Tisha B'Av
August 2008

By Sassy

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I have not seriously fasted since my early childhood, when the Catholic faith still filled me with a sort of wonderment. From time to time, I deprive myself of certain pleasures, a symbolic fasting before immersing myself in private spiritual thought. However, after a dear Jewish friend educated me about Tisha B'Av, and I realizing it was soon coming around the corner, I decided to try a more serious form of fasting than I'd ever participated in before.

This holiday primarily marks the First and Second Temple's destruction in Jerusalem. They occurred around 656 years apart, but on the same day. The Western Wall of the temple still stands. Once known as the weeping wall, it is now called the Kotel.

In Constantine's Sword by James Carroll I read the following::

"A story in the tradition says that when the Romans set fire to the Temple, six angels came down from heaven, lighting on top of the Western Wall. As the violence mounted and the fire intensified, the angels wept. Their tears kept the flames away from that one part of the Temple, which is why the wall survives to this day. Those angels are still there, tradition says, and they are still weeping." (p. 52)

It also commemorates the day Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492. According to Wikipedia it also marks the day World War One broke out (on the eve of Tisha B'Av in 1914), when Germany declared war on Russia. Other things associated with Tisha B'Av: The return of the twelve scouts sent by Moses to observe the land of Canaan, the razing of Jerusalem following the siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE, the failure of Bar Kokhba's revolt against the Roman Empire, and the Jews being expelled from England in 1290. For a variety of reasons, this is a day of mourning for the Jewish people, the most observant follow the mourning customs normally observed during the period immediately following the death of a close relative.

Another tradition tells a more eerie tale. While wandering the desert for 40 years, the Jews would dig graves the night of Tisha B'Av. They slept in those graves, and every year, 15,000 never woke up. The graves were filled in, and the rest continued their journey. So it continued for 40 years,15,000 always dying. By the time they entered the promised land, the entire generation that came from Egypt was gone. Some place a pebble under their pillow that night, in memory of this tradition.

From sunset one day, until the nightfall the next, I would deny my body food and liquids. I have a few Jewish friends who hold tradition close to their hearts, and decided to follow in their footsteps for a day. I wanted to be brought closer to them by sharing an experience that meant a great deal to them and their ancestors. It brings me great pleasure to understand and share experiences with those who flood me in warmth.

Truth be told, I am no saint. Shocking I know - you may take a moment to catch your breath before reading on. I had just gotten my wisdom teeth pulled three days prior; though the healing was going remarkably well, swallowing was still painful. Eating wasn't something I looked forward to. Limited to soft foods and liquids, I decided to bring some meaning to my medically imposed fasting. Leading up to sunset, I ate well, and drank plenty of water, avoiding oily or salty foods as my experienced friend had advised.

Other traditions forbid the application of cream or oils. People don't wear leather shoes , my guess being that his was considered a lavish luxury in the distant past - though I could be completely wrong on that. No sex, and some go as far as to avoid displays of affection.

I went to bed hungry, but woke up feeling fine. Slipping into unlaundered clothing as tradition suggests, I prepared to run some necessary errands about town. Granted I slept at the office that night, so fresh clothes weren't really an option.

The sky was dark and dreary, befitting of the saddest day in Jewish history. "Perhaps the angels do weep," I thought whimsically.

Stepping into the rain with my little umbrella, I walked across the parking lot. Spotting a cat huddled miserably against a brick wall, I took a moment to pause. The last three days this mysterious cat had been aimlessly roaming the parking lot. Originally I assume its home was amongst the residential houses near by, but wouldn't a cat scramble home at the first sign of rain, hating water as they do? I considered that it might be a stray.

Sadly watching the small creature, I closed my umbrella and walked to the subway exposed to the rain. Only after boarding the train, cold and wet, did I realize something crucial had been left behind at work. The walk back to the office was met with a break in the storm. Crossing the parking lot, the soggy cat noticed me and with a chorus of meows, trotted over and stayed by my side. I slipped back into the office taking what I needed, and grabbed a can of tuna on my way out. We might both be wet, but there was no reason we should both be hungry. The sky was drizzling now, working up to another heavy down pour.

