The Future in a Narrow Time: Commentary on Shiv’ah Asar BeTammuz 5784
By Rabbi Lauren Tuchman, Hebrew Seminary Professor of Rabbinic Literature
The 17th of Tammuz commemorates five tragedies that befell the Jewish people and is the second of four fast days that are marked annually in remembrance of the destruction of the Temples in Jerusalem (the first by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E., and the second by the Romans in 70 C.E.).
In Mishnah Ta’anit, in the fourth chapter of the tractate Ta’anit—which is found in the Seder Mo’ed (“the Order of the Holidays”) in the Mishnah—we learn of two additional tragedies that occurred on the 17th of Tammuz. The one that is most directly implicated or connected to the Destruction of the First Temple by the Babylonians is that the Babylonians breached the walls of Yerushalayim. They had had a siege of Yerushalayim since the 10th of Tevet, which is until this day a fast day commemorating that, and they breached the walls on the 17th of Tammuz. In addition to that, with that breaching, the olat tamid (the daily sacrifice of a lamb, twice daily in the Temple, once just after after dawn, and a second time generally just before sunset) ceased. There is a particularity in the pain around that cessation because it was a cessation of an act that was routine that happened everyday; it was predictable and expected. The olat tamid, the “always burnt-offering,” offered twice a day and in our prayers to this day: some folks have the custom either before Shacharit or both at Shacharit and at Minchah of reciting what are known as Korbanot—that is not done outside of Orthodoxy almost at all, but it is something that a lot of Orthodox communities maintain as a zekher, as a remembrance, of that korban, which has not been offered since the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E.
The Three Weeks usher in a period known as Bein HaMeytzarim (“Between the Narrows”), a period of tremendous sorrow, grieving, lamentation, despair, cheshbon (inner ‘reflection’). All of those pieces come together as we are thinking about this time.
And, I want to invite us and offer us an opportunity to think about how we can use this time. Often we tend to think—particularly those of us outside of Orthodoxy—of: Well, how do I find meaning in this? This was so many thousands of years ago. And no doubt it was a tremendous tragedy, but here we are in a different land, in a different place, in a different era. What is the need for a Temple? What is the need for any of that?
And, also, we might be thinking to ourselves this year: It’s been a year of such tremendous heartbreak and grief and rending and just so much rupture. Why add more? Isn’t there already enough? What am I supposed to do with these Three Weeks? How do I connect at all to this time?
I think one approach we might invite ourselves into is to take the Three Weeks as an opportunity. Regardless of your own views on the destruction of the Temple and how that historically came to be or why it historically came to be: we’re thinking about how we can relate to the trauma of that time; you know, whether it feels resonate it all (and it may not, and it likely does not, for most of us); and thinking about also: We’ve been in such a place of heartbreak; wouldn’t it be improper to add to continue to add to that?
This in fact might be a time when we can lovingly allow the feelings of grieving to be there—understand where we are in our own history; think about how we can reflect on the future we’ve yearned for; and what are the tools we can use to get there—individually and collectively. I think this is a beautiful time not only to think about historical traumas that our people have experienced. Tish’ah Be’av in particular has become the day that we mark numerous tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people over the span of our history. And it’s very important to be with that. It’s also equally important to do a lot of our own soul reflection, our soul accounting, and ask ourselves: How can we utilize this time on the calendar of deep spiritual heartbreak and emotional heartbreak and heartbreak for the Jewish people and heartbreak for the world at large? What are ways we can use this time as a catalyst for thinking about the kind of future we yearn to bring into the end?
As one of my colleagues reminded me today, our ancestors’ story of destruction and trauma is written. We remember it every year in one way or another. We may or may not find resonance. But our story remains unfinished. We have agency and choice. How are we going to end our story? How are we going to create a narrative, a positive possibility for the future, knowing as we do that things are not getting to get better overnight—but things probably are going to get worse before they get better—that we are living in a very chaotic time; a very destabilizing time; a very complex rupturing time? Within the abilities that we have as individuals and as collectives, what are the small things we can each do to try to build a better tomorrow so that the end of our story is one that we can think back on with gratitude for being able to hold the heartbreak and move there into a place of abundance and possibility, knowing that that’s not going to happen overnight, knowing that the tradition gives us Seven Weeks of comfort after the Three Weeks of straits and Three Weeks of Narrowness? Why? Because we need that time to build ourselves back from the place of deepest despair so that we can enter the new year with a bit more optimism, even as we know that, by doing that, we are again in a place of unknowing, of not knowing, of not knowing what’s coming, not knowing what’s coming tomorrow, but acting in the ways that we can today to create a better world—even if it’s an olam katan, even if it’s a small world—within our own arba ammot, our own sphere of influence.
May it be so for all of us, may it be so for all peoples, may it be so for all beings and the world. Ken yehi ratzon.
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