Tisha B’Av, the Holocaust and The Power of Speech

In our Shul, we try to include some programming on the Holocaust on Tisha B’Av. This year in addition to the CCHF videos, we had a survivor tell his story, and we showed a number of videos about the Holocaust. Although the turnout for the CCHF videos and the survivor’s story were very good, the Holocaust videos did not draw big audiences. I think the low video turnout is because many people, who’s parents were not survivors, want to move past the Holocaust and it’s extremely painful images.

I think there are two important messages of the Holocaust. The first one is from the Haggadah:

“And it is this [covenant] that has stood for our Forefathers and us. For not just one enemy has stood against us to wipe us out. But in every generation there have been those who have stood against us to wipe us out, and the Holy One Blessed Be He saves us from their hands.”

We need to remember this and realize that until the coming of Moshiach, we always have to be pray and do our hishtadlus to try to mitigate the effects of those who wish to do us harm.

The second message gives us insight on why it makes sense to remember the Holocaust on Tisha B’Av itself. Rabbi Noson Weisz points out that

“God never retaliates hastily against public sins committed by the Jewish people. Before He initiates concrete corrective measures He sends us messages of ‘tochacha.’ The destruction only arrives if we fail to react to the words of ‘tochacha’ and make no move to institute changes in our lives to mend the spiritual flaws that caused us to sin.
…
Sin alone never brings on destruction. God is just; it is He who made us mortal and fallible and gave us free will. If He were to destroy us for the sins we commit, the destruction could be laid at His own doorstep.”

In the days of the Moshe through the destruction of the Second Beis HaMikdashes, the tochacha was through prophecy, and much of the Tisha B’Av liturgy is focused on our shunning their words. In our post prophecy the tochacha comes through harmful events, like the Holocaust, making the exact improvements needed difficult to discern, but the often quote Talmud in Yoma (9b) gives us some general direction: “Why was the Second Temple destroyed? Because of sinat chinam, senseless hatred of one Jew for another.”.

This year the Chofetz Chaim Heritage Foundations videos, titled the “Last Tisha B’Av”, focused on working on the sin of Loshon Hara. In his “practical steps” presentation, Charlie Harary pointed out that this is only the third time in 16+ years that this was the topic, although most of us would have initially thought otherwise.

As part of his presentation, Charlie informed us of a new internet project called PowerOfSpeech.org. It gives us social media tools to help us work on our speech collectively.

Please take a look at Power of Speech, so we can make some personal efforts towards making this the Last Tisha B’Av.