Parshas Pinchas (5778)
Josephus, in his history of the Jewish People and the destruction of the Second Temple, writes the following chilling account:
While the Temple was on fire, everything was plundered that came to hand, and ten thousand of those that were caught were slain; no pity was shown for age, but children, old men, secular and priests were all slain in the same manner. The flames could be seen from a great distance and made an echo, together with the groans of those that were slain; and because Jerusalem was high, and the works at the temple were very great, one would have thought the whole city had been on fire. Nor can one imagine anything more terrible than this noise; for there was at once a shout of the Roman legions, who were marching all together, and screaming of the partisans, who were now surrounded with fire and sword. The remaining populace was beaten back against the enemy, and under a great outcry with sad moans at the calamity they were under. The masses in the City joined in this outcry with those that were upon the hill. Yet more terrible than the din were the sights that met the eye. The Temple Mount, enveloped in flames from top to bottom, appeared to be boiling up from its very roots; yet the sea of flame was nothing to the ocean of blood. Nowhere could the ground be seen between the corpses, and the soldiers climbed over heaps of bodies as they chased the fugitives .... When Titus entered he was astounded by the strength of the city, and especially by the towers that the party chiefs in their mad folly had abandoned. All the prisoners taken from beginning to end of the war totaled 97,000. Those who perished in the long siege: 1,100,000.
It almost sounds like a depiction of the Nazis' destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto less than seventy-five years ago. Only this was the Temple in Jerusalem that the Romans burnt to the ground in the year 70 CE, killing millions of our people in the process.
The great tragedy that was the Holocaust and the memory of the six million pure souls who were martyred by the Nazis remain fresh in the collective conscience of our people. Yet the terrible death and destruction that was brought upon our people with the Roman conquest of Jerusalem and the burning of the Holy Temple, while known to some who have studied Jewish history, is, to a large extent, forgotten.
True, there are commemorative fast days that have been loyally kept by Jews throughout the ages to mourn those horrible losses. There is the fast of the Seventeenth of Tammuz (this year falling out on July 1st) which commemorates the day when the Roman legions first breached the Holy City of Jerusalem, leading up to the destruction of the Holy Temple and the killing or exile of all the Jews just three weeks later on Tishah B'Av, a day that has now become a fast day for our people (this year falling out on July 22nd). This period has come to be called "The Three Weeks†and is the saddest time of year for our people.
Yet, even with all the fasting and special prayers that some Jews recite in the synagogue on these days, one gets the feeling that, unlike the recent Holocaust, we don't really appreciate just what it is that we are indeed mourning during this period.
THE LITTLE BOY WHO NEVER KNEW HIS FATHER
The obvious reason for this discrepancy is, of course, the time factor. While we can still mourn for a national calamity that took place only 75 years ago, it is quite a different story when we’re talking about a tragedy that befell our people almost 2000 years ago! Yet, I believe that there is another reason, one which talks to the essence of what it is that we mourn on these fast days.
You see, those who were actually in the Holocaust and all the rest of us who were born after the war was over, have two entirely different perspectives on the tragedy. Those who had been living in Europe before World War II remember the Jewish life that once thrived in Poland, Hungary, Russia, Germany and Lithuania. They can recall all the magnificent synagogues that once dotted the European landscape. There was a rich history that was shared by all the Jews in Europe, who, in spite of all the persecution from their host countries, had managed to thrive and build centuries upon centuries of a Jewish heritage to be truly proud of. When these Jews mourn the tragedy of the Holocaust, they mourn the loss of all that they had seen experienced firsthand – a thousand years of thriving Jewish life in Europe all snuffed out in a few short years in the crematoria at Auschwitz.
The rest of us who were born later, can only mourn the tremendous loss of so many Jewish people and their whole communities, without really knowing or appreciating just what it was that we lost.
The same is true regarding the destruction of the Second Temple and the murder and exile of the Jewish population in the Holy Land by the Romans in the year 70 CE – a national calamity over which our people have mourned for the past 1948 years. Those Jews who had actually experienced the glory that was the Temple - the open manifestation of G-d's presence in this world - could mourn the loss of that special connection with the Divine. They who had visited the Temple in Jerusalem on Jewish holidays and had witnessed the Priestly service and the beautiful songs of the Levites, together as one with all the Jewish people, could cry in earnest after the Romans took all that away. And they tried to convey all that the Temple stood for to their children and grandchildren, so that they, too, could see the destruction of the Temple for what it truly was.
Yet, as the generations get further and further away from that terrible time, we have lost an appreciation for that special connection to G-d which we once had in the Temple, and can only mourn the loss in a superficial way, without really knowing what we have truly lost.
A great rabbi once compared all of us today to a little boy whose father had died. His older siblings were sitting shivah (lit. “sevenâ€, the traditional seven-day mourning period following the funeral) and were being consoled by their friends and neighbors. While the crowd was listening to the eldest child recalling how special his father had been, all of a sudden, the little boy ran into the room, chasing after a little ball. When everyone in the room saw this, they all burst out crying. If he could be playing ball and having fun at such a serious time, then it is obvious that, unlike his older siblings who knew their father, this little boy never really knew him at all. How tragic that is!
When it comes to an understanding of what exactly it is that we lost over 1900 years ago, and what it is that we mourn during the three-week period between the Seventeenth of Tammuz and Tishah B'Av, we are all like that little boy, not taking the mourning too seriously, for we don’t appreciate what our older siblings of past generations were even crying about. And that, too, is tragic.
Imagine living as a Jew in North America and knowing that in Israel there is a Temple where you can go and actually feel G-d's presence! A place where you can take your children and show them G-d - not as an abstract concept that you pray to but can never quite know if He's listening - but as a very real and palpable Presence that is felt as soon as you enter the Courtyard! Imagine that!
If the modern-day State of Israel has the ability to unite all of us in the Diaspora behind it, making us proud to be a part of the Jewish people who have returned to their homeland after 2000 years of exile, imagine what kind of unity and specialness we would feel if we could all point to the Temple in Jerusalem and say, "Look, there is our Temple, our special place where we can connect with the Al-mighty". Pretty hard to imagine, eh? But there once was such a special place, and it was destroyed by the Romans so many years ago.
Maybe the more we learn about the central place that Jerusalem and the Temple holds for all of us as Jews, the more we can appreciate why The Three Weeks are indeed the saddest days in the Jewish calendar. I would recommend the following link which contains interesting essays that give us a glimpse of what Jerusalem and The Temple meant to our people, and what we hope to once again merit with coming of the Messiah, may it be soon.
http://www.aish.com/holidays/tisha_bav_and_the_3_weeks/default.asp
http://www.torchweb.org/torah_detail.php?id=521