1.
Following is the account of the Prophet Jeremiah (39:1-2) as to what occurred in the month of Tammuz during the year of the destruction of the First Temple (586 BCE). "In the ninth year of King Zedekiah of Judah, in the tenth month (Tevet), King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon moved against Jerusalem with his whole army, and they laid siege to it: And in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, on the ninth day of the fourth month (Tammuz), the walls of the city were breached." The breaching of the city walls was actually dated to the 9th of Tammuz. So how did we come to arrive at the 17th of the month? The breaching of the city wall during the destruction of the Second Temple (70 ACE) might have occurred on the 17th of the month, but, whatever the case may be, the principle here is patently clear: the wall was breached and so began the countdown to the final destruction.
We shall now take a leap forward to the end of the second century ACE, following the Bar-Kokhba revolt, to the Mishna (Ta'anit, 4:6): "Five calamitous matters occurred to our forefathers on the seventeenth of Tammuz, and five other disasters happened on the Ninth of Av. On the seventeenth of Tammuz, the tablets were broken by Moses; the daily offering was nullified; the city walls of Jerusalem were breached; Apostemos publicly burned a Torah scroll; and Manasseh placed an idol in the Sanctuary. On the Ninth of Av, it was decreed upon our ancestors that they would all die in the wilderness and not enter Eretz Yisrael; and the Temple was destroyed the first time (in the days of Nebuchadnezzar), and the second time (by the Romans); and the town of Beitar was captured; and the city (of Jerusalem) was plowed over." From this text, it is plain to see that most of those incidents occurring in the month of Tammuz are generally of a greater religious significance, while those occurring in the month of Av relate to the national level – encompassing both sides of our identity as a people.
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2.
We can now proceed to the 12th century, and to the book generally considered as Maimonides' magnum opus, the Mishneh Torah (Repetition of the Torah) also known as the Yad ha-Hazaka (The Strong Hand) (Taniyot, 5): "There are days when the entire Jewish people fast because of the calamities that occurred to them then, to arouse their hearts and initiate them in the paths of repentance. This will serve as a reminder of our wicked conduct and that of our ancestors, which resembles our present conduct and therefore brought these calamities upon them and upon us. By reminding ourselves of these matters, we will repent and improve our conduct, as it states (Leviticus 26): 'And they will confess their sin and the sin of their ancestors'...".
Here is the code which has preserved us for thousands of years in exile: "By reminding ourselves of these matters, we will repent and improve our conduct." Our constant memory is the secret of our redemption. It is the memory of Zion in its destruction and the constant desire to return to it that eventually, following a long historical process, paved the way towards Zionism. "We will repent and improve our conduct" – the Hebrew word for repentance 'teshuva' also means to return, and so first and foremost, we shall return to Zion, and only after that, once we are home again, will we argue about the spiritual process.
3.
But returning home alone is not sufficient. We need to strengthen the family. History teaches us that the wall was first breached within Jewish society, in fierce disputes that ignited the relations between the various political and religious groups of the day. "Due to baseless hatred that filled their hearts, those they saw adopting different customs to their own in terms of religious observance, they suspected of being a Sadducee and an Epikoros (heretic), and consequently they came to engage in much bloodshed by way of divisiveness and all the evils in the world, until the Temple was destroyed." This is how, Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin, writing in the 19th century, relates to the Second Temple period. How topical.
4.
The result was a catastrophe: the loss of our independence and exile for more than 1,800 years. During the time I spent in Rome, in view of the remains of the very empire that destroyed our home and later it too declined and faded away in the annals of history, I walked around with a special feeling, that we often forget in the heat of the current fierce and frenzied Israeli discourse: despite the heated arguments and the irresponsible declarations of a small minority in our midst, deep down, the underlying pillars of our existence are rooted in a profound bond of common fate and destiny, which is much stronger than any tremor we might face. In response to the walls of Jerusalem that were breached back then, throughout the long, drawn-out exile we built a new wall, as a lesson learned from the events of the destruction.
Now, more than ever, it is vitally important to remember that, and to be filled with a sense of hope. We are in the midst of a long historical process of national and spiritual consolidation, like birth pangs. What we really need is patience, and faith in the eternal nature of Israel.
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