From Destruction to Redemption. The Timeless Message of Tisha B’Av

One of the biggest questions of all is how to deal with destruction.

What do you do in the aftermath of trauma, of loss, of tragedy, of pain, suffering? Something that none of us are immune to.

We will all, through our lifetimes, experience some form of the above.

Some more extreme, some less extreme.

Some people get shattered, destroyed.

Their lives are permanently altered.

It can lead to all kinds of dysfunctionality, inability to build relationships, lack of trust.

The list goes on.

Others seem to have developed a real resilience that allows them to become stronger in the process and not just survive, but thrive through it.

And yet others, a mix, depending on the day, times where things are really bad and times where you can manage.

Is this just random or is there a formula? Millions, billions, trillions of dollars have been spent I'm looking for a solution.

Medication of all sorts.

Mainstream, alternative, therapies, all kinds of ways to distract, to numb, to relieve ourselves of the pain, of the anxiety, of the anguish.

One place that many of us do not look at, which would be the most obvious one, is how has this been dealt with in the past? What is the scientific method after all? Looking at trial and error, what has worked, what has not worked.

If you look at nations of the world, which nation has suffered most? And I'm not looking to create a competition.

It's not exactly a, uh, a prize you want to win.

But the Jewish people are definitely up there, persecuted by almost every empire that existed throughout history.

Expelled, over-taxed, discriminated, and of course, actual genocides.

And here's this fascinating reality, that the Jewish people are still here today.

A small nation, fourteen, fifteen million strong in a world of eight billion.

Whereas their persecutors, all those great empires are all gone.

Just to name a few, the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Persians, the Romans, the Ottomans, the Spanish, the German, the Nazis, the communists.

Gone.

And the Jewish people are still here.

So it will be well worth studying why.

One of the biggest questions of all is how to deal with destruction.

What do you do in the aftermath of trauma, of loss, of tragedy, of pain, suffering? Something that none of us are immune to.

We will all, through our lifetimes, experience some form of the above.

Some more extreme, some less extreme.

Some people get shattered, destroyed.

Their lives are permanently altered.

It can lead to all kinds of dysfunctionality, inability to build relationships, lack of trust.

The list goes on.

Others seem to have developed a real resilience that allows them to become stronger in the process and not just survive, but thrive through it.

And yet others, a mix, depending on the day, times where things are really bad and times where you can manage.

Is this just random or is there a formula? Millions, billions, trillions of dollars have been spent I'm looking for a solution.

Medication of all sorts.

Mainstream, alternative, therapies, all kinds of ways to distract, to numb, to relieve ourselves of the pain, of the anxiety, of the anguish.

One place that many of us do not look at, which would be the most obvious one, is how has this been dealt with in the past? What is the scientific method after all? Looking at trial and error, what has worked, what has not worked.

If you look at nations of the world, which nation has suffered most? And I'm not looking to create a competition.

It's not exactly a, uh, a prize you want to win.

But the Jewish people are definitely up there, persecuted by almost every empire that existed throughout history.

Expelled, over-taxed, discriminated, and of course, actual genocides.

And here's this fascinating reality, that the Jewish people are still here today.

A small nation, fourteen, fifteen million strong in a world of eight billion.

Whereas their persecutors, all those great empires are all gone.

Just to name a few, the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Persians, the Romans, the Ottomans, the Spanish, the German, the Nazis, the communists.

Gone.

And the Jewish people are still here.

So it will be well worth studying why.