The key theme of Ta-Nehisi Coates\u2019 searing best-seller “Between The World And Me” is the deep\u00a0pessimism he feels about race relations in America. In terms of the Jewish calendar, his book\u00a0could not have been better timed. As Tisha B\u2019Av, commemorating the twofold destruction of\u00a0Jerusalem and the atrocities committed against the Jewish people throughout history, is\u00a0observed this Saturday night and Sunday, Coates resonates especially meaningfully.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the thing that linked Martin Luther King and Malcolm X,\u201d Coates said in a recent New\u00a0York Magazine profile. \u201cPeople say Malcolm was a pessimist. He was a pessimist about\u00a0America. But he was actually very optimistic. Malcolm very much believed in the dream of\u00a0nationalism. He believed we could do it. And Martin believed in the dream of integration. He\u00a0believed that black people could be successful if they did x, y, and z.\u201d<\/p>\n
In fact, Dr. King and Malcolm X mirrored different rabbinic positions during and following\u00a0Judea\u2019s Great Revolt against Rome from 67-70, which ended with the downfall of Jerusalem\u00a0and the destruction of the Temple. As the Revolt began, many Rabbis feared the consequences\u00a0of confronting the overwhelming military power of the Roman Empire. Rather trying to defeat it,\u00a0they attempted to carve out a safe space within it.<\/p>\n
Most dramatically, the Talmud relates how Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai escaped a besieged\u00a0Jerusalem to meet with Vespasian, Commander of the Roman forces encamped outside its\u00a0walls. Rabbi Yochanan bowed before Vespasian, conceded the destruction of the city, and\u00a0asked for his protection over a rabbinic leadership in exile. As the Talmud tells the story, it\u00a0implicitly indicts those Zealots who remained to fight to the bitter end; if only more people had\u00a0been like Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai, perhaps all would not have been lost.<\/p>\n
Later, rabbinic positions with more stridently nationalistic views began to take hold. The\u00a0Babylonian Talmud records the tradition that Jerusalem fell on account of sinat chinaim – the sin\u00a0of baseless hatred reflected in the sectarian infighting that ravaged the city from within even as\u00a0the Romans waited from without. Had the people been properly unified, the Talmud seems to\u00a0claim, they could have withstood the Roman assault and emerged victorious.<\/p>\n
Another tradition goes even further, declaring that for \u201cany generation in which the Temple is not\u00a0built, it is as if it had been destroyed in their times.\u201d In other words, the tragedies that shape the\u00a0landscape of Jewish history happened because the Jews themselves consistently failed to\u00a0rectify the internal flaws and mistakes that enabled them to occur. In either case, these oft-\u00a0referenced sources tell us that Tisha B\u2019Av is a day to rue the shortcomings, sins, and failings\u00a0that led to calamity so that we can adjust our own behavior accordingly.<\/p>\n
Coates, though, rejects this choice categorically. \u201cI suspect they were both wrong,\u201d he\u00a0concludes of Dr. King and Malcolm X. \u201cI suspect that it\u2019s not up to us.\u201d The New York Magazine\u00a0profile explains how Coates believes that \u201cif you strip away the talk of hope and dreams and\u00a0faith and progress, what you see are enduring structures of white supremacy and no great\u00a0reason to conclude that the future will be better than the past.\u201d<\/p>\n
But even as he offers no cure for the burden of racism, Coates relieves his community of the\u00a0burden of responsibility for it. By claiming that the black community possesses agency to\u00a0combat racism, either through integration or nationalist struggle, Dr. King and Malcolm X each\u00a0claim the right to blame the black community, at least in part, for its perpetuation. Coates\u00a0responds that black people cannot end white supremacy, but he is also saying that they did not\u00a0cause it, nor can they exacerbate it through their own \u201cbad behavior.\u201d A foundation of Coates\u2019\u00a0writing is the rejection of so-called \u201crespectability politics,\u201d beginning with his 2008 feature in\u00a0The Atlantic critiquing Bill Cosby\u2019s denunciation of contemporary black culture as a cause of\u00a0modern racism. Coates strongly advocates self-improvement and struggle, which he models in\u00a0his own life, but doesn\u2019t believe it will solve what his community faces.<\/p>\n