Errands completed I returned to the office where Feedback immediately met me at the door.

"Did you feed the cat?" he asked without a hello.

I considered lying, but the tuna can was sitting half eaten and half filled with rain water outside the front door. "Yes," I reluctantly admitted.

"Don't! We'll never get rid of it."

"Oh horror!" I declared mockingly.

"I'm not kidding! I've seen it happen before. If you keep feeding it, it'll never leave."

"And?" I asked, failing to see his point.

"It'll sit outside the door meowing endlessly."

"And?" I repeated cynically.

"It'll piss off all our neighbors," now he was annoyed with me.

I suppressed the third repetition though I felt it on my lips, sensing it would lead to a fight.

"Just promise you won't do it anymore." I nodded in agreement, simultaneously planning to get a few cans of cat food on my next trip for cigarettes.

So is that it? I'm to let a living being suffer under my nose because it might upset the neighbors? Where does such callousness end? Maybe my neighbors should shut the fuck up and do something helpful and productive. I decided to feed the cat at the other end of the parking lot, to avoid any suspicion of being a descent person. How strange it feels, to carry out acts of random kindness in secrecy.

Good thing Feedback doesn't bother to read my blog.

That night we watched Hotel Rwanda. Maybe it was the lack of food, maybe it was my interaction with the stray, but I cried more than I usually would during such a grotesquely sad movie. In fact, I hadn't cried like that since I saw Titanic.

Now, please don't roll your eyes. It wasn't Titanic itself that made me cry. I had made the mistake of watching a couple of documentaries before seeing the Hollywood interpretation. It was the actual sinking of the ship, watching men playing cards as death loomed over their shoulders, the band choosing to keep playing, the mother telling stories of heaven as water leaked under the door. All these things did happen, and watching it unfold in such a realistic fashion jarred me. I cried at the movie theater until it was over, in the car on the way home, and locked myself in the bedroom where I cried for another hour or so. It was the same with Hotel Rwanda - even after the movie was over I was unsuccessfully fighting back tears for several hours.

Hotel Rwanda is a historical drama about Hôtel des Mille Collines manager Paul Rusesabagina during the 1994 genocide of the Tutsi. There was one militia member for every ten families, organized nationwide, in every neighborhood - and very well armed. Despite the vicious killing of nearly a million people in three months, the world barely spoke of it. Most were killed in their hometown, often by neighbors or other villagers. Typically they were hacked to death with machetes. Those refusing to kill their Tutsi neighbours were killed themselves. In the movie, we learn that the only difference between the Hutu and the "Tutusi cockroaches", was invented by the Belgians. They picked taller, "more elegant" people of lighter skin and thinner noses to run the country in their absence. Apparently they even measured people's noses. Years of such politics lead the Hutu to despise the Tutsi.

One such massacre occurred at Nyarubuye. On 12 April 1994, more than 1,500 Tutsis sought refuge in a Catholic church in Nyange, in then Kivumu commune. Local Interahamwe acting in concert with the priest and other local authorities then used bulldozers to knock down the church building.[2] People who tried to escape were hacked down with machetes or shot. Local priest Athanase Seromba was later found guilty and sentenced to life in prison by the ICTR for his role in the demolition of his church and convicted of the crime of genocide and crimes against humanity.[3][24][25] In another case, thousands sought refuge in Ecole Technique Officielle school in Kigali where Belgian UNAMIR soldiers were stationed. However, on 11 April 1994, Belgian soldiers withdrew from the school and members of the Rwandan armed forces and militia killed all the Tutsis who were hiding there.[26]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Genocide

Originally hiding friends and family at the hotel, Paul takes in orphans and refugees from an overflowing UN camp. Paul Rusesabagina saves 1,268 refugees with bargaining, bribery, and natural intelligence. It is the hotel's appearance of a functioning high-class business keeping the Hutu militia out, but with a hotel overcrowded by refugees, the stress begins to take its toll. Paul is himself mixed, and his wife is Tutsi, making their escape without outside help impossible. To protect against bullets and grenades they put mattresses against the windows and needed to drink the water from the hotel's swimming pool. In an attempt to evacuate his wife and children, they were discovered by the militia and beaten, Paul's position as a sympathizer made his wife a target. Tatiana, his wife, lost her brother and sister-in-law, along with 6 nieces/nephews in the genocide. Her father bribed for an executed to be spared a more violent death.

