If I Forget Thee, O Jerusalem!

These are the movies (this was before video camcorders...) and the radio broadcasts from 1967 when the city of Jerusalem was reunited!

If I forget thee O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its cunning, let my tongue cleave to my palate if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my greatest joy.

Today we celebrate the reuniting of Jerusalem. May it never be torn apart again.

Trish and Bob

I wrote this when I was in college. It has some inaccuracies and some problems, but I thought I'd put it out there anyway... it has some interesting points. Comments are welcome, but please be polite.

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Okay, who are Trish and Bob?

No, wait. don't make this sound like the dating game. This is Tisha B'av, a holiday, not a couple. In fact, as holidays go, this one is pretty anti-couple.

Why?

Well, it's a sad day, so we don't do happy-couple things.

I see. So what IS Tisha B'av? What does the name mean?

Well, the name means "the ninth of Av" and Av is a Jewish month, following Tammuz and preceding Elul.

Pretty straightforward name, not too original.

No, not very, but then again, it's not a particularly happy day, not one you want to give a special name to..

What's so sad about it?

Well. The first and second temples in Jerusalem were destroyed on this day.

So we're mourning the tearing down of a building?

No, we're mourning a lot more. You see, the destruction of the temple not only meant losing a large war in a big way. It didn't even just mean a lot of deaths. It meant the destruction of a country and way of life.

But we're still Jews. They didn't destroy our way of life.

Wrong. Our way of life was centered around the sacrifices brought in the temple. If a person sinned unintentionally, they brought a sacrifice. On holidays, people brought sacrifices to the temple. The Cohanim lived and worked for the temple. When a woman gave birth to a baby, she brought a sacrifice, and when the high priest came out of the holy of holies on the afternoon of Yom Kippur, the day was suddenly transformed from the solemnest to the happiest day of the year, and the girls wore their white dresses and danced in the fields. On Sukkot, the simchat beit hashoeva was the happiest, biggest, most impressive party ever seen. No.Our way of life was destroyed. We rebuilt it, slowly, over a few hundred years, but it's nothing like how it was.

I see, I think. But why don't we build a new one?

Well, there are a lot of reasons. The first being that we don't know exactly where the holy of holies stood, and no one is allowed to go to that place -except the high priest on yom kippur in the afternoon service, that is. That's actually the best reason, because almost everything else can be worked around. We have the blue dye for the priests' clothing, we have the measurements for ever inch of the building.We don't have a red heifer, but we could probably get one, and even if we don't we could still offer sacrifices on the temple mount, because we're all equally impure...but we don't have the full knowledge that wee need to find the holy of holies, so it's all pointless.

so it's lost and gone forever? why?

Well. It's not forever. We tend to believe that when the messiah comes, we will rebuild it. But in answer to why, well. It seems like it was our own fault. You see, in the time of the first temple, the vast majority of the world was composed of idol-worshipers, and being very much into "cultural relativism" and "political correctness", we got into that too. I mean, we did some really bad stuff, to the point where within sight of our holiest place, the temple, we had human sacrifices going on. Pretty terrible, really. So G-d sent the Babylonians to put us in our place, or maybe to get us out of his. That was in 586 bce.


Now, these two guys, Ezra and Nechemia, decided to come back to Jerusalem and rebuild the Jewish nation both physically and spiritually. They did a nice job, rebuilt the temple, the country, and the nation. These were the people who began the custom of reading from the torah every week. They made a fairly spectacular second temple, which held up until 70ce.

Why was the second temple destroyed?

Well, you see, we got into a pattern of causeless hatred of our fellow man. For example, there was a case of two men with similar names being confused, and the wrong one being invited to a party. Instead of the host being hospitable and allowing the wrong guest to remain, the host publicly asked the man to leave the party, and when the man said he was willing to pay for his food rather than be embarrassed in such a way, the host refused, and made him leave.

That's pretty mean

Yeah, G-d thought so too, I suppose. That is, I suppose that G-d believed that a nation of people who would do such things wasn't a nation fit to be a "light unto the world", and since we weren't fulfilling our part of the bargain, the Romans were sent to help G-d stop fulfilling his. From then, 70ce, until 1948ce, we didn't have a country.

That's almost 2000 years

Yes, and in those two thousand years, the Jewish people has been persecuted over and over again, in every country in the world. The Crusades, The blood libels, the Spanish inquisition, the pogroms, the HOLOCAUST, and the list continues to build. Even in our own country, we are threatened daily. The independence war, the Yom Kippur war, the War of Attrition, the Six-Day War, the Munich Games Massacre, Entebbe, The Intifada, The scuds during the Gulf War, and the list of bus bombings seems endless. Even just in the past year, we've had three major bus bombings, and a huge bombing in one of the nation's busiest malls, not to mention the bombing of the Jewish Community Center in Argentina. (note: this was written in 1996 or 1997)

I see what you mean. Since the Romans expelled us from our land, it's all been one nightmare after another.

