The Human Mind and the Outer Limits

An example of this process can be found in the non-recitation of "Tahanun" - the penitential prayer - on the ninth of Av. Normally this prayer is omitted on joyous days because of the serious confessional nature of its theme. It would, therefore, seem to be a "natural" for inclusion in the liturgy on that day, when we commemorate our worst and most terrible historic tragedies. Included in this commemoration are the destruction of both the First and Second Temples, the loss of the first and second Jewish Commonwealths, the Spanish Expulsion in 1492, and - at least in some synagogues - the Holocaust. For those who believe that God's Providence plays an active role in shaping the course of History, sin must certainly have contributed to His decision to visit such tragedies on our people. Even for those who do not so believe, the events of the 9th of Av still make it an appropriate time for introspection and "Teshuva" (repentance). "Tahanun" is a natural vehicle for such sentiments. Yet it is not included in the liturgy on this most tragic of days.

Traditionally the explanation for this anomaly is that the Messiah will, when he arrives, be born on this date. The day, therefore, carries a latent festive as a contemporary event, and, in fact, so the claim goes, will eventually be transformed into an actual holiday once the Messiah is born and completes his mission, thus precluding the "Tahanun" recitation. This bit of Midrash is by no means normative even within traditional literature. We await the Messiah, "Bechol Yom Sheyavoh" on any day that he chooses to come. When he comes he will not need to pass a "birthday" test as a necessary condition of his being deemed credible. Further, there are many sources that tell of the Messiah being born at creation (which traditionally is believed to have occurred on and around Rosh Hashanah), and only awaiting the right moment to reveal himself. Finally even the source of our Midrashic ninth of Av, "holiday" is itself suspect. It states that on the day of the destruction of the Temple, the Messiah was born. In context it appears to refer to the Ninth of Av 70 C.E. and not to every annual repetition of the date. Therefore, it was probably, originally meant as a powerfully defiant claim that redemption and salvation were already present at the moment of destruction, that we as a people will ultimately be triumphant, and that we will not accept defeat. Important though this is, no intent to make a holiday out of this tragic day is evident in the source or its original context.

Despite the evidence of the literature itself, the Ninth of Av remains the future birthdate of the Messiah in our popular culture, and our investment in that claim has created and maintains the liturgical anomaly of non-recitation of "Tahanun", thus creating a festive moment, on the most tragic day of our Jewish year. What this creates ultimately, is an even more powerful statement of transcendence, of courage and refusal to capitulate to tragedy. The emergence of the indominable spirit of the Jew - of the human being in the finest and fullest sense of the term - appears in those few festive moments as we collectively make the statement that we will not wallow in tragedy, we will not be defeated by it, we will not accept the imposed limitations and definitions of this day that is otherwise seen as a time of complete and unyielding tragedy. We will push the limits, redefine the boundaries, and bring, at least an intimation of triumph and joy into the day.

It is remarkable how often, and in how many different dimensions of human experience, Jewish law and practice reflects this fundamental and distinctive human need and desire to reach beyond what "is", toward something larger and better. A powerful example is our usage of time. Our holidays are defined as 24 or 25 hour of time. If the day in question is a multi-day holiday, then seven or eight or nine such periods demarcate it. Yet all of our holidays carry a sort of penumbra effect in which the times that surround them, both before and after the holiday, are altered by the presence of the holiday. There is a three week build-up of increasingly stringent mourning practices leading to the Ninth of Av. The month before Rosh Hashanah is a time of daily shofar blowing, penitential prayers, and special alterations of the liturgy. We ritually count fifty days to get to Shavous from Passover. Leave your home before Purim with plans that will keep you away until after Passover, and you need not remove leaven from your home. Leave after Purim, i.e. within 30 days of Passover, even if you will not return for months, and you must conduct the Search for Leaven the night before you leave.

The penumbra effect continues after the holiday as well. One does not eat meat, nor shave, nor take a haircut until noon of the 10th of Av as some aspects of the mourning period continue. So too, eulogies for the deceased are not offered on the day after a festival, because joy, too, strains and alters the boundaries that attempt to contain and constrain it.

