Making Painful Connections

This year the first day of August coincides with the 12th. day of Av in the Hebrew calendar. The month of Av includes a very important date, Tishah BeAv - the 9th. of Av - when Jews commemorate the destruction of the first Temple by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E. On Tishah BeAv it is traditional to fast as a sign of mourning, and to read Megillat Eichah - the Book of Lamentations - which records the disintegration of Jerusalem in searing detail.

Tishah BeAv is a very particular day - particular because it commemorates a particular event; particular because it has come to be regarded as a day when Jews remember all our particular experiences of churban - destruction - throughout our history. Interestingly, since the early days of Progressive Judaism, Tishah BeAv has not been commemorated by most progressive communities. This is largely because, although we acknowledge the destruction of both Temples as terrible calamities in the lives of our ancestors, there is no wish to re-build the Temple and return to the system of sacrificial worship. However, in recent years some progressive Jews have discovered another dimension to Tishah BeAv which transforms the significance of the day and even impels us to observe it.

In the early days of August, there are two dates which changed the world forever fifty-six years ago: On the 6th, a nuclear bomb destroyed the Japanese city of Hiroshima; three days later, on the 9th., another nuclear bomb destroyed another Japanese city, Nagasaki. Famous for putting an end to 'the war in the East', these bombs marked a new era in global warfare: After August 1946, it became possible not only to kill millions of people in a single moment, but to do so at a distance and with minimal risk to the perpetrator. And then, slowly, the consequences of nuclear 'fall-out' - radiation - became evident. For all these reasons, although the victims were the particular inhabitants of two particular places, the dropping of those bombs changed the whole world forever.

Tishah BeAv often falls during the first week of August, and sometimes it coincides exactly with one of the anniversaries. In 1995, it fell on a Shabbat, on August 5th, which meant that the day of mourning was postponed to Sunday - to the 6th, the 50th. Anniversary of Hiroshima. Significantly, this coincidence had been noted by some sections of the Jewish community in advance. So, on 6th. August 1995, under the auspices of ULPS/RSGB Social Action, a joint Hiroshima/Tishah BeAv event took place in Tavistock Square in London. The event included a special Tishah BeAv service which I devised and led, encompassing both the particular and the universal dimensions of the day.

So, what do we make of this coincidence? It seems that an 'accident of history' (?) has re-configured two terrible particular calamities over two and a half thousand years apart, and taught us a crucial lesson about the way in which every particular experience of murderous destruction is also of universal significance. Which suggests that it is possible to 'universalise' Tishah BeAv without losing its particular meaning. And that is why many progressive Jews - including me - feel that there are good progressive Jewish reasons for observing Tishah BeAv as a day when we not only remember and acknowledge both our own experience of destruction and the experience of other peoples - past and present - but also pledge ourselves to work for peace throughout the world. After all, until we achieve that goal, the list of 'destructions' we mark will just get longer and longer....