Dear Yehuda,



From the day the Jewish nation was exiled from its land (70 CE) until the establishment of the State (1948) Jewish communities everywhere experienced their present as a time of trouble, suffering, murder, poverty, and destruction which was only incidental and which would, in the future, pass. In their consciousness they lived the past and future mixed together, with the feeling that the present was merely passing, as do the suffering who want to fill their souls with hope to survive and not fall victim to depression and loss. The Jewish nation in exile lived between the historical past which gave them a type of nostalgic pride in which the life of Torah had a political independence, and the longed for future in which “our judges will sit as of yore” and unify all nations under the reign of Jerusalem, following the prophecy of Isaiah, “In the days to come the Mount of the Lord’s House shall stand firm above the mountains and tower above the hills, and all the nations shall gaze upon it with joy” (Isaiah 2:2).

The ninth of Av is the day which most fully expresses these feelings. The lamentations for the day express and illustrate, through literary creativity, the suffering and troubles which the Jews felt during their exile with no sovereign state, under foreign rule.

Those times have passed and gone from the world. From the day the State was declared we are no longer “a shame to the nations” and scattered throughout the four corners of the earth with no choice. We live as do all enlightened sovereign nations, who are concerned for all their citizens.

But within the Jewish nation there are still those who want to preserve and establish the feeling of exile, ignoring reality. Their world view is the old world view, and to that despicable end they send legislators to the secular legislature.

Come see how the Jewish nation has lived its life in the real world, not the fantasy bublle in which today’s Orthodox live.

The fast of the ninth of Av is written about in Zechariah (8:19): “Thus said the Lord of the Hosts…the fast of the fifth month…shall become an occasion for joy and gladness, a happy festival for the House of Judah, but you must love honesty and integrity.”

The fast of the fifth month is that of the month of Av, the fifth of the months (starting the count at Nissan, considered the first of the months).

Zechariah prophesized “in the second year of Darius’s reign” (520 BCE) (Zechariah 1:1).

That is, it was after Cyrus’s declaration (538 BCE) and before Zerubavel dedicated the Second Temple (515 BCE).

Therefore, Zechariah is discussing the fast of the month of Av after the destruction of the First Temple and before the building of the Second. The First Temple was destroyed on the seventh of Av, as is written, “On the seventh day of the fifth month [Av] — that was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon — Nebuzaradan, the chief of the guards, an officer of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. He burned the House of the Lord, the king’s palace, and all the houses of Jerusalem; he burned down the house of every notable person. The entire Chaldean force that was with the chief of the guard tore down the walls of Jerusalem on every side” (II Kings 25:8-10).

[This is in contrast to what is written in the Mishnah, that the First Temple was destroyed on the ninth of Av (Taanit 4:6) or what Chazal said (Rosh Hashana 19b), who related Zechariah’s verse to the ninth of Av. Thus did Ibn Ezra write (on Zechariah 7:3): “And Jerusalem was destroyed a second time in the days of Titus on the ninth of Av, and we mourn that second destruction.” That is, we do not mourn for the First Temple, which was not destroyed on the ninth of Av.]

But when there was a change in Israeli reality, from a state of exile to the return to Zion in the Second Temple period, Zechariah says that the fast of “the seventh of Av” will turn to rejoicing and happiness (Zechariah 8:19): “Thus said the Lord of the Hosts…the fast of the fifth month…shall become an occasion for joy and gladness, a happy festival for the House of Judah, but you must love honesty and integrity.”

And to draw an analogy from minor to major: If the return to Zion, which was a type of autonomy only, requiring the payment of taxes to a foreign government (Persia and Media), turned the mourning into happiness and joy, then how much more so should our return to the Land of Israel in our own days — where we have absolute sovereignty without foreign sponsorship and we do not have to raise taxes for any other nation or state — the ninth of Av should turn into a day of rejoicing and happiness.

Moreover, those who fast on the ninth of Av and mourn their fate “as a shame to the nations” actually fling a gauntlet at the reality of the State of Israel. About the Charedi public — who utterly ignore the change which has taken place within the Jewish nation and is not a partner in the establishment of the State of Israel and its flourishing, neither in its economic nor security aspects — who do not celebrate Israeli Independence Day, we can say they are contemptible but consistent. It is the religious and traditional sectors — those who celebrate Independence Day I the month of Iyar and three months later return to the old reality which is no more and fast on the ninth of Av — who utterly ignore the joys of the independence which they celebrated three months before, and of them we should say “how long can you keep a foot in both camps?”



As to your question of why people do not mourn over the Holocaust: your question is aimed at the religious and Charedi public which ignores our political reality, and whose power as “the Jewish collective” has weakened and been lost. They haven’t the power or will to change and to set days to match present reality. As they do not have the courage to change the ninth of Av into a day of rejoicing and happiness, so do they not have the courage to create a day of remembrance for the Holocaust.



Sincerely,



Daat Emet

Dear Yaniv,



You should be precise. This is the date chosen by the Chief Rabbinate to be the general day of mourning for those whose date of death is not known.

That is, they did not set a day of mourning of itself, but tied it to an existing day of mourning and decided that on this day Kaddish would be said for all those whose date of death was not known. The Rabbinate made a decision which required no daring; from a Halachic perspective there is no problem with saying Kaddish, so no wonder they established this. I would dare say that this shows scorn for Holocaust Remembrance Day; they went and added it to a day of mourning for Jerusalem though we are here in the rebuilt Jerusalem instead of setting a special day to be Holocaust Remembrance Day. Just as we do not mix one festive occasion with another, so we should not mix one mournful occasion with another.

If the month of Nissan is not acceptable to the religious public, a different date can be set.



Sincerely,



Daat Emet