What is tisha b'av really? discussion

Frumdoc

Sun, Jul 26 2015, 6:31 pm

Some / many consider that Tisha Bav is the single day on which all jewish tragedy, including shoah, crusades, pogroms, expulsions and obviously and most importantly, both churban bayis rishon and sheni.

This is in response to halachic consideration and decisions not to commemorate on yom hashoah (Israeli or international or your own national chosen secular date), and I have noticed it is more common in more RW communities who don't acknowledge yom hashoah. I went to a shiur on this very topic around the time of international holocaust memorial day, when the speaker discussed st length when the proper time for us to mourn the events of the shoah was, conclusion: tisha b'av.

So for such communities, this is exactly the day when one commemorates the shoah, and given that there is an enormous and easily accessible wealth of information on the shoah, it is unsurprising that this can become a focus. But it is clear to anyone who goes to shul and hears aicha and some kinot, (which span the history of jewish tragedy) that although there may be lots of shoah films and speakers, the essence of the day, where it starts, is the churban and breaking up of the nation.

zaq

Sun, Jul 26 2015, 6:46 pm

Totally disagree with the claim that mourning the Shoah is taking away from the meaning of Tisha B'av. Would you say the same thing about mourning the expulsion from Spain? How about the Crusades? No? Why not? They also happened long after the Churban. That the Shoah happened relatively recently, historically speaking, and that there are people still alive who went through it, does not make it any less relevant. There are kinnot we say on Tisha B'Av that were written about the Crusades, the expulsion from Spain, and yes, about the Holocaust, though the latter may not appear in the popular collections of Kinnot and may be recited only by communities of survivors and their offspring.

Don't people realize that all the churbans of the past 2000 years were made possible by Churban haBayit? And that the destruction of the two Temples was in turn made possible by the original act of betrayal on the part of the spies and faithlessness on the part of the nation? It's all connected, folks. One does not take away from the other. And if you ask me, trying to separate the Holocaust from the mourning of Tisha b'Av is disrespecting, if not outright discounting, six million korbanot.

Frumdoc

Sun, Jul 26 2015, 6:51 pm

zaq wrote:

Thanks for saying what I was thinking in a more coherent fashion. I have post fasting mushy brain syndrome.

miami85

Sun, Jul 26 2015, 8:23 pm

Mrs Bissli wrote:

This has been my pet peeves for some years, but I really do not appreciate how some shuls/organisations 'hijack' Tisha b'Av into a second Yom haShoa. Someone is showing Schindlers List this afternoon, and another kehilla had a survivor share his experience.

I have a theory about it--Holocaust is the most recent collective suffering we had, and especially there are increasing urgency as the number of survivors are dwindling with age.
For some people, it could be the Jewish suffering under the Holocaust is an emotional proxy to what it must have been to personally experience Churban Beit Mikdash.

But I personally feel this misses the point. Judaism existed fully before Holocaust whereas Tisha b'Av and succeeding diaspora defined what we practice as Judaism today. I don't have to use Holocaust as some kind of 'visual aid'--it is inappropriate and cheapen the whole Shoa.

I think it's actually the other day around, the way I learned is that Tisha B'av IS supposed to be the real "yom hashoa" rather than create a second day of mourning. Therefore we focus on all the y'mei shoa--the Churban Bayis, the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Holocaust, The pogroms of Europe, they all happened for the same reason= Galus. Yes the churban of Europe (how it's referred to in sefarim) is our most tangible way of understanding Tisha B'Av. One Tisha B'Av time read a tisha b'av book that described the real destruction--and it was HARD to read. It was like reading a holocaust book--but worse, the kinnus the way they describe the captivity, torture and other destruction--eek! It was describing how there RIVERS of blood--We can't even understand what happened, except by reading holocaust stories. It's not cheapening the holocaust it is an appropriate thing to do to mourn---I don't know about watching Schindler's List--I've never seen it to know if its "kosher" but, not "cheapening" the event at all. We fast because of the chazal say that if the beis Hamikdash was rebuilt in our time it's as if we caused its destruction--and it hasn't happened yet. There are times we do mitzvos to repent and there are times that we fast to repent. Many people get joy from eating food, so this a day anti-joy, so we try to do everything that is anti-joy-- so no food. Reading that Tisha B'av made me lose my appetite, but HaShem knows that we can't live like that so we are allowed to eat, but those videos from the Chofetz Chaim Heritage foundation are supposed to remind us of other things we can do year-round instead of fasting so that hopefully next year we won't have to fast.

etky

Mon, Jul 27 2015, 2:56 am

zaq wrote:

Obviously there is a connection harking back to chet hameraglim, as Chazal sought to teach us. I still believe however that the mourning over all other calamities should be ancillary to the mourning over the destruction of the Temples on Tisha B'Av and not the main focus.
Interestingly, in Israel we don't feel the focus on the Shoah at all. Some communities - but certainly not all by any stretch- say among others, the beautiful kinah composed by R' Haim Sabato about the Shoah, but that is about the extent of it, at least on the communal level. The overwhelming main focus in Israel- at least in non-haredi communities that observe Yom Hashoah in May (aside from Yom Hakadish Haclali on Asarah Betevet)- is squarely on the destructions and resulting exile and on how we must integrate the lessons that we learn from these events regarding ahavat chinam, achdut and fidelity to Hashem into our modern day society. Secular society emphasizes the historical aspect of Tisha B"av but also increasingly (and encouragingly) the aspects of achdut too.
IMO there are no lessons to be learned from the Shoah (and the preceding horrors of the galut). They are the disasterous results of our sins, recounted in Eichah, that led to the destructions but the precise reasons for it and its monstrous scale remain (and should remain) obscure. It is incumbent on us to reflect particularly on the destructions and the nevu-ot puranut leading up to this day so that we may mend our ways as the prophets exhorted us to do. There is an educational, edifying aspect to Tisha B"av. Emphasizing the Shoah does not yield the same type of national introspection and probing that this day seems to dictate and strives to evoke.