As Tisha B'av draws near, maybe Mark Twain, in this essay from 1898, can remind us what we, as Jews, tend to forget as the world spins around us. We mourn for not only the loss of the Temple, but for the loss of all it should have stood for-community, togetherness, a place where being a Jew is to be dedicated to ones people and their Creator, a place of love and understanding, of higher learning and rampant spirituality....a place that Hashem can call home.
But we forgot what we were supposed to stand for, the promise we were to bring humanity and the light we should have been. Now, we suffer in embarrassment for the ethos we have turned on its head and called it righteousness. We paint our own disinterest in our uniqueness with the broad brush of man made morality and cling to a phony promise of joining the masses for they will soon take us in and treat us like their own and all will be forgotten. History has taught us that no matter how bright the star, how golden the land and how engrossing the potential, it is the Jew who has never been let into the club. Twain reminds us of all of that.
We have been viceroys, advisors, generals, chiefs of staffs, doctors of Kings, the wealthiest and most influential at each and every stop-every single place we have ever been-yet the world never fails to let us know that we are still not theirs. Do not be fooled that this time is different. At this moment in history, the world is screaming the message that no matter the song, the tune remains the same--the Jews are still Jews-whether they call us settlers, Zionists, right wing fanatics, neo cons, Pro Israel, liberals, progressives or even just Jews, they are reminding us that the doors while ajar, will never be fully open no matter how hard we try to kick them in. They remind us of all we have lost as a people, who, even as we see history repeating itself time and again, trust the loving and forgiving nature that our hearts posses, instead of the mass of evidence we see before our eyes. The world is once again reminding us what we have lost and seemingly what we have forgotten.
So I will rely on Mark Twain to remind us of what we have always been and let each one of us answer the question he poses at the end.... I can only come up with one answer...what is yours?
CONCERNING THE JEWS ...by Mark Twain Harpers Magazine 1898
"If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world's list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvellous fight in the world, in all the ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?"
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