Each year, as the sun sets and ushers in Tisha B’Av, sitting on the ground and reciting the ancient lamentations brings us back to the historic wound that has shaped our identity as a people. We remember the First Temple, which stood for more than 400 years before it was destroyed, and the Second Temple, which was destroyed nearly 2,000 years ago because of baseless hatred. Generations have come and gone, circumstances have changed, yet we still mourn what once was and is no more, while yearning with all our hearts for the rebuilding of the Third Temple.
In recent years, and especially these days, it is difficult not to feel the weight of the concept of baseless hatred. The tensions and divisions we witness do not, God forbid, stem from malice, but from deep pain and exhaustion. Israeli society has been enduring a prolonged and deeply unsettling period marked by heavy burdens, existential concerns and anxiety over our shared future. The collective heart is weary. And when the soul is burdened and strained, it is only natural that protective walls begin to rise, and our ability to listen to and embrace those who are different from us begins to diminish.
Reciting the Book of Lametations at the Western Wall on Tisha B'Av
(Photo: Western Wall Foundation)
Yet, from the crucible of these difficult years, we have rediscovered a profound truth about who we are. In the darkest moments of the war, when our hearts were shaken, we witnessed an extraordinary outpouring of mutual responsibility and solidarity. We saw barriers disappear as though they had never existed, revealing the deepest common bond between us - a simple and genuine love for our people and our land. This is the Jewish paradox: in times of crisis, we discover the greatness of our spirit, but as the external storm begins to subside, we retreat once again into the compartments that divide us, and the public sphere fills with harsh words and bitter disagreements.
The great spiritual challenge of our generation is not to unite only when we all think and speak alike. There is little wisdom in finding common ground with those who mirror our own views. The true challenge is to sit together, to listen, and to show respect when the differences are deep and profound - to recognize that beneath every ideological disagreement beats a single Jewish heart, no less anxious and no less loving.
A beautiful and profound spiritual insight on this subject was taught by the holy Arizal, Rabbi Isaac Luria Ashkenazi. He instructed that each morning before prayer one should declare: “I hereby accept upon myself the positive commandment: ‘You shall love your fellow as yourself.’”
Out of the Torah’s 613 commandments, why was this particular mitzvah chosen to serve as the gateway through which all our prayers pass?
The answer touches the very essence of our relationship with God. When a father sees his children living together in harmony and peace, supporting one another and showing genuine care for each other, his deepest and most natural desire is to shower them with goodness, to give them all he can, and to help them. When we stand in prayer seeking God’s blessings, He looks at how we treat His sons and daughters. When we show Him that we love our brothers and sisters, that we seek the good in them despite our differences, we open the gates of Heaven.
Rabbi Shmuel RabinowitzPhoto: Western Wall FoundationToday, our society needs those gates of Heaven to be open more than ever. We are surrounded by brothers and sisters carrying immense burdens - families of soldiers in the reserves bearing the weight of a prolonged war, soldiers wounded in body and/or spirit, families whose lives have been forever changed, those battling serious illness, and countless people struggling each day to earn a livelihood in difficult times. The Creator of the world possesses an infinite abundance of healing, comfort, joy and blessing to bestow upon us. The key to unlocking that abundance is in our hands.
This Tisha B’Av, alongside our mourning for the past, let us strengthen our love for every one of our brothers and sisters. Let us look upon one another with a generous eye, seek out the goodness and merit in others, and remember that if we extend a sincere and loving hand to one another, understanding that we are all the children of one Father, then the Holy One, blessed be He, will extend His hand to all of us, heal our wounds, and bring us the complete and true redemption.
- The writer is the rabbi of the Western Wall and the Holy Sites of Israel.