Blog/July 2015/Jul 24th
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< Blog | July 2015
| July 24th (See this week's devar torah) | Comments or questions? Click here! |
It’s been a long, hot week. The weather has been hot during the day, without much cooling at night; hopefully that pattern will ease off a bit. Supposedly, Sunday will be cooler. That’s good, since it’s the day the fast of Tisha Be’av will be held this year.
Esther and I attended a presentation Thursday night, given by one of the people who was forcibly removed from his home during the Gush Katif “disengagement”. The man spoke very well, and showed an impromptu documentary film taken of his family’s experience. After the presentation there was a Q&A session, which was interesting in that first of all, he said he does not harbor resentment or ill feeling towards the State of Israel (a stance I would not be able to maintain). Second, people asked “what have we done to prevent a recurrence?” An excellent question.
The answer which the lecturer gave to that question was that we need to engage the non-Jewishly involved sector of Israeli society, and educate people to love the Land and understand why we’re here. A good answer, as far as it goes.
But I was intrigued that nobody connected the tragedy of Gush Katif with the upcoming Ninth of ʼav day. Specifically, nobody mentioned that when tragedies befall us, we need to search our own deeds and ask what do we ourselves need to do differently? That tragedies like this are a wake-up call to pay more attention to our deeds, and to do teshuva (repent of our deeds and return to God’s laws).
It’s easy for those of us who fancy ourselves as “religious” to look at the generality of Israeli society and categorize people into “us” and “them”. “Them”, of course, being all the secularists and perhaps including those we consider less worthy than ourselves.
But that’s not what teshuva is about. While we do indeed need to work on others and improve the general state of society, our mandate is to improve ourselves first of all, so that we serve as an example to others and inspire them to become closer to God. When we compartmentalize the world into “us” and “them”, we raise ourselves in our own estimation and conversely lower the others. This is not helpful. That is why the Torah commands us to “love your neighbor as yourself” and additionally “do not hate your brother in your heart”. Not easy, but there you have it.
I’ve mentioned before that one of my first experiences after making aliyah was riding on the bus and seeing a woman who really (!) did not look religious in any way, suddenly pull out a prayer book and start praying. There’s a reason we refer to God as the “Knower of secrets”. He alone knows what’s in another person’s heart, and therefore it behooves us to work on our own issues and let others work on theirs; helping them if they request the help, and hopefully providing a positive example to them.
OK, enough lecturing…
The ninth of ʼav actually falls on this shabbat, and the fast is therefore delayed until Sunday. If, Heaven forbid, mashiaḥ doesn’t come before then, we’ll have a fast day on Sunday. So in preparation for the eventuality that we won’t have to fast…
…Everyone knows that Jews like chicken soup. All the different “kinds” of Jews — Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Yemenite, Mizraḥi or what have you — have a traditional chicken soup recipe. Well, guess what? Archaeologists have found evidence that chickens were first economically exploited in Israel! More accurately, they found the first evidence of widespread consumption of chicken as food outside of the chicken’s place of origin. About the affinity Jews have for Asian cuisine? Chickens originated in South-east Asia. Case closed!
Just a quiet shabbat with the nuclear family, feasting upon:
home-made ḥalla,
chicken with potatoes,
crock-pot brisket,
majadra,
stuffed mushrooms,
carrot kugel,
vegetable soup,
egg salad,
tuna salad,
eggplant (in some form),
salatim,
melon,
and ice-cream.
(followed by the fast of the ninth of ʼav)
Until next time,
shabbat shalom and have a meaningful fast (after shabbat, that is)!
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