A Churban in Our Time

As the three weeks before Tisha B’Av approach, I often find myself reimagining what the ancient Israelites’ lives must have been like all those centuries ago as they anticipated the sadness, confusion, and dire consequences of the Temple’s impending destruction.  I often ask, “Did the Jews of Jerusalem know how their lives would change?” This year, I find myself asking other questions, such as, “Did the Diaspora Jews, those who lived in Babylonia or Egypt, know how tumultuous their lives were about to become?” This question is a poignant one for our time, and the potential answers to it drag up some frightening realizations for 5772 and into the future.

The Churban Bayis Sheini (destruction of the Second Temple) by the Romans in 70 CE spelled the end of sacrifices, High priests, and much of ritualized Judaism. From the Churban Bayis Rishon (destruction of the First Temple) in 586 BCE, Jewish communities outside of Jerusalem had begun building synagogues and replacing korbanot (sacrifices) with tefilot (prayers); ancient Judaism was moving from a centralized power structure focused on kings and kohanim (priests) to localized, community-based leadership. The destruction of the Second Temple solidified this transition from ancient, Biblical Judaism to more modern, communal Judaism. Trying to imagine the mindsets of those first few generations of Jerusalem-based Jews after the Churban is truly challenging. How did they reset their entire religious paradigms? How did they navigate the transition from the physical slaughter of sacrificial animals to the more-cerebral meditative prayer? Were they able to adapt, or did their spirituality and faith suffer because of what they witnessed? In short, did they understand the implications? Furthermore, did the community in galus (the Diaspora communities) understand the “nail in the coffin” finality of the Churban Sheini?  

A few weekends ago, my son-in-law was reading a recent issue of The Economist and on the cover was a sinking ship labeled “The World Economy.” Much of the issue dealt with the European debt crisis and global economic recession in which we now find ourselves enmeshed. Glancing at this magazine cover jolted me back to Jerusalem, Babylonia, and Egypt in 70 CE. Our community is blessed because the economic recession that has been plaguing the world has only barely brushed us; yes, some are out of work or underemployed and some are struggling with monthly expenses, but the ornate mansions popping up on street corners across the Five Towns indicate that many are still doing just fine. Many are still able to afford yeshiva educations for their children; many can still make lavish bar mitzvahs and weddings for their children; many can still take vacations to the Holy Land. And it makes me wonder if the Jews of Jerusalem continued to build homes around the Beit Ha’Mikdash even as the Roman siege closed in. Did the Jewish communities in Egypt and Babylonia continue to add new wings to their synagogues, did they continue to sing wedding songs and design elaborate candelabras and Kiddush cups even as the Temple in Jerusalem burned to the ground? These questions challenge me as Tisha B’Av nears.

 The struggling world economy represents a time of transition for us like the Churban represented for the ancient Jewish communities at the turn of the First Century. As our American economy limps along and we go on living as if nothing is wrong, the “temples” of modern banking and the global financial system are under siege. It is vital that we in the Diaspora begin thinking about how we will transition out of this destruction while still maintaining our priorities—to educate our children in Jewish values and to build Jewish communities dedicated to Torah and mitzvoth; we must economize on our ability to take perspective at a “safe distance,” and we cannot play the fiddle while the buildings burn. We are required always to remember the Churbanot of the Batay Ha’Mikdash: we stomp on a glass under the chuppah, we sing “Im Eshkachekh,” and we put bits of matzah on our doorposts. However, if we simply go through the motions of this remembrance without reflecting on how periods of destruction and loss are also periods of transition and innovation, then we have learned little in the almost 2,000 years since our last Churban. May this year’s Tisha B’Av be, for each of us, a moment to recognize that life and Jewish practice go on even when everything we have known to be true begins to disappear.

Dr. Jeffrey Ratz has been a member of a chevra kadisha in various cities for over 30 years. He maintains a chiropractic practice in Brooklyn, NY. He lives with his wife, Pearl, in Woodmere, NY where they are members of Young Israel of Woodmere; together they have four children, each of whom is actively involved in his or her Jewish community from New York, to Maryland, to Jerusalem, Israel