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Jewish World Review July 26, 2001 / 6 Menachem-Av, 5761
http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
NEARLY 2,000 years ago this Tisha B'Av, the Temple was destroyed and
the Jewish people sent into Exile as a consequence of sinas chinam --- a
hatred of others not for anything particular they have done to us, but
because their very existence impinges on our own. And just as a love
that does not depend on anything tangible lasts forever, so hatred that
has no specific cause is the most difficult to eradicate.
The Temple was the great symbol of Jewish unity, of all Jews bound
together in common service to the Creator. Even today, every time a Jew
anywhere in the world turns his heart towards G-d in prayer, he directs
those prayers towards the Temple.
Nachmanides describes the Temple as reprise of Sinai. Just as Israel had
to become like one person with one heart as a precondition for the
receipt of the Torah, so was internal unity the precondition for the
Temple.
As long as Jews turned their hearts to one another in love, like the two
cherubim over the Aron HaKodesh (Holy Ark), then G-d related to His nation with that same love. And when we turned away from one another, then the Creator
turned from us and hid His face. The physical destruction of the symbol
of our unity was but the external manifestation of an inner spiritual
division that had already taken place.
The Temple remains in ruins today; the cause of its destruction has not
yet been rectified. The spasmodic outburst of hatred last week after
President Katsav's reduction of Har-Shefi's sentence destroyed any
optimism that ten months of war have brought the Jews of Israel closer
together. An articulate left-wing spokesman in one radio debate turned
with venom on Geula Cohen telling her, "The real division is not
between Jew and Arab but between those of us on the Left and you on the
Right.''
The "deep hatred'', described by Amnon Dankner, of the "Ashkenazi,
secular, enlightened and liberal bourgeoisie . . . for anyone who is not
part of this class -- Sefardim, and national religious, fervently-Orthodox and
Rightists --'' boiled over. The reduction of sentence, in the eyes
of that class, proved the former development town mayor's
unsuitability for the presidency, which belongs to them by divine right.
Understanding the sinas chinam that continues to plague us requires a
closer look at the initial sin from which all the tragedies of Tisha
B'Av derive. After the Spies brought back their "evil report''
about the Land, the People wept that night in their tents. And for that
"weeping without cause,'' we have been punished with much cause for
weeping on that night: the destruction of both Temples, the expulsion
from Spain.
Did those who had witnessed the plagues in Egypt, lived under the Clouds
of Glory in the Desert, and eaten of manna from Heaven, really doubt
G-d's power to bring them into the Land no matter how strong and
powerful its inhabitants? Of course not.
What they doubted was their own worthiness. They realized that even
after entering the Land they would be dependent on G-d's beneficence.
Feeling unworthy of His love, they concluded that G-d sought to kill
them at the hands of the Caananite nations.
All sinas chinam derives from similar feelings of unworthiness. Those
who lack any confidence in themselves live their lives in constant
comparison to others. They cast a critical eye on others so that they
might feel better about themselves. The impulse to speak derogatorily of
others reflects low self-esteem, which finds salve only in putting
others down.
Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, founder of the Mussar (Jewish Ethics) Movement, once witnessed
a boy pushing a playmate down in order to make himself taller. Reb
Yisrael predicted that nothing would ever come of that boy. Had he tried
instead to make himself taller instead by jumping up, said Reb Yisrael,
there would have been hope.
Today we are all little boys pushing down our playmates. Religious Jews
read the shocking statistics of school violence or of secular youth from
well-to-do homes murdering complete strangers for thrills. Rather than
crying, they experience a sense of smug satisfaction at the breakdown of
secular society. And secular newspaper readers have an apparently
insatiable desire for stories that will prove "the religious are no
better.''
Sensing our own failures, we console ourselves that everybody else is
doing worse. Our entire society is made up of people lacking a sense of
positive achievement, who can sustain themselves only by cataloguing the
failures of others.
Religious parents fearing that they have failed to instill their
children with a deep love of Torah and mitzvos distract themselves by
looking at others whose children have taken off their yarmulkes, or never
wore them in the first place. Secular parents sensing that they have
failed to pass on to their children any of the values on which they were
raised avoid looking in the mirror by raging against "ultra-Orthodox"
draft-dodgers in Israel.
The Torah cure for sinas chinam is to stop judging ourselves in
comparison to others. For viewing others we need a benevolent eye that
accentuates the positive. The critical, judgmental eye is best reserved
for ourselves.
Acting on this insight, religious Jews around the world have in recent
years used the days leading up to Tisha B'Av as ones of intense
introspection and self-criticism. This week in Jerusalem more than 250
classes were organized in 38 neighborhoods on various aspects of proper
and improper speech. Over 16,000 women attended mass evening gatherings
devoted to this subject. Similar events took place on a smaller scale
around Israel
Last Sunday, 10,000 Jews gathered in the Catskills to recite Tehillim (Psalms) on
behalf of the Jews of Israel. On Tisha B'Av itself, 40,000 Jews in
nearly 250 locations around the world, will view a video produced by he
Chofetz Chaim Heritage Foundation devoted to avoidance of disputes.
Those participating harbor no illusions that strife and lashon hara (slander) will
be eradicated any time in the near future or that their efforts will
obviate the need for a strong army. But they are confident that no act
of spiritual elevation goes unrewarded. It will be enough if one more
suicide bomber experiences second thoughts or even one more bullet
misses its mark.
All those who do not participate in rebuilding the Temple, a process
that begins with spiritual rectification, are judged as if they
destroyed it. Let us join the
Why we love to hate
By Jonathan Rosenblum
JWR contributor Jonathan Rosenblum is a columnist for the Jerusalem Post and Israeli director of Am Echad. He can be reached by clicking here.
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