Ruin As Vast As The Sea
by David Gutherz · 07/19/10
Although the mourning does not officially begin for another six hours or so, eastern standard time, the day before Tisha B’av is always a somber time. Even as we prepare to recount the official litany of destruction–destruction of the Temples, fall of Betar, etc.–each year offers new tragedies, new reasons to say aicha. Foremost in many our minds this year, despite the temporary respite from gushing oil, are our friends on the gulf coast–whether feathered, finned, or human; jewish, goyish or uncommitted–whose lives and livelihoods have been endangered by the BP spill. JTA columnist Edmon Rodman captures the mood precisely when, interweaving excerpts from the book of Lamentations, he writes:
“On this day of national Jewish mourning, when I usually have trouble finding something over which to mourn, to fast and not wear leather, I turn on the news and gone is the joy, my “dancing is turned into mourning” (5:15).“For your ruin is vast as the sea: “Who can heal you?” (2:13)
Then I view with alarm the maps that measure the spread of the slick, or grow confused at the calculations of just how much oil. As the BP spokesmen and politicians try to soothe my pain, I hear:
“The Lord has delivered me into the hands
“Of those I cannot withstand” (1:14).
And what to say of the role of corporate profits and maintenance shortcuts?
“All around me He has built
“Misery and hardship” (3:5).
While eating a fish dinner, I think of the fishermen who now spend their time fishing for oil, and the small businessmen who can no longer make their living from the sea and think:
“The old men are gone from the gate,
“The young men from their music” (5:14).
“All her inhabitants sigh
“As they search for bread” (1:11).