Exactly.

So what's it about this day that makes it so unlucky?

Lashon Hara.

What? Isn't that a type of dance?

No. Lashon means tongue, and Hara means "the bad". That is, when you speak badly of someone or something, even if it's true, it's a sin, and it's called Lashon Hara

Where does THAT fit into Tisha B'av?

Well, before we came into Israel, we sent spies to check out the land. We sent 12, and ten came back with fairly lousy reports. In other words, they spoke out against the land G-d had promised us, a land flowing with milk and honey. Now the people got scared because of their reports, and thy started to cry. Supposedly, that day was the ninth of av, and G-d made sure that we had something Real to cry about on that day.

So, aside from crying, and not doing happy-couple things, what else do we do or not do on Tisha B'av?


Well, we don't bathe, shower, swim, or even wash our hands.

Wait, that's gross. You have to wash your hands when you come out of the bathroom, right?

Yes, but unless there is dirt on the hand, you can only wash from the knuckle to the top of the finger.

Okay, is there more?

Yes, you can't eat or drink anything, unless you are pregnant, nursing, under age 12, or sick. You have to read megillat Eycha, and kinot, and you can't wear leather shoes, and it's preferable to sit on low chairs.

Is that it?

Yeah

Whew, that list was getting long. It seems like we have to be in total mourning.

We do. And doesn't it make sense to? Look at all we've lost.

Belly Brain!

A week or two ago, Yaakov was asked to perform and give a speech at City Hall in Jerusalem. Those of you who know Yaakov well know that public speaking in Hebrew is not something that comes naturally or easily for him.

Actually it's the Hebrew that doesn't come naturally or easily for him. When he was a kid, he studied acting, and even did some acting, and he has natural performance ability - something I completely lack.

At any rate, he's happy to juggle for anyone and everyone, but the speech was another story... so I offered to come and give the speech for him.

So my mother caught me on a chat (from China... they're still there) and I tell my mother this - about how I will be speaking in front of Mayor Lupolianski (or however you spell it)... We go on to talk about other things, including the fact that I keep having contractions, apparently still Braxton-Hicks (or Mason-Dixon, according to a friend who teaches Poli Sci) and that I have an appointment with the doctor to find out how things are going on Thursday.

So this morning, I wake up to see an email wishing me good luck for today, to which I automatically respond "my doctor's appointment isn't until Thursday, but thanks."

I am SUCH a belly brain!

Teddy Kollek 1911-2007

I am aware that I need to write more about my trip to North America, but right now, there's other stuff on my mind.

For example, Teddy Kollek passed away this week. I gotta say, I'm not an overly political person most of the time, and prior to 1995, when I made aliya, I had little idea of what was flying here in Israel except that it's a piece of land the size of New Jersey, surrounded by multiple Arab countries, and yet somehow, the Arabs expect us to divide it and give parts to Arab entities.

What I remember about Teddy Kollek was a movie called "Goodbye, New York." It was a pretty hokey movie about a New York woman who goes to Paris to escape her humdrum life, and ends up accidentally landing in Israel. The movie was made by Teddy Kollek's son, Amos Kollek, and I remember my parents all but screaming when they saw Teddy on-screen. The woman, played by Julie Hagerty, had just had all her clothes stolen. She tells her whole sob story to a man on the street (Teddy Kollek) who responds by saying "So tell it to the mayor." Since the movie was released in 1985, (when I was 7) the significance had to be explained to me carefully. Since then, every time I've seen the movie (which is on tv surprisingly often), I've loved that scene more than all others - even the banana eating contest.

Anyway, so that was Teddy Kollek for me. In 1993, Ehud Olmert won the election, and when I made aliya, there were still bumper stickers around that said "Ohavim Otcha Teddy" - we love you Teddy.

A little more recently, I learned more about Teddy Kollek. He was an incredible man, and he did so much for Jerusalem. He built Jerusalem up in the years after the reunification (1967) and helped Jerusalem become a modern city.

Ehud Olmert said:

"David Ben Gurion declared Jerusalem the capital of the State of Israel in 1949. Teddy Kollek turned it into the capital, not by virtue of memories and prayers and longing, but by virtue of creation, construction, diligence, tolerance and the intolerance which lived in his body together.

"Teddy turned Jerusalem into the center of his existence. Yehuda Amichai wrote that it is sad to be the mayor of Jerusalem. He didn’t write it about Teddy, but about his predecessor. Teddy wasn't sad, he was glad to be the mayor."

This would be more significant to me if Olmert actually listened to himself once in a while. However, I doubt that statements like these will keep Olmert from re-dividing the city and moving Jews out of their homes even in Israel's capital.

So today, after Teddy Kollek has been laid to rest, I want to say thank you to him. Thank you for building a city we can be proud of. Thank you for your love and devotion to the holiest city on Earth. Thank you, and "Ohavim Otcha Teddy."