Closeness Through a Holiday of Distance
- Kirva
- Jul 24
- 4 min read
By Rabbi David Jaffe
I arrived in Jerusalem earlier this week and was immediately struck by how much this is a land of contrasts, that evokes such conflicting emotions in my own heart. The first thing I noticed after coming out of the train station was the construction—West and South Jerusalem are in a building boom. 40 story commercial and residential towers are popping up all over the city while construction of a new light rail line tears up Jerusalem’s main roads. While I miss the small, sleepy town that West Jerusalem once was, I feel joy that this city I consider a second home is growing so much and that an architect friend of mine is getting to work on these buildings.
This building boom stands in stark contrast to the absolute destruction of Gaza, where at least 70% of all structures have been demolished and people are starving. On the day before I arrived, a Palestinian friend who immigrated to Canada told me that his brother’s home and land in their village of Silwad, north of Ramallah, were taken over and confiscated by Jewish settlers. He was simply kicked out and doesn’t have any recourse. This personal tragedy and the collective tragedy of Gaza, where Israeli hostages also continue to languish, are beyond heartbreaking. I feel sick to my stomach, angry, and powerless.
Holding all of this, means I'm holding joy, hope, anger, and near despair all together. I find myself challenged to keep looking at it all and hold all the contrasting emotions.
Peter Beinart, in his latest book, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza, describes four rhetorical and ideological moves that people make to not look closely at the suffering that is happening in Gaza. I think these “moves” have application beyond Gaza to any situation that challenges deeply held beliefs and assumptions. The four are: Disputing the facts and numbers (the numbers of dead are exaggerated); Shifting blame (the enemy uses human shields); Everyone does it (examples of U.S. or European actions in WWII or other conflicts); We have no choice (There is only a military option for destroying the enemy).
While these examples refer specifically to Israel and Gaza, we would do well to ask ourselves how we use versions of these “moves” to avoid looking directly at anything morally challenging, in addition to Israel and Gaza. For example, have you ever had a thought in response to the latest scary report about climate destruction, like, “Aren’t those numbers of projected refugees too high?” or “Everyone keeps their homes at this temperature in the winter.”
I have many friends and colleagues who are reasonable, ethical people, who make the moves Beinart describes. Even if they were correct in shifting some of the blame, these moves give people an excuse not to actually look at the destruction, and that is a problem. Looking and seeing are key to creating an urgency to end the suffering, no matter who is to blame.
In addition to impeding important and life-saving progress, like ending the destruction and suffering of Gaza, bringing the Israeli hostages home, and taking on the climate crisis, creating reasons to enable looking away from hard realities keeps us in a state of spiritual distance. The first days of Av and this entire period in the Jewish calendar, called “Bein HaMetzarim/Between the Narrow Places” come to arouse us from looking away.
The climax of this three-week period, the 9th of the month of Av (Tisha B’Av-Saturday night and Sunday, August 2nd and 3rd this year), is paradoxically called a “Mo’ed/Holiday.” Why would the saddest day in the Jewish calendar have the same name as festive days like Passover and Sukkot? Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe (d. 2005, Israel) teaches that there are holidays of closeness and holidays of distance, and Tisha B’av is the prime holiday of distance. Why would we need a holiday of distance?
He writes, based on the prophecy of Jeremiah, that the state of the Jewish people before the destruction of the first Temple in 586 BCE was neither closeness nor distance, but rather one of disengagement from any introspection. In such a state, one has no moral compass for their actions and can easily deceive oneself that harmful actions are helpful and cruelty is compassion. The destruction of the Temple came to shake the people out of this morally ambiguous state and realize how distant they were from Hashem and how Hashem wanted them to live. When they realized how distant they were, they also remembered that they actually were in relationship with Hashem. Thus began the repair of the relationship and the journey towards closeness that ritually culminates each year on Yom Kippur.
Let’s use the spiritual opportunity of these first 9 days of Av and the fast of Tisha B’Av itself to be honest about our distance from Hashem and the ways we are living out of integrity with how Hashem would want us to honor the Tzelem Elokim/Divine Image in ourselves and all humans. In my own experience, I’ve found this type of Cheshbon HaNefesh/Soul accounting to be surprisingly invigorating and hopeful, like jumping into cold water. Not something I’m automatically drawn to, but really important for my own inner life and also for being able to keep looking at hard things and taking principled, if scary, action in the world.
May our practice during these 9 days give us the fortitude to keep looking, take action, and ultimately bring an end to this terrible suffering.
Besorot Tovot (May we hear good news soon)
David