10th of Tevet: Historical and current perspective - opinion

For 2,000 years, the Jewish people have been observing the fast of Tevet as a starting point of the process that led to the destruction of the Temple. With the reestablishment of our people in the Land of Israel, we also note in this month the dates of birth and death of the leaders of cultural-spiritual Zionism. 

The birthday of Haim Nachman Bialik on the 10th of Tevet; the birthday of Eliezer Ben Yehuda, the father of modern Hebrew on the 21st of Tevet; the birthday of Berel Katznelson at the end of the month, and later the death of Ahad Ha’am, Bialik’s teacher and one of the founders of spiritual-cultural Zionism. 

From the dawn of its existence, the people of Israel put their faith in their spirit. During 2,000 years of exile, our people suffered destruction and crises like no other nation. Again and again, we rose like the phoenix and continued to create and demand a meaningful life.

We have renewed the Torah and Jewish life in every generation all around the world, and thus it has remained relevant and meaningful to the Jews who strive for spiritual life. 

Meaning through faith

The Jewish spirit has always allowed those who believe in it to live a life of knowledge and happiness, of vision and hope, a life of meaning and faith.

In places and times when the  Torah has become a tool of political confrontation in the hands of one faction or another, our people knew expulsions, hatred, and destruction. However, in the days when the Torah was the possibility for love, community, in-depth study, and especially morality and human rights, the people of Israel knew prosperity and flourishing. 

On the 11th of Tevet, 81 years ago, Abba Kovner shouted the words “Let us not go like lambs to the slaughter.” Kovner’s call echoed all the way to North America, where in the same year the Reform Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver convened a conference at the Biltmore Hotel in New York with the participation of David Ben-Gurion and Chaim Weizmann. At this conference, Herzl’s dream of a Jewish state became a work plan to realize the Jewish people’s vision of hope: “No more lambs to the slaughter.”

This wonderful ability to grow from hardship to cultural and spiritual prosperity is the secret of our existence throughout all generations. 

Our people have the ability to turn a vision into hope, and this, in turn, into a work plan, which is achieved in reality – as difficult as it may be.

In these terrible days, when the people of Israel are experiencing firsthand the power of the words: “Though I walk through the shadow of the valley of death”  (Psalms 23:4), while we witness the attempt to bring about the destruction of Israel – as well as the challenges of leadership in our nation – it is our duty to raise our heads and prepare for the building of new Jewish life in Israel and in the Diaspora. As long as the foundation of  our people rests on the spiritual element, we can continue to exist and grow stronger. 

On the 10th of Tevet, we must remember not only the date of the destruction but mainly the gradual process that led to it. Destruction begins with a siege, sometimes internal and sometimes external, sometimes it will be physical and sometimes spiritual, and above all, with a feeling of suffocation.

When we are under siege, we must recognize it and prepare ourselves for what is to come. If we don’t do that, it’s only a matter of time until the external and internal walls in our lives are broken, and from there the road to destruction is short. 

There are “real” and external historical reasons for the destruction of the Temples of the people of Israel, and certainly for the Holocaust in Europe in the last century. However, the choice of the creators of Jewish culture throughout the generations was always to look for the spiritual meaning that can be gleaned from these destructions.

Moreover, the leadership after the destruction always focused on finding and creating spiritual forces within. Then they created new mechanisms for the continuation of the culture and spirit of the people of Israel.

This was the case in the first Jewish renewal movement after the destruction of the Second Temple in the first century of the common era. Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai created a new Jewish paradigm that was completely different from First and Second Temple Judaism: A model of Jewish renewal that was not focused on self-pity or on the search for culprits, but rather on creating and continuing cultural and religious work. 

This is the case with Abba Kovner and other heroes of Israel and the Zionist movement in modern times. It is very symbolic and moving, in my opinion, that like Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai, Abba Kovner was also privileged to see the rise of Israel (after the Holocaust), and, as a poet, was among the creators of the renewal of Jewish culture in the early days of the state. 

In this difficult time for the people of Israel, we will remember that the secret of our strength is our ability to choose the spiritual, the word, the speech, and the discourse. The people of Israel chose and shaped their God as one who created the world with words and as the one who brought the people of Israel out of slavery to freedom. 

The people of Israel chose Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai, who placed Jewish renewal, acts of kindness, and the value of tikkun olam at the center of Jewish culture. Likewise, we chose the cry of Abba Kovner who called “out of the depths” and fought for us to be people who choose life. 

On October 7, the sky fell in Israel, and our generation has the sacred task of rising up and continuing the path that our forefathers and foremothers walked for thousands of years: to teach the heroism of Israeli civil society, to extol the stories of the heroism of those who were murdered and killed in defense of our beautiful country; and to educate for the cultural and spiritual renewal of our people in the land of Israel.

This is the time and place to teach about Israel’s character as a Jewish democratic society and to reinforce the values of our Declaration of Independence, which is the basis of our identity in times of peace and especially in times of war. 

The writer, a rabbi, is headmaster and managing director of the Leo Baeck Education Center.