Must We Keep Weeping for the Past?

Zechariah 7:3

How critical is it to remember the tragedies of the past? Does holding on to the hurts of history help us grow better or keeps us held back? 

Zechariah’s previous prophecy focused on the messianic future, but in today’s chapter he explores history in response to an important question that has relevance to us today. Do we keep lamenting the losses of yesterday even as  we busy ourselves with rebuilding our lives? 

Zechariah describes a delegation that arrives from the Persian diaspora, during the winter month of Kislev, in the 4th year of Darius’ reign, 68 years after the Jerusalem temple was destroyed and two years before its rebuilding would be completed. 

The delegation has an important question that contains our first historical evidence that the Judeans of that era had official days of mourning for the destruction of the first temple and the start of their exile: 

לֵאמֹ֗ר אֶל־הַכֹּֽהֲנִים֙ אֲשֶׁר֙ לְבֵית־יְהֹוָ֣ה צְבָא֔וֹת וְאֶל־הַנְּבִיאִ֖ים לֵאמֹ֑ר הַֽאֶבְכֶּה֙ בַּחֹ֣דֶשׁ הַחֲמִשִׁ֔י הִנָּזֵ֕ר כַּאֲשֶׁ֣ר עָשִׂ֔יתִי זֶ֖ה כַּמֶּ֥ה שָׁנִֽים׃    

“We address this inquiry to the priests of the House of YHWH  and to the prophets: “Shall I weep and practice abstinence in the fifth month, as I have been doing all these years?”

Zechariah 7:3

The fifth month is Av - the mid-summer time in which Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians after the brutal two-year siege. But that was two generations ago - almost 70 years -- and the people now comfortably settled as Persian residents, climbing up the ladder of societal acceptance, as Jerusalem is slowly being rebuilt, are asking a legitimate question about the preservation of painful memories while life keeps going and wounds begin to heal: Why continue fasting on the 9th of Av, or the 3rd of Tishrei - the two dates that mark the final moments of the Davidic dynasty. Can’t we move on? 

It’s a good question about memory and the role of ritual in healing our hearts. Zechariah, speaking for God, echoes other prophets like Amos and Isaiah when he provides a response that includes thinly veiled derision for the voices past and present that question religious observance: What’s the purpose of fasting anyway, he challenges them - are you replacing the intention with the gesture and forgetting the focus of the fast as a symbolic ritual act? 

אֱמֹר֙ אֶל־כׇּל־עַ֣ם הָאָ֔רֶץ וְאֶל־הַכֹּהֲנִ֖ים לֵאמֹ֑ר כִּֽי־צַמְתֶּ֨ם וְסָפ֜וֹד בַּחֲמִישִׁ֣י וּבַשְּׁבִיעִ֗י וְזֶה֙ שִׁבְעִ֣ים שָׁנָ֔ה הֲצ֥וֹם צַמְתֻּ֖נִי אָֽנִי׃ וְכִ֥י תֹאכְל֖וּ וְכִ֣י תִשְׁתּ֑וּ הֲל֤וֹא אַתֶּם֙ הָאֹ֣כְלִ֔ים וְאַתֶּ֖ם הַשֹּׁתִֽים…כֹּ֥ה אָמַ֛ר יְהֹוָ֥ה צְבָא֖וֹת לֵאמֹ֑ר מִשְׁפַּ֤ט אֱמֶת֙ שְׁפֹ֔טוּ וְחֶ֣סֶד וְרַֽחֲמִ֔ים עֲשׂ֖וּ אִ֥ישׁ אֶת־אָחִֽיו׃

“Say to all the people of the land and to the priests: When you fasted and lamented in the fifth and seventh months all these seventy years, did you fast for my benefit? And when you eat and drink, who but you do the eating, and who but you do the drinking?...Thus says YHWH  of Hosts: Demand true justice; deal loyally and compassionately with one another.”

Zechariah 7:5-9

Or in other words -- what’s the point of fasting if not to bring you closer to faith, moral behavior and lives of justice? Wasn’t this abuse of ethics the reason that Jerusalem fell and the temple burnt in the first place? Did not the prophets of that time warn the people that fake fasts and empty ritual gestures will end up costing them their way of life?  The point of fasting was not just to repent but also to remember the reasons for the ruin and exile.

So why stop these days of remembrance and reflection when so many of the same behaviors are still the way the people act?

Keep fasting to remember the reason for the fast — keep lamenting the loss in order rededicate ourselves to a more just society. This is the true purpose of this spiritual technology. The act of fasting when combined with reflection and honest conversation about the act’s purpose can be a powerful embodied way to walk our talk and recommit to what’s important. Just last week, the relatively minor Fast of Esther, rarely observed by liberal Jews, became a way to mark this murky moment, stand in solidarity with suffering and starvation, commit to change and peace. There is wisdom in utilizing these rites towards accountability, solidarity, support and commitment to justice.

As for the delegation from Persia — it’s not clear how they responded but clearly Zechariah’s words took hold - the fasts remained and are solid markers on the Jewish calendars, all these centuries later. Did the people’s behavior improve though? Does the fact that we still fast each summer for the hatred and injustice that caused Jerusalem to burn not once or twice change anything in how we act now that Jerusalem is a thriving city of Jewish life again? 

Rabbi Yaakov Bieler questioned this chapter’s conclusion when he wrote about it a few years ago: 

“But what about now? Particularly following the Six-day War in 1967, there has been an ongoing debate regarding the contemporary validity of the observance of these fasts, exemplified by the paragraph that is added to the prayer on Tisha B’Av afternoon:

‘Oh God, console the mourner of Zion and the mourners of Jerusalem and the city that is mournful, ruined, scorned and desolate: mournful without her children, ruined without her abodes, scorned without her glory, and desolate without inhabitants... ‘ 

Shouldn’t modern-day, “hustling, bustling” Jerusalem, as well as Israeli society in general, no longer be thought of in such incredibly sad, desperate terms? On the other hand, no one says that this wasn’t an apt description of the Jewish settlement in its homeland in the past, and, God forbid, couldn’t become pertinent once again in the future. 

The ultimate question, similar to what was posed to Zechariah, becomes: should we recall the past in order to remind ourselves of what must be avoided in the present in an attempt to head off a disastrous future? Or, should the present reality determine how we relate to all current and future possibilities, with the operative principle to avoid misrepresenting a rosy present? Should God’s answer via Zechariah to his ancient inquirers inform present-day policy, or is it time to break with the biblical past?”

Those words echo loudly in 2024. 

It’s too soon to tell how we will mark October 7th in the years to come or how this awful day will change some of the ways we choose to live. But it is safe to say that some important dates do hold resonance that lasts a long time, dates that become symbols that have far more to tell us about who we once were, who we are now, and how we want to be remembered. 

 What to do with our memorial days as history evolves and reality changes?

 In the next chapter Zachariah will see far into a brighter future and suggest a radical way to reimagine sorrow as a surprising source of joy.

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