The Tiny Book That Led to The Big Discovery
The Story of Tisha B'Av and How I found the Works of Yaakov Culi
I like to carry paperbacks with me on airplanes, so I have something to read while we’re taking off and landing. I was staying at my late father’s house and pulled this little book off the bookshelf. My favorite kind: the more tattered and yellowing, the better. He kept the books that he loved. So I knew it had to be good. I thought it was a curious little thing with its black binding and orange edges. I knew that Tisha B’Av was a holiday of some kind in Judaism, but I really knew nothing about it.
It turns out it is the simple story of what led to the destruction of the Second Temple. Believe it or not, when I started this journey, I barely knew about the first one. I really didn’t even know that there were two. This is how thin my Jewish education was.
When I turned the page, there were so many things that I didn’t know, including the fact that Me-am Lo’ez wasn’t an author but an anthology. I was curious that this was originally published in 1773. So many questions, so little time.
The first thing I learned was that this was no festival but the very saddest day of the year and a national Jewish day of mourning.
The second thing I registered was the specificity of the date and how many things occurred on this dreadful day. For example, I didn’t know that this is the day that Moses descended from Mount Sinai to see the Israelites worshipping the golden calf. I love how simple and pointed the language is. Just the facts, ma’am.
The thing that struck me the most upon reading this tiny book was that the most calamitous day in the Jewish religion, which is the destruction of the second temple, was really about one person humiliating another, which we learn when we read the story. It makes you think about lashon hara (evil tongue) and the million side effects and dangers of speaking ill of others.
But what I learned the most, more than the story of Tish B’av, was that there is a body of knowledge, greater than the seven seas and I’m building a little boat to sail on it. Come with me.