha B’Av – the 9th day of Av.\u00a0 Nothing good has ever happened on the 9th of Av.\u00a0 On 572 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar leveled Solomon\u2019s Temple – on 9 Av, 70 AD the Romans destroyed the second Temple.<\/p>\n

And for goodness sake don\u2019t get married on the 9th of Av, either, for obvious reasons.\u00a0 I joke.\u00a0 But it was a fateful date – a date drowned in Jewish bloodshed.\u00a0 For that we should mourn.<\/p>\n

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