DATELINE: ISRAEL in Controversy, July 24, 2023, as Tisha B'Av approaches. See Sefaria sources and sheets on Sinat Chinam in Talmud and in tradition. Why Jews lost Zion and Peoplehood out of baseless hatred.
Alter, Robert. The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary: Three-Volume Set, W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.
(copyrighted works; Formatting, editing and emphasis added)
[MS: How can Eicha help us today: This is the key sentence in Alter's Introduction to Eicha: "Lamentations, like most good literature, is a strong response to the historical circumstances for which it was framed while at the same time speaking to analogous situations in other times and places."
In other words, Tisha B'Av and reading Eicha create a profound moment to reflect and to be very sure that Sinat Hinam, baseless hatred, is not motivating our political and religious expressions. In this way our Jewish texts may save Jewish Peoplehood.
Rabbi Sacks has Seven Principles for Maintaining Jewish Peoplehood, like Keep Talking, that is profound. If you like, skip to the end below and just watch him speak with love and concern.]
Alter's Introduction to Lamentations
pp. 6237-6279
"Cannibalism under the duress of starvation in time of siege is a recurrent theme in prophecies of doom, but here that ghastly act is twice given a horrifying immediacy: “Should women eat their fruit, / the dandled babes?” The speaker in these laments, who is sometimes a horror-stricken observer and sometimes the collective voice of the people, conveys his sense of distress through an anguished physicality: “He wasted my flesh and my skin, / He shattered my bones.” Or again, “He made my teeth crunch down on gravel, / crushed me in the dust.” Repeatedly, the poet conveys arresting images of a once glorious nation reduced to utter wretchedness, scarcely alive: “Their mien was darker than black, / they are not recognized in the streets. / Their skin is shriveled on their bones, / become as dry as wood.”
If sometimes the poems look like the deployment of the familiar formulas of the Hebrew poetry of disaster, lines such as the ones just quoted express a sense of a poet who has seen with his own eyes all the horrors of the siege and the consequent destruction of Jerusalem. The figures of the blind in the streets of the city, smeared with blood from the corpses they stumble over at every step, whether based in actual observation or, more probably, poetic invention, are another kind of vivid vehicle for representing the terrible extent of the slaughter as the city ....
Yet, as the poems drive inexorably from the first letter of the alphabet to the last, they accumulate many powerful images of devastation. Representing God as an implacable enemy drawing His bow against Israel sounds more like an anticipation of Job than a reminiscence of the Prophets. The notion of the surrounding peoples called to Jerusalem like festival pilgrims to destroy rather than to celebrate, to raise in the sacred precincts a fierce cry instead of the festive songs, is a bitter expression of the pain of the loss of the Temple, even without images of crashing roofs and flaming walls.
Against this panorama of horror, the elegist, not limiting himself to keening over the destruction, repeatedly affirms his faith in a just God Who has punished Israel for its transgressions but Who in the end will redeem it and exact retribution from its enemies for their cruel excesses.
Lamentations, like most good literature, is a strong response to the historical circumstances for which it was framed while at the same time speaking to analogous situations in other times and places. Its catalogue of horrors is something that, alas, we continue to see reenacted in various guises across the globe. Its faith in the prospect of a restored order of justice is a sustaining belief that humankind may always need in the face of massive devastation and the traumatic displacement of exile.
One readily understands why it is that Jewish tradition fixed the recitation of these five laments as an annual ritual, not merely in commemoration of the destruction of the First Temple or the Second but also as a way of fathoming the ghastly recurrent violence that has darkened two millennia of history. "
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Robert Gordis is one of the best commentators on Israel and Jewish Peoplehood. Author of many books, I consider Gordis indispensable reading. Here are recent emails from his Inside Israel series, about Israeli opinions and feelings.
Robert Gordis on causeless hatred:
*Gordis email on approaching civil war:https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=rm&ogbl#search/gordis/FMfcgzGtwCwndjQRJTVdLsFmwrtPvvCP
*Gordis email July 24, 2023 and video; the video link is in the email:
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=rm&ogbl#inbox/FMfcgzGtwMZxJXXzXswZFvvmGVNMLrXq
https://open.substack.com/pub/danielgordis/p/two-pilots-both-opposed-to-the-reform?r=5k2xd&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Gordis Video July 23, 2023 : Ofira and Berkovich (Channel 12) is one of Israel’s most discussed, and at times, among the more controversial because of its style, TV programs. It’s been running since 2017, and is a favorite among many Israeli viewers.
Eyal Berkovich is a former soccer player, considered to be one of the greatest soccer plays in Israel’s history. As a soccer player, his fiery temper and his “in your face” style often led to run-ins with coaches, among others, but on this show, he has found his voice.
Ofira Asayag was born on the first day of the Yom Kippur War, the fourth of six children of parents who came to Israel on Aliyah from Morocco. She grew up in a religious home. It’s worth paying attention to that … a religious, Moroccan person—interesting, given what so many people are saying about the tear in Israel’s soul being between Ashkenazim and Mizrahim (it’s not).
The clip above went a bit viral on Israeli social media a few days ago, and in order to provide glimpses into what is transpiring in Israel that the mainstream press cannot convey, we have added subtitles to it and are sharing it with you. The show is classically Israeli in that everyone interrupts everyone, and the views are expressed with passion.
Take note (if you’re a paid subscriber and are watching the full 13 minute video) at about 11:40, when Ofira asks Eran Schwartz, the pilot who is refusing to serve, why he’s crying. Schwartz replies that he’s not, even though his voice was cracking—Israeli top guns don’t cry, it would seem. But they have deep and pained hearts, and what Eran goes on to say about his grandfather—who was here for the founding of the state—is deeply moving … you won’t forget that moment for a long time."
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Rabbi Lord Sacks:
Saving Jewish Peoplehood - What to do about Baseless hatred, Sinat Hinam?
https://www.rabbisacks.org/videos/seven-principles-for-maintaining-jewish-peoplehood/
The video is compelling,brilliant and so very compassionate.