At its core, this question is rooted in our social, moral, spiritual, and national resilience, not in matters of security and politics.
During a visit to a Hashomer Hatzair summer camp in 1934, during the Hebrew month of Av 5694, Berl Katznelson, one of the leaders of the Jewish community in Palestine, witnessed the camp counselors conducting a routine hike on Tisha B’Av. Grieving and lamenting the cultural breakdown of his generation, Katznelson wrote as follows, in his essay, “Destruction and Uprooting.”
“... I will not forget, I cannot forget the Day of Destruction, the most terrible day of all, the day of our destiny... I see the neglect of Tisha B’Av in our community as a sign of sailing without a steering wheel towards a central idea. We claim to educate the youth for a pioneering life, for a life of fulfillment... How will we achieve this? Can this seed really grow on a barren rock, on an asphalt floor?! Even an idea needs soft soil in which to sink its roots. A new and creative generation does not throw the legacy of generations into the garbage can... It revives an ancient tradition that has the power to nourish the soul of the new generation.”
The “official” reason for the destruction of Jerusalem, as written in the pages of history, lies in its military-political defeat. However, in Jewish literature, art, and faith, it is forever remembered as a destruction with a spiritual foundation; a destruction rooted in the moral corruption of the leaders of the generation, in the depletion of spirituality, in a culture of lies, flattery, and alienation from our own culture.THIS YEAR’S Tisha B’Av, more than ever, is a jolting reminder that the most terrible destruction, then as now, is rooted in the moral decay of our spirit.
Today, almost a year after the tragedy of Simchat Torah, we must, more than ever, be aware of the weight of our responsibility, mission, and task – to renew the covenant of the Hebrew and Jewish spirit in the light of the values of the Declaration of Independence – and be inspired by the moderate Judaism of Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai, Henrietta Szold, Hillel the Elder, Hannah Senesh, Ema Shalom, Regina Jonas, Hayim Nachman Bialik, Leah Goldberg, of Bruria and Rachel, and of many other inspirational men and women.
The government decrees that have been approved and awaiting approval in the Knesset, the “Rabbis Law,” the “Enlistment Law,” the glaring sectoral mega-budgets, and more are a crying shame and a stain on the Judaism of our time and especially on the Zionist movement.
At the hands of those who alienate themselves from the spirit of the State of Israel, we have deserted the most important thing – the development of an Israeli-Jewish democratic consciousness among Israeli students in the public education system.
Anyone who studies the history of Israel – the division of the kingdom after Solomon initiated the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah; the destruction of the Hasmonean state after less than 80 years of political independence; the processes that led to the destruction of the Second Temple – cannot but be very disturbed in light of similar processes that the people of Israel are going through for the fourth time in our history; processes that led to the disaster of October 7, and threaten to devastate the spirit of our people in these days.
Our only consolation is that the people of Israel have known, after every crisis and destruction, to find the strength to create their next incarnation as a people and a culture. This was the case after the destruction of the Second Temple, from which the new Judaism of Yavne and its sages was born; it was the case after the expulsion from Spain when the great spiritual explosion of the Kabbalistic sages arrived in Safed; and this was the case in our times, after the Holocaust, with the miracle of the establishment of the State of Israel as a Jewish-democratic state.
The act of tikkun (correction) to which we are called upon is to re-appropriate Judaism; to educate our children in the spirit of the values of the Declaration of Independence; to work for the separation of religion and state and the separation of God from politics; and to engage in the education of students and scholars in the framework of state education, so that they will be an engaged spiritual and cultural elite; one that will renew the spirit of the people and ask questions that give meaning to Jewish democratic life in the State of Israel.
THEN, WE can take comfort in the words of the prophet Isaiah: “Comfort, comfort my people” (Isaiah 40:1) on the Shabbat following Tisha B’Av, words that remind us of our duty to find sparks of light, comfort, and hope in the remarkable civic activism of the people of Israel. These are the sparks that will give us the strength to engage in serious and profound dialogue on issues of liberal Jewish identity, and to raise our heads and voices in protest against injustice and inequality.
With an educational system adhering to the State Education Law and the values of the Declaration of Independence, we must be committed to remembering that our role is to raise a generation and leadership committed to human rights and faithful to the principles of democracy in the light of the vision of the prophets of Israel.
Rectifying Zionism
Katznelson knew that the work of rectifying the Zionist movement must begin with cultural and spiritual rectification; with turning the holidays, Shabbat, memorial days, and prayer into the new-old cultural home of the free Israeli. That home, the spiritual-cultural one, the one that Katznelson and his comrades from the Second and Third Aliyah dreamed of, is already deeply rooted in beliefs and social, human, and universal values.
The task is immense and the road ahead is long and winding. The rectification will begin when all our hostages return home, and the hatred and division pass from the land.
The writer, a rabbi, is CEO of the Leo Baeck Education Center.