Gallup Independent, 8/1/20, New Mexico Jewish Link Fall, 2020
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Tisha B’Av, the ninth day of the month of Av in the Hebrew calendar, occurred this year on Thursday, July 30, 2020. It is the day that traditionally commemorates the saddest tragedies of the Jewish people throughout history, beginning with the destruction of the First and Second Temples. This year, this same day also was the funeral of the great civil rights leader, John Lewis, who devoted his life to voting rights. There was a meaningful correlation that reverberated between these two events.
Jewish people vote, religiously. It was estimated in 2008 that 96% of all people who self-identified as Jews voted in the presidential election. This impetus to vote may be traced to the destruction of the First Temple, the Temple of Solomon, in 586 BC by Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon. When he exiled the Jews of the Kingdom of Judah to Babylon, Jews would learn to acclimate themselves as a people without a land.
John Lewis, when he knew he was dying, earlier in July penned an essay to be read aloud at his funeral. Listening to it, you can feel his deep religious convictions about voting. He wrote, “Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself.
“Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble. Voting and participating in the democratic process are key. The vote is the most powerful nonviolent change agent you have in a democratic society. You must use it because it is not guaranteed. You can lose it.”
Lewis saw the storm coming. Earlier that same morning, July 30, before Lewis was buried, the U.S. president, having not been invited to the funeral, tweeted “…Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???”
In a Washington Post perspectives column published later that day, “Trump’s ‘Delay the Election’ checks all 8 rules for fascist propaganda,” Yale University professor of history Timothy Snyder wrote “With this tweet, the president both revives fascist propaganda and exploits a new age of Internet post- truth: He follows a trail blazed by fascists, but adds a twist that is his own. A fascist guide to commentary on elections would have eight parts: contradict yourself to test the faith of your followers; tell a big lie to draw attention from basic realities; manufacture a crisis; designate enemies; make an appeal to pride and humiliation; express hostility to voting; cast doubt on democratic procedures; and aim for personal power.
“…This is where the differences with historical fascists begin. Fascists believed in responsibility: a terrible responsibility, as they understood it — the need to destroy an old decadent world in the name of a new racial paradise, to drown democracy in blood, to fight wars for territory abroad, to set the world on fire. Trump has no such visions and no sense of responsibility, terrible or otherwise. He simply prefers to stay in power and have a comfortable life. He expresses just enough fascism to make this possible.”
In their regular column, “Ask The Rabbi,” the independent Jewish magazine Moment asked rabbis in the May-June, 2016 issue, “Are We Commanded to Vote?” Rabbis from nine different flavors of Judaism responded: Independent, Humanist, Renewal, Reconstructionist, Reform, Conservative, Modern Orthodox, Orthodox and Chabad. All agreed that while we are not ‘commanded’ to vote, we are obligated to (God did not “command” us to vote because back in Biblical days we lived in monarchies, not democracies). In short, voting is definitely a thing, among Jews.
Each person counts, and by voting, you affirm that value. Chabad Rabbi Dov Wagner responded, “We each count. Every one. And each person counts for no more—and no less—than one. Although that may be arguable at times in the vagaries of our political structures, it never varies where it truly matters—in our absolute and essential value in the eyes of G-d.”
Judaism teaches tikkun olam, that we are here to repair the world, to be involved in the social welfare of society. Modern Orthodox Rabbi Yitzhak Greenberg of Riverdale, NY, wrote, “The prophet Jeremiah does say that the Israelites should join in the country where they live, should build it, seek its welfare and pray for it. Voting is a key way to assure the well-being of the country. I believe that democracy is the political system most likely to advance the Torah’s goal of tikkun olam—to repair the world—so that every human being is treated as an equal, valuable and unique image of God.”
Independent Rabbi Gershon Winkler, of the Walkingstick Foundation, underscored how this passage from Jeremiah was related to Tisha B’Av, “It was long ago suggested that we do what we can to contribute to the general welfare of the lands in which we sojourn. One could argue that voting may be a part of this contribution. The suggestion came to the prophet Jeremiah in a message from God, which he forwarded to our exiled ancestors following the destruction by the Babylonians of the First Jewish Commonwealth more than 2,400 years ago:
‘To all [those] I have exiled from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat of their yield. Start families, have children, and help your children start families, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace of the village to which I have exiled you, and pray to God on her behalf, for in her state of peace shall you too find peace” (Jeremiah 29:4-7).’
In 2018, Reform Rabbi Josh Levy wrote, in an essay for the reform community of Great Britain, “Reform Judaism in 1000 Words: Tisha B’Av” (https://www.reformjudaism.org.uk/reform-judaism-in-1000-words-tisha-bav/, 7/19/2018), about how Tisha B’Av allowed a freedom that gave agency to each individual. “The model of Judaism lost in the destruction of the Temples was one in which God is the preserve of one location – the Temple in Jerusalem; one caste – the hereditary priesthood… As a result of the loss of the Temple, Judaism evolved to a form in which all can be in relationship with God irrespective of where we are or who we are … through prayer and through the way in which we live our lives.”
Navajo humanist Frank Morgan has expressed a deep sentiment in Navajo thought in his teachings, “They say that Shiprock was a great flying monster and it was later killed by the older Warrior Twin, Monster-slayer. Eagles evolved from transformation of the monster. We say that there is always transformation from destruction.”
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