My thoughts on Tisha B'av. And some art
It's the end of Tisha B'av. It's often hard to figure out what to do on Tisha B'av, since the general idea is that you're supposed to be sad and mourning, and there's a limit on learning and an idea to try and stay away from anything that could give you joy, which is why I was a little uncertain about this. But I decided that when in mourning, art is a standard way of processing, and I hoped that drawing the destruction would help me connect in some ways that I hadn't before.
Something I hadn't expected, but very much felt, more than anything, while drawing this: a feeling of desecration.
I went into this drawing with some thought of demonstrating my recent thoughts about what the destruction of the Beit Hamikdash represented. I had meant to depict the concept of a community center torn apart, of a center of worship torn apart. I've thought a lot, over the day, about the meaning of the Temple not as a building that housed God (Yirmiyahu desperately fights against the idea of the Temple being the one house of God, the idol-like emphasis on the building itself), but as a center of interaction. Interaction between both God and people, and between people themselves. The destruction of the Temple was a destruction of a city. It was the tearing apart of a people. It wasn't just about large scale destruction, it was about the individual tears between families and friends that collected and heaped unto one another until the whole of Israel fell apart in flames. "Sinat Chinam (baseless hatred) caused the destruction." It's not an abstract punishment. It's a direct cause. Taking apart a community causes... the community to be taken apart.
Now, that had been my initial plan for this drawing. I was going to depict the Beit Hamikdash, but at a closer look, it would be made out of people, etc etc. Maybe one day I will explore that concept more. The thing is, once I got started, and tried depicting some of the destruction and death described in Eicha, in the Kinnot, and once the piece I actually created fell into view, I felt... wrong. Something about drawing the Temple, the Holy Temple, God's stronghold, and then drawing the blood. And the tears. And the death. And even though it was in abstract terms, I felt like I was desecrating a holy site.
I had drawn myself a temple and now I was destroying it. Maybe it was because I sketched the outline of the building before everything else, underneath the overall drawing. I don't know what it was, but even though I had gone in with not a single thought to the idea of desecration, as I continued to draw it was all I could think about. It's quite dramatic for a small sketch, I know. But in that moment of creation, I felt the pain of desecration, and I think there's some small chance I felt maybe one tiny iota of what God felt, or in the absence of a God that feels in that way, one iota of the feeling that the people (my people) felt.
TLDR: my feelings on destruction of a community on Tisha B'av, some art, and my feelings while creating it
