Thinking about the Ninth of Av
One of the things that strike me as we observe the fast is non-victim-hood of the day.
What I mean is that it is true that we Jews have been victims throughout our history we have never behaved as victims. That means we do not allow our victim hood to overcome our actions.
What is victim hood you might ask. Simple. There are numerous people around who will blame others for their current plight. That they will never succeed until the debt owed them is payed. They will bring up all sorts of grievances, both real and imagined, to give them license to commit some of the most horrendous acts.
The Jews, on the other hand have gone a different route.
While it is true that we do not forget the wrongs that were done on us over the centuries, we also realize that if we wish to succeed in this world, either spiritually or physically we have to get up and do it ourselves.
We then look at our afflictions and remember that a good many of them were our own doing.
An example of this is the reaction that we have to the book burning in Paris. In 1244 the French decided to burn all the Talmuds that they could find. It took place in the square in front of the Cathedral of Notre Dame on the Isle de France. Remember the printing press had not been invented and all books had to be hand copied. To burn a book was far worse at that time than it could be today.
The reaction of the Jewish people to the event was very typical. While we did not say that the people who burned the books were good we recognized that there was a hand of the Divine retribution in their actions. It had been only a few years earlier that copies of the Rambam’s works were publicly burned in Paris by the Jewish community.
Now this is not to say that the Church and the French leadership were not guilty. But the Rabbis pointed out that had the Jews not burned books then the non-Jews would not have burned them.
This is a totally different tact than is followed by many others. They will always point out the wrongs that have been done them and believe that the only way for them to succeed is for another to fall.
Just a thought of the day.
Subscribe to blog feed.
About the Author: Shlomo Bar-Ayal is an Israeli-American, or an American-Israeli (I could never get that right) who is unabashedly pro-Israel, pro-US and a great guy.
He has an open mind to opinions that he agrees with.
As you can see from the picture he is also a rather handsome fellow. If he can ever get his picture on the blog!
Besides blogging on whatever he feels like blogging about on any given day he enjoys learning Talmud, davening, being the candyman in his synagogue, smoking his tobacco pipe, and partaking in an adult beverage every now and then