A few hours before Tisha b\u2019Av began I was reflecting that the violence in the Middle East shows absolutely no signs of abating. Instead, it\u2019s been getting worse\u2013with Hezbollah shooting more than 200 rockets into Israel and Israel vowing to push deeper into Lebanon with ground troops. Some years I\u2019ve had to move myself emotionally and spiritually into an appropriate place to observe Tisha b\u2019Av and the death and destruction it commemorates; this year, sadly, I couldn\u2019t find myself anywhere else.<\/p>\n
I wrote last week that the disasters commemorated by Tisha b\u2019Av have typically served as a source of reflection and introspection for the Jewish people. Unsurprisingly, both sides are firmly engaged in pointing fingers at the other rather than looking into themselves.<\/p>\n
This is very easy to do\u2013as someone who loves Israel, I naturally am horrified at the cross-border kidnapping of Israeli soldiers and constant barrage of missiles into Israel and can easily justify Israel\u2019s taking action to defend its borders and its citizens. After all, if Canada were pledged to America’s destruction and were lobbing missiles into Maine, we\u2019d certainly do something about it. The sad part is that two can play this game\u2013or three, or six, or ten. I don\u2019t for a minute accept Hezbollah\u2019s arguments, yet this doesn\u2019t change the fact that there are as many points of view to justify whatever position you like as there are positions, and each side feels the other is the aggressor. It\u2019s so much easier to blame your problems on others.<\/p>\n
In the middle of the book of Lamentations, which is chanted on Tisha b\u2019Av, the poet\u2019s lament pauses for an eyewitness account of the destruction of Jerusalem: \u201cI am the man who has seen affliction because of the rod of God\u2019s wrath.\u201d (3:1) The entire third chapter is presented in the first person as the anguish and disbelief of a survivor of the devastation that accompanied the destruction of the Temple. It stands in stark contrast to the rest of the book, and in many congregations is chanted to its own distinctive melody.<\/p>\n
In including this section, I believe the author of Lamentations is trying to convey the importance of recognizing the human dimension of disaster. We may try to understand the reasons or purposes that underlie the devastation\u2013as the author of Lamentations certainly does\u2013but any attempt to explain that ignores the human suffering at the core of experience is ultimately hollow.<\/p>\n
As we fumble for our justifications and counter-justifications for the violence in the Middle East, let\u2019s be sure not to get so caught up in our arguments and our ideologies that we miss the human suffering taking place before our eyes on both sides of the border.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A few hours before Tisha b\u2019Av began I was reflecting that the violence in the Middle East shows absolutely no signs of abating. Instead, it\u2019s been getting worse\u2013with Hezbollah shooting more than 200 rockets into Israel and Israel vowing to push deeper into Lebanon with ground troops. Some years I\u2019ve had to move myself emotionally…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n