Jews' Pain and the World's Gain

The weeks preceding the saddest of Jewish holy days, Tisha b’Av, have seen remarkable displays of anti-Jewish sentiment, from the deadly to the merely despicable. As Israel was slammed with long-range rockets from Hezbollah, the world’s “civilized” nations (with a few exceptions, including the United States) condemned the Jewish state for striking back in self-defense.

In Seattle, where I live, a depressed Muslim gunman opened fire on six women at the Jewish Federation office, killing one. Later the same weekend, Mel Gibson shot off his mouth in an insane tirade blaming all the world’s troubles on, yes, the Jews.

From a secular perspective, it is all extraordinarily hard to process, to understand what drives such diverse expressions of contempt. From a Jewish perspective, a biblical one, it’s not so hard at all. And in that thought lies hope and comfort both for Jews and for the world.

Tisha b’Av, beginning Wednesday night, Aug. 2, is set aside for contemplating the tragic aspect of Jewish history. Its observances include fasting, the chanting of the Bible’s book of Lamentations, and the singing of ancient dirges. We recall the destruction of the First and the Second Temple in Jerusalem, both of which occurred on this day, along with a string of other catastrophes including, for example, the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492.

But Tisha b’Av—Hebrew for the ninth of Av—also climaxes a period of three weeks, beginning on the 17th day of the Hebrew month of Tammuz and concluding on the 9th day of the month of Av. Traditionally, these three weeks, and especially the first nine days of Av, are viewed as an ominous time for the Jewish community. When bad things happen to the Jews, tradition tells us, they tend to happen in one or both of these periods, called simply the Three Weeks and the Nine Days.

If secular materialists are right—that the world has no supernatural aspect, that reality is composed simply of atoms bumping up against each other, that human beings exist because of an unguided process of natural selection operating on random genetic variation—then it’s impossible to understand historical patterns like the Three Weeks and the Nine Days. If history as a whole is unguided and therefore ultimately meaningless, there should be no unpropitious periods associated with sadness year after year.

Yet the disturbing events of the past three weeks, the past nine days, remind us that history indeed follows patterns fraught with meaning. Israel under attack, the Seattle shooter, Mad Mel of Malibu–these things remind us that history is meaningful after all. Someone set up these patterns, and the biblical view holds that it is God.

Where is the hope and comfort in that? It means that God is in control after all, and He has a plan. For Jewish suffering has a dual aspect. On one hand, it is almost always understood, whether by the Bible or the Talmud, as collective punishment for Jewish sins. The idea is disturbing, but unavoidable in Jewish literature. In this way God actually works through the deeds of anti-Semites. His chastisements are intended to remind us of the purpose He had in mind in making us Jews: to do His will and thereby represent Him in the world.

At the same time, the spectacle of Jewish suffering has an educational purpose for the rest of the world. Seeing God’s hand revealed so clearly, other people are confronted with the realization that God is at work among us. Thus, Jewish pain brings both Jews and non-Jews closer to God.

We can see evidence of this in the way many Christian churches radically revised their negative views of Jews and Judaism in light of the Holocaust.

Anti-Semitism itself is part of God’s plan, chastening Jews and enlightening others, an observation that makes sense of what otherwise would be senseless. The hatred of Jews, the obsession with this tiny group of people, which threads through history is otherwise inexplicable.

Continued on page 2: There were anti-Jewish pogroms before Christianity spread... »