Being "Aveilei Tziyon"

July 20-21, 2007 / 6 Av 5767

By Rabbi Chaim Marder

When taking our leave of those seated before us during shiva, we say, "May the All-present One comfort you among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem." It is an odd reference.  I am sure that most of the consolers do not understand what this line truly means.  It is a reasonable question to ask: who are we talking about when we refer to these mourners, the "aveilei Tziyon v’Yerushalayim"?

The shiva house is not the only place we speak of the "aveilei Tziyon."  We will refer to them in just a few days from now on the most somber day of the year - the 9th of Av.  During the prayer of Nachem, we beseech God to "console the mourners of Zion, and the mourners of Jerusalem."  It would seem here that we refer to ourselves – at least during this period - when we have taken on the practices of the mourner, with the further hardship of the 5 inuyim, the self-inflicted discomforts of the day. But that might not be the original reference of the term; and unearthing it helps shed light on just what it is that we might indeed be saying about ourselves today.

Yaakov Gartner, in his informative work, The Formation of Custom in the World of Halakhah, explores aveilei Tziyon at length.  What emerges from his work is a picture of an unusual group that inhabited Jerusalem towards the end of the first millennium.  By the 9th century, under Muslim rule, a culture had formed in Jerusalem that was engaging in ongoing mourning for the Temple and the plight of Jewry.  They were both Rabbinate Jews and Karaites, who had made their way from Iraq and Persia.  These people engaged in numerous forms of mourning and self-denial year round, ascetics who bewailed the destruction and exile, and who spent a good part of the day and night in prayer and supplication for redemption. Their practices intensified during the three-week period from the 17th of Tammuz through the 10th of Av.  They were referred to as "aveilei Tziyon."

Apparently, this sub-community was the subject of ridicule and attack from the "normative" Jewish community, yet many Jews the world over sought to support this destitute group in Jerusalem. In addition, it appears as though some of their practices of the three weeks made their way to Italy, the Rhineland, and eventually to Eastern Europe. (Curiously, the practices did not reach the Sephardic communities, which explains why Sephardic observances of the three-week time-period leading up to Tisha B'Av are much more in-sync with the expectations of the Babylonian Talmud than the Ashkenazic practice, which is more expansive.) Even though the Jews and Karaites of Jerusalem met a tragic fate in the first crusade in 1099, the legacy of these aveilei Tziyon lived on in other Jews of Europe who were ready to think of themselves as "aveilei Tziyon" as well.

As Tisha B'Av nears, we all become "Mourners of Zion," Jews who feel the pain of our people.  Aveilei Tziyon, whether in the rather extreme form of the pre-crusade Jerusalemites, or their European Jewry sympathizers, were individuals for whom the hurban/exile and the painful reality of the Jews was felt so intensely that they could find no comfort.  It is at this time of year that we all join their ranks.

In our generation, we know what it is that we mourn.  Beginning with the hurban and exile, and leading forward through the shoah and the six million souls who perished, we are keenly aware of all that we have lost. Then there is the pain of the present day:  with enemies at Israel's borders (and perhaps within them); with the first and 25th anniversaries of the capture of Israeli soldiers with seemingly no progress on their return to their families; with academics issuing a shameful embargo on Israeli wisdom; with Jews distant from our meaningful Jewish engagement; with the ills of our own Orthodox communities and ourselves; with the reality of a yet unredeemed world – we have what to lament and bewail this Tisha B'Av.

By Tisha B'Av afternoon, we call out "Nachem" as we ask God for comfort.  But before we ask for that, we must be the mourners, aveilei Tziyon, feeling the losses and the pain of our people deep down inside of us. Only then, having become one with Jewish destiny in its dark places, we imagine, we envision, we reach for it the day, when it will be bright once more. "Nachem, comfort, Lord our God, the mourners the Zion and the mourners of Jerusalem." We are seeking not merely a diversion or a dulling of the pain, but the vanquishing of the sources of the pain themselves.  We believe that we have merited to see the beginnings of this in our generation; so may God, the All-present, bring us to its fulfillment.

Chaim Marder is the spiritual leader of the Hebrew Institute of White Plains, in White Plains, NY.  He chairs the department of the Professional Rabbinics at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah.