The Two Space Solution

How a fractured WhatsApp group mimics the message of Tisha B'Av.

💦 Droplets (Announcements)

🗓️ My friend Darielle’s free, online class on the Jewish calendar has been poppin’! It’s halfway through, but you can still join us as we learn about a different Jewish holiday and look at sources—both ancient and modern. Next class is on 8/17 - sign up here!

🎭 I met an Israeli tourist who’s visiting NYC for two weeks to participate in a musical improv class (I know, I know…). He’s leaving soon and reeeeally wants people to come out and support his final show today before Shabbat rolls in. Tickets are $5 each. See you there.

🤭 I’ve been writing this blog for 3 years and only just realized that most responses have been going straight to the spam folder. I’m not ignoring you! Until I can figure out how to fix that, I will check spam constantly.

---

Tisha B’Av starts tomorrow! You know what that means! Fasting, praying, and sitting on the floor. There goes the weekend… 😩

In all seriousness, this mournful holiday, which always falls on the 9th of Av, commemorates the destruction of our Temple in Jerusalem—the original and the sequel.

We’re supposed to feel this loss deep in our souls. Over the past few years, I’ve gradually leaned into this holiday a bit more, as I’ve done with all holidays since taking Judaism a little more seriously.

Two years ago, I wrote about how inconvenient it is that Judaism’s least fun holiday occurs during the most fun part of the year. I was annoyed that Tisha B’Av fell in the middle of my vacation. I was young and immature.

Last year, I was less whiny, and wrote about how October 7th changed my view of Tisha B’Av since I was marking a tragedy that happened during my lifetime (we tend to mark modern-day tragedies as well on this day). Again, the holiday occurred during a vacation (I need to plan better), but I watched this film about the destruction of the Second Temple told through oil paintings. Highly recommend. That Drop inspired a friend to fast on Tisha B’Av.

But there’s another theme tied to this day, and that’s sinat chinam, or baseless hatred.

You see, the rabbis believed that the Second Temple wasn’t destroyed by the Romans alone, but that it fell because of baseless hatred among Jews. They saw a fractured Jewish society, full of infighting and social divisions between groups like the Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, and others. In fact, one famous Talmudic story blames the destruction on a party invitation sent to the wrong guest, which led to said guest turning on the Jews and accusing them of rebellion to the Romans. Big yikes!

I always thought it ridiculous to emphasize the baseless hatred rather than the Roman attack, until 10/7, when Hamas decided to attack Israel at a time when it was heavily divided politically. The rabbis’ idea serves as a moral message to society, one that still resonates today. And boy, do I love a learning lesson.

Just the other day, a Jewish community of which I am a proud member, and one I hold dear to my heart, saw similar disagreement that led to fracturing, but thankfully not a Roman siege.

The group, which identifies itself as Zionist, was revived as a response to too many anti-Israel or disengaged groups emerging in its borough. While its 200+ members’ beliefs, politics, and backgrounds vary, we all have one thing in common: we love and care about Israel.

But just like Israeli society, we all can’t agree on how the state or war in Gaza should be conducted. We can’t even agree on how to talk about it. Nor should we! It wouldn’t be a Jewish group if we agreed with each other!

So… in a subgroup of our community WhatsApp, one in which people are encouraged to discuss in-depth topics on all things Israel, politics, and the like (and one that I always keep muted), things got heated, which led to so-called trolling, censorship, hurt feelings, and strong disagreements. So much so that a new WhatsApp subgroup was formed for those who felt differently from the direction the conversation was going.

While I believe subgroups only divide us further (literally) and create echo chambers, I think there’s important points to be made here: A) Clearly there’s different beliefs within Zionism. People who know and study Zionism know this, but too often, Zionists are painted as monolithic and it irks me. B) Despite our separate beliefs and thousands of WhatsApp subgroups (all of which I plan to mute), we can still come together as one big community, because of our love of Israel. The members who splintered off could have left altogether, but they stayed. I hope we can continue this unity.

I know there are members of this group reading this, so I implore us to keep showing up: to community Shabbat dinners, to organized events around town (like dining at Gazala’s on the Upper West Side to support our Druze friends), and in each other’s lives. In a world that’s seeing an increasing amount of animosity toward Jews these days, we’re all we have.

Tisha B’Av asks us not to just to reflect on the past, but to look forward at how we can build and repair our communities. It’s when we learn to move from sorrow to hope.

At a time when children are starving, 50 hostages (who are also starving) are still in Gaza, and the war doesn’t have an end in sight, it may feel hard to conjure hope. But after both Temples were destroyed, Jewish life was not. In exile, we grieved, then got our act together and rebuilt. Let’s not give up on the communities that sustain us, however different our opinions may be.

…unless of course, your community wishes for the annihilation of a people, or insists that Judaism and Zionism aren’t inextricably linked, but I’ll leave that for you to decide. :P

Speaking of unity, now is a good time to mention I did not come up with the clever name for this Drop, The Two Space Solution. Another community member did. So before anyone kicks me out, I wanted to acknowledge that.

Shabbat Shalom and have an easy fast,