Tisha B’Av at Ground Zero, and keeping Jewish time since

by Bill Miles

May 26, 2010

8th of Av, 5759, at the Kotel. It is now politically incorrect to called it the Wailing Wall, the last extant rampart of the Second Temple where for two thousand years Jews demonstrably lamented the destruction of Jerusalem. For self-conscious modern Zionists, proud of the ’67 recapture of Old Yerushalayam and still a wee bit ashamed of their pious ancestors’ open-air lachrymosity, Western Wall has become the preferred term. But on the annual summer fast day that commemorates the demolition of both Solomon’s Holy Temple and that of the returnees from Babylon, the wail is still in vogue – at least among the ultraorthodox “black hats,” the haredim, who on this day reclaim the Temple Plaza as their own.

I refuse to be muscled out.

For four years I had regretting missing my chance to spend Tisha B’Av at the Wall, having elected instead to leave my sabbatical residence in Jerusalem and help lead a group of Reform youth in a tour of the desert. This time, on the eve of the last Lamentation of the Common Era millennium, I eagerly traveled up to the Holy City all the way from the lowlands of the Negev. Fortifying myself with a quick dinner and beer at an Arab restaurant just inside Jaffa Gate, I rushed off to the Kotel just as the sun began to wane so as not to miss an aleph of the experience.

Except for two haredim who looked like hobos, I am virtually the only one present.

I stake my territory in the northwest corner of the men’s area, near the water faucets, and settle back to watch. The tawdry pair are sitting on a mat on the ground. One of them, downing a quick meal of egg and rye bread, constantly glances at his timepiece as he monitors the official onset of the fast.  What have wristwatches done to ancient observance,  I wonder, by providing exact measures of God-time?

The early-bird black hat has come to the Kotel equipped with a toothbrush and toothpaste. He warily eyes a couple of foreign photographers, whom he knows have been watching him and awaiting the best opportunity for a shoot. Gesticulating, he emphatically orders the cameramen not to take his picture.

8:15 pm. I reposition myself slightly to the south, on a stone bench next to some haredi boys and two modern Orthodox. One of the boys tells me that the spot I am sitting on is reserved. I stay put. After some time the boy leaves, handing me his prayer book and telling me to return it to the man who had given it to him. I have no idea whom he is talking about.

From my stone bench perch, I am perfectly situated between two separate circles of “lamenters.” The mournful cacophony is strangely moving. My exoticized state of mind is rudely broken by two Americans sitting nearby– the first one slim, white-haired, sporting a modest beard and speaking with a slight European accent; the other, enormous, with a strapping belly, carrying on about his e-mail business exploits. “I don’t know how I could exist without e-mail,” says the one called “Tummy’ by his companion. They discuss the hazards of e-vulnerability.

As the din of the dueling Lamentation circles mounts, so does Tummy’s voice. “Computer crashes? Why should I worry? I’ve got loads of computers lying around. I’ll just pick up another one.”

The conversation finally shifts from business to religion. “There are two kinds of Reform congregations,” intones Tummy. Half of them are truly Reform Jews. The other half are goyim.”

“I don’t care. Look, even here, at the Wall, who knows who’s Jewish?” The companion has an interesting point. Jewish women are strictly forbidden from entering the men’s section of the Kotel. Yet Gentile men face no impediment whatsoever.

With Tummy’s drivel detracting from the esthetics of Lamentations, a Sephardi with pointy beard, oversize kippa (skullcap) and payot (earlocks), nestles in on the ground in the little space in front and just to the side of me. Tubby Tummy is forced to move to another bench.  No sooner does he do so than he is a approached by a grumpy Temple mourner who complains of bad feet. Tummy – despite his tough talk and obnoxious attitudes – turns out to be a freier, a sucker. He and his friend surrender their last remaining seating opportunity.

The elderly Sephardi at my feet greets two younger men who join him. In an extremely guttural, Arabic-sounding Hebrew, he repeatedly chants the opening lines of Lamentations: Aicha yashva vadar ha-eer…

Alas!

Lonely sits the city

Once great with people!

She that was great among nations

Is become like a widow;

The princess among states

Is become a mere colony.

Strolling along Ben Hillel Street, I walk into a watch shop, in pursuit of a surprisingly rare commodity: a timepiece with Hebrew, as opposed to Arabic, numerals on its face. Two pertly made-up young women – one originally from Russia, the other from Georgia - attend to me. “Are you Jewish?” asks one of them, à propos of nothing. “Of course he is,” interrupts the other, before I can come up with a proper Tisha B’Av comeback. “So what?” counters the first. “He’s in Israel. Anyone in Israel may want a Hebrew watch.” 

She was right, of course. Except that outside of Israel, the Hebraic watch around my wrist announces my identity just as assuredly as would a Chai around my neck. And anyone in Israel, Jewish or not, is free to lament – or not – on this Day of Lamentations. Yet, I wonder, is it not lamentable for the Jew to wail still, more than half a century since the reestablishment of the Jewish state? To wail for the victims of terrorism, perhaps; to wail for the death of peace, yes.  But to wail for a Temple whose reconstruction would entail a reversion to animal sacrifice? I don’t think so. 

Who, in the end, keeps Jewish time better? He who wails once a year at the destroyed Temple of two thousand years past; or he who glances at a Hebrew watch scores of times every day?

Don’t answer. Just ask me what time it is.

Bill (William F.S.) Miles is professor of political science and the former Stotsky Professor of Jewish Historical and Cultural Studies at Northeastern University in Boston.