06 Aug TISHA B’AV: TURNING MOURNING INTO ACTION

On April 11, 1944, a
young Anne Frank
wrote in her diary:
Who has made us Jews
different from all other
people? Who has
allowed us to suffer so
terribly until now? It is God Who has
made us as we are, but it will be God, too,
who will raise us up again. Who knows –
it might even be our religion from which
the world and all peoples learn good, and
for that reason and that reason alone do
we now suffer. We can never become just
Netherlanders, or just English, or
representatives of any other country for
that matter. We will always remain Jews.
Anne Frank was on to something. The
Talmud asks, from where did Mount
Sinai derive its name? After offering a
few alternatives, the Talmud suggests that
Mount Sinai comes from Hebrew word
“sinah” which means hatred, because the
non-Jews’ hatred of the Jews descended
upon that mountain when the Jewish
people received the Torah there.
Torah demands a moral and ethical

lifestyle, an attitude of giving rather than
taking, a life of service rather than of
privilege, that has revolutionized the
world. The Jewish people have been
charged to be the moral conscience of the
world, a mission they have not always
succeeded at, but that nevertheless drew
the ire, anger and hatred of so many. For
two thousand years the Jews were bullied
and persecuted simply because of their
Jewishness and all that stands for.
After the Holocaust, the world gave the
Jews a reprieve from their hatred,
becoming instead beneficiaries of their
pity. But looking at events around the
world, it is rapidly becoming clear that
the last 70 years was an aberration. We
are witnessing the rise of anti-Semitism,
particularly in Europe, as the world
reverts back to its ageless pattern and
habit.
The Midrash (Eichah Rabbah 1) teaches
that three prophets used the term “eichah”
– o how! In Devarim, Moshe asks:
“Eichah, how can I alone bear your
troubles, your burden and your strife?”
(Deut. 1:12) In the Haftorah for Shabbos

Chazon, the Prophet
Yeshayahu asks:
“Eichah, how has the
faithful city become
like a prostitute?”
Lastly, Yirmiyahu
begins the Book of
Eichah: “Eichah, how
is it that Jerusalem is
sitting in solitude!
The city that was
filled with people has
become like a
widow…”
Eicha – How? How
is it that anti-Semitism
persists? Why must
they rise up against us
in every generation? On Tisha B’Av we
will sit on the floor and wonder aloud,
eicha? How could it be Jews in Eastern
Europe have to fear for their lives yet
again? Eicha – how could it be that today,
with all the progress humanity has made,
the ADL measures more than a quarter of
the world as holding anti-Semitic views?
Eicha – how could it be that terror
persists, that three members of family
gathering together on Shabbat to
celebrate a shalom zachor could be
murdered in cold blood?
Our job is to make sure we can answer
the call of ayeka, where are you? Are
you taking responsibility?
Rabbi Soloveitchik tells us that though
the Midrash identifies three times the
word eicha is used, in truth there is a
fourth. When Adam and Eve fail to take
responsibility, God calls out to them and
says ayeka, where are you? Ayeka is
spelled with the same letters as eicha,
leading Rabbi Soloveitchik to say that
when we don’t answer the call of ayeka,
when we don’t take personal
responsibility for our problems and
blame others, we will ultimately find
ourselves asking eicha, how could it be?
We can ask eicha, how could all of
these terrible things be, but we may
never have a definitive answer. Our job
is to make sure we can answer the call
of ayeka, where are you? Are you taking
responsibility?
We may not be able to fully understand
why anti-Semitism exists, but we can
and must remain vigilant in fighting it.
We must remain strong in standing up

for Jews everywhere. We must confront
evil and do all we can to defeat it. And,
we must do all that we can to take personal
responsibility to fulfill the Jewish mission
to bring Godliness into the world.
If individual Jews were hated for being
the conscious of the others, all the more
so does a Jewish country generate hate
for being the moral conscious of the
whole world, held to higher moral
standards than any other country or state.
Our job is not to be discouraged by
asking eicha, but to ensure that we can
answer the call of ayeka. Anti-Semitism
will not come to an end by assimilating
and retreating. It will come to an end
when we can positively answer the
question that the Talmud tells us each one
of us will be asked when we meet our
Maker: did you long for the redemption
and did you personally take responsibility
to do all that you can to bring the
redemption? Did you truly feel the pain
of exile and feel the anguish of the Jewish
condition in the world? Do you truly and
sincerely care? Did you anxiously await
every day for Moshiach to herald in an

era of peace and harmony, an end to anti-
Semitism and suffering?

It is not enough to long for Moshiach,
we must bring him. It is not enough to
hope for redemption, we must be the
catalyst for it. It is not enough to be tired
of eicha, we must answer ayeka.
If we want to get up off the floor and end
the mourning, if we want to finally end
anti-Semitism, it is up to us to do what is
necessary to heal our people, to repair the
world, to love one another, and to earn the
redemption from the Almighty.