{"id":69546,"date":"2020-02-04T06:18:30","date_gmt":"2020-02-04T04:18:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=69546"},"modified":"2023-08-30T09:11:34","modified_gmt":"2023-08-30T06:11:34","slug":"the-fault-is-not-in-our-stars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-fault-is-not-in-our-stars\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fault Is Not In Our Stars"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[783,915,412,572],"acf":{"old_id":"69546","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":69033,"related_cahpter":"408","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"By blaming ourselves for our suffering, we become masters of our fate, not victims","content":"

Why are we sitting by? Let us gather into the fortified cities And meet our doom there. For the LORD our God has doomed us, He has made us drink a bitter draft, Because we sinned against the LORD<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>(verse 14).<\/span><\/p>\n

Who are the villains in Jeremiah? They are the Jews themselves, who brought about their own destruction with their sins. Author Dara Horn calls this tendency of Jews to believe that anti-Semitism is their own fault the \u2018Eicha problem\u2019. While in its classical form the \u2018Eicha problem\u2019 might be phrased as, \u201cThe way to stop anti-Semitism is to stop sinning against God,\u201d\u00a0 it also has secular forms. Hayim Nahman Bialik, in his poem \u201cIn the City of Slaughter\u201d after the 1903 Kishinev Pogroms, criticized traditional Jews for reciting the confession of sins in response to tragedy. Yet, Bialik\u2019s Zionist response was likewise informed by the \u2018Eicha Problem\u2019. He blames the Jews for not having defended themselves from attack. Either way, Jewish suffering is the Jew\u2019s fault.<\/span><\/p>\n

Horn argues that we are foolish to take responsibility for others\u2019 aggression against us. We must stop blaming ourselves. While Horn is right to call attention to how we process national tragedy, Eicha and Jeremiah are not the problem; they are part of the solution. Jeremiah embodies a fundamental Jewish philosophy that has allowed us to survive through history despite our political weakness. We believe that we matter. We believe that our actions matter. We do not believe that we are victims. We believe (whether in religious terms through our commitment to God and the Torah or in secular terms through our engagement politically, militarily, or diplomatically) that our fate is in our own hands.<\/span><\/p>\n

To fully assign blame to others is to lose our belief in our own capacity to act. The belief that we control our own destiny, no matter our enemy’s actions, has allowed us to consider a future that might be different. It has allowed us to hope for better tomorrows.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

image: from \u201cThe City of Slaughter,\u201d from the Complete Poetic Works of Khayyim Nahkman Bialik, edited by Israel Efros \u2013 1948 [Lionel S. Reiss]<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":69547,"id":69547,"title":"jer8-suffering-Bialik-Lionel-S-Reiss-130-The-City-of-Slaughter","filename":"jer8-suffering-Bialik-Lionel-S-Reiss-130-The-City-of-Slaughter.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/jer8-suffering-Bialik-Lionel-S-Reiss-130-The-City-of-Slaughter.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-fault-is-not-in-our-stars\/jer8-suffering-bialik-lionel-s-reiss-130-the-city-of-slaughter\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"jer8-suffering-bialik-lionel-s-reiss-130-the-city-of-slaughter","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":69546,"date":"2020-02-04 04:18:04","modified":"2021-08-11 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