Our greatest threat comes from within

JTA – When Hamas attacked on 7 October, it followed one of the most divisive years in Israel in generations. The debate about judicial reform had become a zero-sum game, with each side fighting for the soul of the country as they saw it, and each prepared to push their agenda no matter what the consequences – two trains on a collision course with neither side prepared to back down.

So deep were these divisions that, according to leading heads of Israel’s security establishment, documents found in the Gaza home of 7 October mastermind Yahya Sinwar indicate that he and other Hamas leaders saw internal divisions and perceived weakness among Israelis as a significant reason behind the timing of the attack on Simchat Torah.

Similarly, Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah in Lebanon, gloated that Israel risked being torn apart if the government and opposition failed to reach a compromise.

“For the first time since the creation of [Israel], we hear speeches from the entity’s president and former prime ministers … who talk about civil war and bloodshed,” Nasrallah said in a speech in February 2023. “G-d willing, Israel will not reach its 80th birthday.”

If it was internal strife that contributed to the attacks on 7 October, then more than 1 000 Israeli families paid the ultimate price that day and during the past 10 months of this war. We are one of them. Our son Captain Daniel Perez, who fought in defence of Kibbutz Nachal Oz, was among the 250 hostages taken to Gaza, and is now confirmed among the more than 1 200 killed on that horrific day. He, along with many others, still awaits a dignified Jewish burial. There remain 115 hostages  in Gazan captivity.

On Monday evening, 12 August, when the fast of Tisha B’Av began at sundown, those unspeakable losses weighed heavily on the minds of many Jews. At the same time, they would be reminded of the traditional rationale for the destruction of the Second Temple, one of the historical tragedies mourned on Tisha B’Av: sinat chinam, baseless divisiveness among Jews themselves. The rabbis of the Talmud (Yoma 9b) blamed the people’s downfall on Jewish factionalism in the form of senseless hatred, which made the community vulnerable to destruction at the hands of the Romans.

One of the most shocking texts I have encountered regarding the extent of Jewish divisiveness can be found in Jewish-Roman historian Josephus’s account of a strategic military dispute between Roman military generals and Vespasian, the first-century CE head of the Roman Army, who would soon become emperor and be replaced by his son, Titus.

His generals argued that the internal strife weakened the Jews and presented an opportunity to attack and destroy the city. “The providence of G-d is on our side by setting our enemies against one another,” the generals argued, according to Josephus (Wars of the Jews, Book 4, Chapter 6).

Vespasian’s reply to his soldiers highlights the tragic situation among the Jews, and how the best Roman strategy wassimply to sit back and watch the Jews destroy each other without the Romans lifting their weapons.

Vespasian replied, that “they were greatly mistaken … without considering what was for their advantage, and for their security. For that if they now go and attack the city immediately, they will unite their enemies … But if they wait they shall have fewer enemies; because they will be consumed in their own sedition. G-d acts as a general of the Romans better than I can do; and is giving the Jews up to us. While our enemies are destroying each other with their own hands, let us sit as spectators, while the Jews are torn to pieces by their civil wars …”

Even a lengthy siege and threat of annihilation couldn’t bring the Jews together. It tore them apart.

Like the sages in the Talmud, the famed rosh yeshiva of 19th-century Volozhin – the Netziv – points to sectarianism and demonisation as the root of causeless hatred:

“As a result of the senseless hatred in their hearts that one harboured for the other, they suspected all those who didn’t follow their path as a God-fearing Jew of being a Sadducee and a heretic.” (Ha’amek Davar, Introduction to Bereishit)

Sectarianism indeed reigned supreme prior to the destruction. There were many distinct sects – Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Zealots, and Sicarii – and more sub-factions. If you were part of one ideological group, you were accepted. If you were part of a different ideological sect, you were scorned and hated. There was no middle ground – either you’re with us or against us.

How do disagreements deteriorate into such deep hatred?

In the War Scroll found near the Dead Sea in the caves of Qumran, we find an answer. The text, probably written by the desert sect known as the Essenes, describes its followers as “the sons of light” and all others as “the sons of darkness”.

This changes the rules of discourse. We’re no longer debating views or ideas. We’re delegitimising the other as a person. It’s no longer about right and wrong, but about us and them. All who think and act like us are “good” and bring light, and all those who don’t are “bad” and bring darkness.

The parallels between then and now are painfully obvious. We dare not go back to the zero-sum game of 6 October. Significant issues roil the Jewish people today, as they always have. None of us has the entire monopoly on truth, which, according to our sages, has 70 interpretations. We must commit deeply to our covenant of collective fate while debating respectfully the different understandings of our destiny. When we forget our unshakable bonds of solidarity, others remind us of it.

Vespasian and Titus reminded us then. Sinwar and Nasrallah remind us today. Let’s commit this Tisha B’Av never to fan the flames of demonisation, but to strive for more empathy, understanding, and unity.

Too much depends on it.

South African-born Rabbi Doron Perez is the executive chairperson of the Mizrachi World Movement. In South Africa, he was executive director of Mizrachi South Africa, the senior rabbi of Mizrachi Shul and head of Yeshiva College school. His son Captain Daniel Perez was killed on 7 October defending Israel and his body was taken into Gaza by Hamas.