If one had to choose a single day on the Jewish calendar that best explains the state of the world in 2026, it would not be Yom Kippur or Passover. It would be Tisha b'Av—the day the Jewish people mourn not merely what was destroyed, but why it was destroyed.
The rabbis never understood the destruction of Jerusalem as a military event. Rome did not destroy the Temple because it possessed superior weapons or superior generals. Rome simply arrived at the funeral. The Jewish people had already begun the work of destruction themselves. The Talmud's message is uncomfortable precisely because it refuses to blame outsiders first. Before looking outward, Judaism commands us to look inward.
The sickness of a civilization begins long before its collapse. It begins when truth becomes negotiable, when ethics become subordinate to political expediency, and when societies choose spectacle over wisdom. Tisha b'Av is God's annual reminder that moral decay always precedes political destruction.
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Dov Landau:“There Are Wicked People in Knitted Kippot Encouraging Murder" |
*More from Dov Landau :"Landau’s comments are exactly in line with numerous other comments
that he has made over the last few years. He’s made his views very
clear, for those who are interested in listening to what he has actually
said: The state should never have come into existence, the Arabs would
have happily allowed hundreds of thousands of Jews to come from Europe
and live peacefully in Palestine, Zionists are responsible for all the
terrible things that have happened, religious-Zionist soldiers die
because of the corrupt teachings of their rabbis, Jews should only learn
charedi-taught Torah, and charedim should not participate in the war
effort, even if they are not learning, and should not even do any acts
of kindness for soldiers - they should not visit them in hospitals or
attend funerals or raise money
for their wellbeing, and anyone who wants charedim to be subject to the
same rules as everyone else and forced to help with the war is evil."*
The rabbis teach that the Second Temple was destroyed because of sinat chinam—baseless hatred. Yet we have trivialized that phrase into little more than a slogan. Baseless hatred is not simply people being rude to one another. It is an ethical disease. It is the inability of a society to recognize the humanity of those with whom it disagrees. It is tribalism masquerading as virtue. It is the worship of ideology over truth and personalities over principles.
The Jewish people have witnessed this disease before. We have watched great civilizations descend into madness while convincing themselves they were morally enlightened. Ancient Rome, Christian Europe, Enlightenment Europe, and twentieth-century Germany all believed themselves civilized. The Jews buried them all.
Today, America and much of the Western world exhibit the very symptoms that Jewish history has taught us to fear. Institutions are collapsing under the weight of their own hypocrisy. Universities have become incubators of fashionable ignorance. Political discourse has become indistinguishable from religious fanaticism. Intellectual honesty has become a liability rather than a virtue.
And perhaps nowhere is this sickness more visible than in the resurgence of antisemitism.
The Jew is once again the canary in the coal mine of civilization. Antisemitism is never merely a Jewish problem. It is a civilizational diagnosis. When societies become incapable of moral reasoning, they inevitably require scapegoats. It has always been easier to blame the Jew than to confront one's own failures. The antisemites of today wear many costumes. Some march beneath the banner of social justice. Others wave nationalist flags. Some come from the political left and others from the political right. Some despise Jews because they are too successful. Others despise Jews because they refuse to surrender their ancient identity. The language changes. The pathology never does.
The Jew remains guilty of history's greatest crime—survival.
One need only observe the moral inversion of our time. Jewish children hiding in schools require armed guards while university students justify calls for Jewish extermination as political expression. Terrorists become resistance fighters. Hostages become footnotes. Democracies are morally equivalent to jihadists. Truth itself has become hostage to ideology.
Tisha b'Av warned us that civilizations lose their moral compass gradually and then suddenly.
This brings us to Donald Trump.
For many Americans, Donald Trump is either a political messiah or a political devil. Judaism permits neither conclusion. The Talmud despises personality cults. Moses himself was repeatedly challenged. King David was publicly rebuked by the Prophet Nathan. The greatest leaders of Jewish history were judged not by their popularity but by their character.
Judaism has no commandment requiring Jews to suspend ethical judgment because a politician moves an embassy, signs an agreement, or delivers a favorable speech. The Torah demands something far more difficult. It demands moral consistency.
Donald Trump represents many of the ethical failures that Tisha b'Av was designed to expose. Arrogance celebrated as strength. Cruelty mistaken for authenticity. Ignorance marketed as wisdom. Vindictiveness confused with leadership. Personal grievance elevated above public service.
The rabbis would not have been impressed by political victories if achieved at the expense of moral leadership. The Talmud asks different questions than cable television asks. Is the leader humble? Does he seek truth? Can he admit error? Does he elevate the ethical conduct of the nation? Does he inspire intellectual curiosity or reward blind loyalty?
By those standards, Donald Trump presents a profound ethical problem.
The danger Donald Trump presents is not merely political. It is cultural. He has normalized a style of leadership in which personal loyalty is valued more highly than truth, where institutions are useful only when they are personally beneficial, and where opponents are not simply wrong but enemies deserving humiliation.
History teaches that demagogues rarely destroy civilizations alone. Their followers do that work for them by abandoning their own moral standards.
Tisha b'Av teaches that God's judgment is not limited to wicked leaders. Entire societies are judged for the leaders they tolerate, excuse, and celebrate. The destruction of Jerusalem was not the result of one corrupt politician. It was the collective failure of a generation that abandoned ethical responsibility.
The rabbis tell us that Jerusalem was destroyed because people ceased rebuking wrongdoing. Silence became complicity. Political loyalty became more important than moral courage.
Have we learned anything?
The Western world is experiencing a crisis of moral imagination. Antisemitism is rising. Democracies are weakening. Public discourse has become poisonous. Religious communities increasingly confuse partisan politics with sacred obligations. Citizens demand rights while neglecting responsibilities. We celebrate wealth while ignoring wisdom.
Sound familiar? It should. The Prophets of Israel wrote extensively about such societies.
Isaiah warned against those who "call evil good and good evil." Jeremiah stood at the gates of Jerusalem and reminded the people that God does not dwell in buildings, institutions, or slogans. God dwells where justice, humility, and truth are practiced.
The lesson of Tisha b'Av is terrifying precisely because it is universal. God destroyed His own Temple rather than permit it to become a monument to hypocrisy. If the Almighty did not spare Jerusalem when it lost its ethical foundations, why should America imagine itself immune? Why should Israel? Why should any civilization?
The Jewish people sit on the floor every Tisha b'Av to remember that no empire is permanent—not Rome, not America, not any political movement or charismatic leader.
The question Tisha b'Av asks us is not whether Donald Trump will save America. It is whether America possesses sufficient moral courage to save itself.
The question is not whether antisemitism will survive. It always has. The question is whether civilization will survive its hatred of the Jew.
The Jew has outlived Pharaoh, Titus, Torquemada, Hitler, Stalin, and the Soviet Union. We will outlive today's antisemites as well. The more difficult question is whether the societies that nurture such hatred will survive themselves.
That is the tragedy of Tisha b'Av. It is also its enduring wisdom. Every generation believes it is too enlightened to repeat the mistakes of history. Every generation is wrong.
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