What We Need This Tisha B’Av: Respectful Disagreement

By Ben Greenberg | August 1, 2014

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The world is in chaos. An airplane with more than 300 people shot down over Ukraine. Hundreds of thousands of people killed in Syria. A fundamentalist Islamist regime has swept through large swaths of Iraq and initiated mass torture, murder and exile of Christians and other non-Muslims. A war between Israel and the terrorist group, Hamas. The exodus of thousands of children from Central America to the United States and the humanitarian crisis along our southern border. The daily deaths of young people from gun violence in our urban centers.

couple-arguing-3 All of these events and even more not mentioned have yielded endless discussions and debates. How to address each conflict? How to handle the humanitarian crisis of Central American children? Who is right? Who is wrong? One can see people vigorously discussing these matters during Shabbat lunches and online through social media. Oftentimes, these discussions become accusatory and disrespectful. We believe so strongly in our position that we become personally offended when one disagrees with us.

The time has come to recommit ourselves to respectful disagreement.

This coming week we will mark the 9th of the Hebrew month of Av. The day is the moment when the Jewish people mourn our losses as a people: The destruction of the Temple (both the first and the second); the exile from our land; the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, the Holocaust. We engage in a full day of intensive mourning rituals and powerful liturgy meant to evoke the indescribable horrors in our hearts and minds.

One of the most powerful pieces of liturgy is the
Arzei HaLevanon
, in which the deaths of some of the brightest, most profound Torah leaders of the Jewish people are recorded in agonizing detail. This is read twice in the Jewish calendar: Once on Yom Kippur and the second time on the 9th of Av. There are slight differences between the two readings. Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik zt”l understands the disparities to indicate a difference between the purposes of the two readings. On Yom Kippur we recount their loss in order to inspire repentance while on the 9th of Av we recount their loss in order to simply mourn what we have lost.

What did we lose? Our tradition teaches us that “Torah scholars increase peace in the world.” Maimonides understands this to mean that learning Torah brings more peace into the world than any other pursuit. How is that possible? When one opens up any page of Talmud one will discover it is full of disagreements and arguments!

Perhaps it is because it is not that we argue that is the problem. There will be differences of opinion. People will see things from different vantage points. It is how we argue that is the issue. The very best of the Torah sages, including and most notably the ones we mourn for on the 9th of Av and on Yom Kippur, reflected the very highest ideal of how to hold opinions and disagree with others. They modeled respectful disagreement. On the 9th of Av we cry over their loss. We cry over their horrible deaths and we cry over our failure to live up to the model they set forth.

We are in dark and difficult days. We are inundated with different viewpoints and perspectives thanks to social media and we cannot shy away from these conversations during our social gatherings. This 9th of Av let us reflect on not how to disagree less but how to better and more respectfully disagree.

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