Tisha B'Av: Fighting for our home

On Monday night we once again mourn the Temple's destruction and our subsequent forced exile. This day is the culmination of a series of days of mourning in the Jewish calendar, beginning with the Fast of Gedalia in the Hebrew month of Tishrei.

Tradition has it that both the First Temple and the Second Temple were destroyed on the same Hebrew date. The first was razed in 586 B.C.E. by the army of Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, while the second was destroyed in 70 C.E. by the Roman army. Jewish law calls for extra stringency during the fast of Tisha B'Av. The importance of the day is emphasized by its 24-hour period of fasting, a fast almost as long as the one on Yom Kippur.

There are many interpretations as to why the Temples were destroyed, ranging from social injustice at home to political and religious factors. In any event, the destruction symbolizes the ever-present threat to the Jewish people in every era.

The exile that ensued after the destruction of the Temple marked the loss of our home. The stereotype of the "wandering Jew," originally a piece of Christian folklore, was a way to ridicule our loss.

Jews were condemned to roaming the earth until the arrival of the Messiah, uprooted and without a homeland. This is why it was so hard for the Vatican to come to terms with the establishment of the State of Israel. It meant that God had forgiven the Jews and they were no longer forced to wander. Only in 1993 did the Vatican establish full diplomatic relations with Israel. By the way, after the U.N. recognition of a Jewish state on November 29, 1947, the Jews of Rome held a thanksgiving prayer assembly next to the Arch of Titus, which tells the story of the Destruction through the reliefs carved in its stones.

Israel's first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion was probably the person who coined the phrase "you can take the Jew out of the Diaspora, but you can't take the Disapora out of the Jew." This phrase points out that the historical process of changing the Jewish national and individual mind set so that we see ourselves as Israelis in our own land is incomplete. We still have a long road ahead, and there are no shortcuts.

But now history is repeating itself with a different outer wrapping. The mass protests currently underway are germane to the discourse about home. This time it's not the national home, but the rental price of affordable long-term housing in the Jewish state. The proximity of Tisha B'Av and the demonstrations has me thinking that the road ahead has grown shorter. Diverting attention away from defense and political issues by trying to forge a new social agenda at home indicates that as a nation we have all come to the realization that we have a home, the Land of Israel.

A friend of mine, a talented graphic designer, submitted an entry for a poster competition on the theme of "home", which featured the famous house shown on Tnuva's cottage cheese containers. This was before the global financial crisis and a long time before the consumer boycott of cottage cheese or the tent encampments. But even so, this poster was a concise and poignant way to express outrage over skyrocketing real estate prices and the fading dream of owning your own "cottage" on a moshav.

So this is where Tisha B'Av and the social justice movement converge. Nowadays talk of "home" is no longer the historical discussion over the meaning of establishing a national home. The middle class, our society's largest sector, perceives the state as its natural home in the truest sense of the word, and now wants to talk about our private homes as well. Regardless of the solution - people have differing opinions - this is uplifting in any case. The days when the notion of a Jewish national home in the Land of Israel was pitted against living in the Diaspora are over. None of us wish to go back to the days of the Diaspora, and emigration is no longer viewed as an obvious remedy for economic distress. Instead, we are focused on trying to change the situation here at home, regardless of how we propose doing so.

Therefore, as the housing protest simmers in the background, it is nice to know that even as we recall the destruction of our home, we have taken concrete steps to remove the Diaspora from the Jew, and we have already entered the first phase of the coming of the Messiah by building a real home for us all in this country.