We all knew we would die, no question. The only question was how. Would they chop us in pieces? With their machetes they would cut your left hand off. Then they would disappear and reappear a few hours later to cut off your right hand. A little later they would return for your left leg etc. They went on till you died. They wanted to make you suffer as long as possible. There was one alternative: you could pay soldiers so they would just shoot you. That's what her [Tatiana's] father did. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Rusesabagina

Rape also played a prominent role in the Rwanda Genocide. Propaganda and authoritarians encouraged the act against Tutsi women and Hutu moderates. Men knowingly infected with HIV raped Tutsi women in the interest of spreading the disease amongst them and their families. Many women were mutilated and died in the course of vicious sexual attacks. Women and children of all ages were attacked, some occurred regardless of ethnicity or affiliation, targated for their youth and beauty. Some were kept as slaves years after the genocide, forced to move to neighboring countries with their captors.

The movie plays out in the midst this raging chaos, in a crowded hotel of terrified people waiting for the UN and the rest of the world to save them. They never come. Instead, all whites are evacuated. The world abandons them.

One member of the UN, drinks away his sorrows at the hotel's bar with Paul watching on:

"You should spit in my face. You're dirt, we think you're dirt Paul. The West, all the super powers, everything you believe in. You're worthless. You're black. You're not even a nigger. You're an African. They're not going to stay, they're not going to stop this slaughter."

So they are left behind, with only 4 peace keepers to guard the hotel, and they aren't allowed to shoot. Paul calls the staff together and gives this speech:

"There will be no rescue, no intervention force. We can only save ourselves. Many of you know influential people, you must call these people. Tell them what will happen to us, say goodbye. But when you say goodbye say is as though you are reaching through the phone and holding their hand. Let them know if they let go of that hand, you will die. We must shame them into sending help."

I've watched some pretty gory movies, in fact I love them. I've burst into laughter and cheered on the villains as friends fell nauseous. However, those were entirely fiction. It's the movies based on reality that shake me to the core. Somewhere inside they break me.

Feedback knows me well enough that this emotional outburst didn't take him aback. He made me a cup of coffee and ordered some chicken wings (my favorite comfort food), which was acceptable since it was now nearly two in the morning. He'd seen me cry many times during news broadcasts where children died or horrible accidents had taken place. Even while reading books I've burst into tears. He knew what to expect. This is the very reason why I never watch the news and rarely read the papers. I didn't know about hurricane Katrina until nearly two weeks after it happened. I'd be depressed nearly every day if I kept up with current events.

In Hotel Rwanda, a reporter had left the guarded confines of the hotel, and captured footage of the horrifying massacres taking place. The reporter apologized to Paul for playing the footage in front of him. Paul stopped him, "I'm glad that you have shot this footage, and that the world will see it. It is the only way we have a chance that the world will intervene."

"And if they don't intervene, is it still good to show it?" replied the reporter, "I think if people see this footage they'll say 'Oh my god, that's horrible.' and go on eating their dinners."

I am not one of those people. I can't just go back to my day - ye Gods, even as I write this at an airport terminal I'm tearing up.

Again - where does such callousness end? I don't want the ability to just go back to having dinner. I wish I could do something more meaningful than donate money, which I'm sure is poorly spent. I wish I could reach out and make a real difference. But how? Instead I just wallow in this agony that crashes against me like a tidal wave.

Placing a pebble under my pillow that night, and the cat food under my bed, I slept. In my dreams I had been buried alive, clawing out of the dirt with my hands. The dirt wasteland all around me had peen pitted full of graves, filled with corpses and the living. Some were empty, but I sensed they wouldn't be for long. Hungry creatures prowled the darkness just out of sight as I scrambled to find shelter.

The pebble now sits in the little leather bag I keep hidden in a box of my things, along side my old tarot card deck and a few other symbolic items. This is done in keeping with pagan traditions.