As we look realistically at Jewish history, similarities emerge. The fate of Judea was likely\u00a0sealed At the Battle of Actium, decades earlier than the Great Revolt and hundreds of miles\u00a0away, as Augustus Caesar defeated Mark Antony and consolidated the Roman Empire,\u00a0inaugurating a hegemony that would endure for centuries. Over time, ever-developing and ever-\u00a0expanding imperial institutions inevitably created tensions with idiosyncratic local populations\u00a0and cultures. The limited expansionism and relatively secure borders that characterized Pax\u00a0Romana meant there were endless resources to quell internal strife. The ultimate results, for the\u00a0Judeans as well as many other indigenous groups caught in this dynamic, were as terrible as\u00a0they were inexorable. However dramatically its particular story played out, Judea was simply\u00a0caught up and swept away in the larger flow of history.<\/p>\n
Coates will resonate for me this Tisha B\u2019Av as I sit on the floor reciting kinot, the traditional\u00a0liturgical elegies that accompany the reading of the Book of Lamentations. In the afternoon I will\u00a0attend a series of public screenings of video lectures describing the harmful effects of lashon\u00a0hara (gossip and slander) and strategies for avoiding it in everyday life.<\/p>\n
On one level, this traditional choice of afternoon focus is a hyper-literal attempt to rectify the\u00a0aforementioned sin of sinat chinam. In light of Coates, though, I also choose to read the narrow\u00a0response to tragedy as an implicit recognition of powerlessness. By meeting the most tragic\u00a0events in my history with such a deliberately mundane response, we implicitly admit our inability\u00a0to significantly impact the larger forces that negatively impact our world. This Tisha B\u2019Av, I will\u00a0not just be mourning for the tragedies of my people and the brokenness of my world, but also for\u00a0the impotence of our collective response, for the churban that we do not have the power to fix.<\/p>\n
At the same time, though, perhaps we are also asserting that those larger problems are not ours\u00a0to solve. We did not create the conditions that brought the wrath of Rome down on the Temple,\u00a0nor the history and culture of anti-Semitism that led to the Crusades, Inquisitions and Holocaust.\u00a0We respond to historic calamity by referring back to the rhythms of day-to-day interaction and\u00a0simple, everyday life, self-consciously not grappling with anything larger or more encompassing.\u00a0We choose the path of self-improvement, but disassociated from guilt or blame. If Coates lays\u00a0the legacy of slavery and discrimination at the feet of White America, we place centuries of\u00a0blood-soaked Jewish history at the feet of God\u2019s throne.<\/p>\n
In “Between the World and Me,” Coates teaches his son to accept \u201cstruggle over hope.\u201d Tisha\u00a0B\u2019Av, heavy with the weight of a terrible history and a legacy that continues to this day, is a day\u00a0with little hope. But from one perpetually oppressed group to another, it is telling that the answer\u00a0to hopelessness remains proud, noble struggle.<\/p>\n
Rabbi Avraham Bronstein writes and speaks frequently on topics of politics, Jewish thought, and\u00a0their intersection. He has served a Program Director of Great Neck Synagogue and Assistant\u00a0Rabbi of The Hampton Synagogue, and currently lives with his family in Scranton, PA. Follow\u00a0him on Twitter @AvBronstein.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The key theme of Ta-Nehisi Coates\u2019 searing best-seller “Between The World And Me” is the deep\u00a0pessimism he feels about race relations in America. In terms of the Jewish calendar, his book\u00a0could not have been better timed. As Tisha B\u2019Av, commemorating the twofold destruction of\u00a0Jerusalem and the atrocities committed against the Jewish people throughout history, is\u00a0observed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133089,"featured_media":41975,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inspiration"],"yoast_head":"\n