Three Anniversaries

This week we commemorated the outbreak of the First World War on August 4, 1914, Tisha B'Av, the destruction of the Temple on the 9th of Av,70 CE, and the dropping of the atom bomb on August 6, 1945. The three commemorations were very different. The outbreak of the war was remembered for the 'heroism', the courage and the sacrifice of an enormous number of young New Zealand men who foolishly rushed up a cliff in Turkey at Gallipoli only to be slaughtered, or fought in the trenches at Passschendaele in futile efforts to gain another 25 metres of territory. Perhaps it also marked the emergence of a New Zealand nationhood. The dropping of the atom bomb, with the utter destruction of a city is remembered with ambivalence. There is no sense of shame or regret, no clear positive outcome. The Japanese foolishly entered a war, the Americans had the bomb so there was pressure on them to use it and achieve a victory with minimum sacrifice. The destruction of the Temple was remembered differently; a day of sheer mourning, a great sense of loss. All three events had profound outcomes. The First World War marked the decline of a liberal civilization, the end of an era of enlightenment. It also destroyed two great empires that somehow maintained peace among a variety of ethnic groups within their jurisdiction, the Austro-Hungarian and the Ottoman empires.  The bomb on Hiroshima marked the end of Japanese militarism, the rule of a military elite and the shift of the balance to a commercial and industrial class. The destruction of the Temple ended Judaism as a priestly religion based on sacrifices, and lead to the evolution of a religion based on rituals of daily life and the study of the words of the scriptures as these touched on everyday living. It also became a religion of ideas that could be discussed, explored, and could evolve constantly.