Shalom,
Love and hate are two feelings that seem contradictory to
one another, and yet, there’s adage that is often quoted: there’s a fine line between love and
hate. In Judaism, that line is
just 6 days: from the 9th
of Av to the 15th of Av.
Within the span of one week, we journeyed from hate to love in the
Jewish calendar.
Last Saturday night and Sunday, we gathered together at
Shaarei Kodesh in mourning for the loss of our holy Temples, the destruction of
Jerusalem, and a number of other tragedies that befell our people throughout
history. We observed this holiday with the one of only two 25-hour fasts that
occur in Judaism. On Yom Kippur
and on Tisha B’av, we abstain from food and drink, sexual relations, anointing
ourselves, bathing, and wearing leather soled shoes. Jewish tradition calls Yom Kippur the white fast and Tisha
B'Av the black fast. On the white
fast when our sins are being forgiven, who needs to eat? On the black fast when we remember the
tragedies of our people, who can eat? As I spoke about last Shabbat, Tisha B’av is a
time when we allow ourselves to be sad as we remember a destructive past. Our rabbis gave us reasons for the
tragedies, and our rabbis said that the second Temple in particular was
destroyed because of Sinat Chinam. This term is usually translated as
causeless hatred, but I like to translate it as unbridled or free hatred. On Tisha B’Av, our rabbis urged us to
reflect upon how we can be better as a nation and how we can banish hatred to
prevent future destruction.
Last night, Tu B’Av, the 15th of Av, began. The Mishnah
tells us: “There were no better days for the people of Israel than the
Fifteenth of Av and Yom Kippur, since on these days the daughters
of Jerusalem go out dressed in white and dance in the vineyards. What
they were saying: Young man, consider who you choose (to be your wife).”
(Taanit 4:8). Tu B'Av is collective day of love, a contrast to the day of
sadness, destruction, and the remembrance of hate, of Tisha B’Av. Tu B'Av is a time for us to come
together out of love. How are
these two seemingly contradictory emotions related to each other? I read an interesting comment by a Rabbi
Yochanan Zweig, a Miami based Orthodox rabbi on this dichotomy. He states the following:
Loving
and hating someone is an expression of the same fundamental type of
relationship. Loving someone means a desire to merge (emotionally) into
another. Hating someone is a similar desire to merge, while at the same time
preserving your identity. An improper hate situation is akin, in the corporate
world, to a hostile takeover. With enemies and loved ones, you want the same
thing: you want two entities to become one. In a love relationship, you are
trying to gain a merged and new identity of yourself and your loved one. In an
improper hate relationship, you are trying to take over your enemy. The
hate/merger is an attempt to dominate the other, which is, in reality, a way of
rejecting the other.
This week, we saw two horrific acts perpetrated by Jews in what
they believed were in God’s name.
First, an
Ultra-Orthodox man stabbed six people in a gay pride parade in Jerusalem,
and the
murder of a Palestinian baby in an arson attack by Jewish terrorists. In both cases, it seems the perpetrators
had a passion that overtook them and a hate that forced them to try and
literally conquer their enemy.
Fortunately, these two incidences are not indicative of the vast
majority of our people. I believe
they are outliers, but at the same time, these outliers feed off of our silence
and indifference. Thankfully, the
government of Israel and Jewish leaders has come out against both of these
horrific incidences. We must state
proudly that our faith is centered on loving our neighbor as ourselves, not
hate and destruction. The struggle
against free and unbridled hatred, Sinat
Chinam, our people faced 2,000 years ago as the second Temple was destroyed
is still with us today. We, the
majority of Jews, must stand up against hatred and bigotry. This is something I will discuss this
Shabbat morning, and I hope you can join us.
My question: what can I do
to combat Sinat Chinam?
On this Shabbat Nachamu, a Shabbat of Consolation, we offer
our collective prayers of comfort to all of those who have suffered this week
at the hands of unbridled hatred: to
the six victims of the stabbing in Jerusalem, and to the Dawabsha family.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi David Baum
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