Personal space, a modern psychological construct with ancient Jewish parallels, displays these same "boundary - bending" propensities in its treatment within Jewish law. The legal principle of "Daled Amot" (4 cubits) operates in, for example, the case of a lost object, lacking a unique identifying mark that becomes the property of the finder. Should such an object lie within 4 cubits (approximately six feet) of me it belongs to me.

Even if someone else were to cross the room and quickly snatch it from the ground before I could pick it up, my claim would be superior, as it is located in my personal space. My teacher, Rabbi Moses Tendler of Yeshiva University commented on this principle by saying, "Jewish law has made the 4 cubits around the person equivalent to his living room. One would not run through someone's living room to get where he was going if he was in hurry. Then why do we run through people's personal space in this way?" In fact, the limits of my physical body are clearly defined in spacial terms. However, my personal space extends beyond those limits, thus breaking the bonds of the strict and limiting real world definition, and again expressing that defining human need for transcendence.

Human beings in the aggregate also display this same propensity, as expressed through Jewish legal treatment. Early biblical history is written against the transformation of the Jewish nation from a nomadic people to a more settled and civilized community of city dwellers. Each city that was built and settled in the promised land was an outpost of civilization and a victorious banner raised high in the battle against the desert and other elements that would defeat this process if allowed to do so. But Jewish law was not satisfied with limiting a city to its boundaries. Beyond the city walls an area of as much as 2,000 cubits was to be used to extend the city's identity into the unsettled area beyond. Among the purposes of these extended domains was the demarcation of an area left uncultivated in which the city dweller could enjoy the amenities of cool breezes and a pastoral setting. This "Migrash" as it is called in Jewish law, was required for all cities under Jewish control. In this way civilization in its best and most environmentally conscious form, was also not limited to its immediate boundaries, but pushed beyond them. So, too, the symbolic message was thus expressed that more was left to accomplish and that the challenge of civilizing the world would be met.

The totality that emerges from this multi-dimensional reappearance of the "expansion beyond the limits theme" in time, space, society and celebration truly touches on something fundamental to the essential human being. In one of the Star Trek movies Dr. McCoy offers a brief tribute to his remarkably successful Captain Kirk and attributes that success to Kirk's unique capacity to expand the possibilities, to reach beyond the limits of the particular situation, to find an additional unthought of way to beat the odds. Frankly, any human being who does not possess at least some intimation, some hint that there is more that is possible than what is present in the here and now has lost a great deal of what makes us special. As the old song says. "Is that all there is? If that's all there is, then let's keep dancing". The ennui and despair in the song and in such a life situation is excrutiatingly painful precisely because we sense that it marks the loss of the core of spirituality and meaning that all human beings need, in order to simply keep going, if not to achieve an appropriate quality of life.

Many of society's critics and analysts have commented that ours is the first generation that does not operate on the assumption that things will be better for our children than they have been for ourselves. In fact, most of us believe and fear that the opposite will be true. Is it any wonder that ennui, depression and a sense of despair are such a distressingly regular part of our society - to our great loss?

One snapshot of this loss: A recent television news story interviewed teenagers on their way out of the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum in Washington. Listening to youngster after youngster talk about costs and domestic problems to be solved as the totality of his or her response to the prospect of continued space exploration at this juncture in our history was extremely troubling to me. One can certainly debate the merits and size of the space program. But if even teenagers don't express some excitement and exhilaration in contemplating pushing the limits and reaching for the stars, we have certainly lost something very precious.

We return finally to the 9th of Av, this day that by history, liturgy, and ritual is a day of ultimate, unending, unyielding, unbearable darkness and tragedy. With all the extensive Midrashic material that discusses the day and its sad history, there is one lone source that may suggest, if you don't read too carefully, that one year, some year, maybe this year, a baby might be born on the 9th of Av who will bring the ultimate transcendence of all our limitations and fundamentally transform the reality in which we live from the harshness that we know to the ultimate good that we pray for. From this we created a moment of Yom Tov, of holiday celebration in the midst of despair.

To not do so would be to stop being human.