An aerial view of the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Every year on Tisha B’Av the Jewish people mourn destruction. We remember the burning of Jerusalem, the loss of the Temple, the collapse of Jewish sovereignty, the beginning of exile, and the many tragedies that have become associated with this day across Jewish history. We mourn what was destroyed and what was taken from us.

When the Rabbis ask why Jerusalem was destroyed, they offer an extraordinary range of answers. The Talmud says Jerusalem was destroyed because people desecrated Shabbat, because they neglected the recitation of the Shema, because they stopped educating their children, because they failed to rebuke one another, and because trustworthy people could no longer be found. Elsewhere, the destruction is attributed to sinat chinam, baseless hatred.

They offer answer after answer. But what do they not say? What is so obviously absent from this list? They do not say that Jerusalem was destroyed because the Romans destroyed it.

The Rabbis knew what Rome had done. They knew Roman armies had besieged Jerusalem, burned the Temple, and crushed the Jewish people. They were not denying the historical facts, nor were they absolving Rome of responsibility for its brutality. Yet when they sought to understand the destruction, they chose to ask not only what had been done to the Jewish people, but also what had gone wrong within the Jewish people.

This is not a claim that Jews caused the violence directed against them. It is not an attempt to shift responsibility from those who perpetrated destruction to those who suffered it. Rather, the Rabbis were teaching us that mourning could include more than the pain of what others have done to us. It could also include the recognition that something within our own society had broken, that we had made mistakes, and that there were ways in which we had failed one another.

That distinction is as difficult as it is essential. It is also still relevant today. We are not responsible for the hatred that others direct toward us. Jews do not cause antisemitism. Jews did not cause the massacre of October 7. Hamas is responsible for its violence, just as antisemites are responsible for the hatred, distortion, and dehumanization they direct toward Jews. Nothing in our tradition should be used to blame Jews for the pain inflicted upon them.

At the same time, identifying who is responsible for what was done to us cannot be the end of our reflection. Even when the source of our pain is clear, we can still ask where we are in this, what may need to change among us, what we could do better, and how this moment might help us grow into a stronger and more responsible Jewish community. This is an exercise of agency rather than an exercise in self-blame.

The challenge is how to carry this teaching into our own moment. Jewish communities are living with profound collective pain, heightened antisemitism, and deep concern for Israel and the Jewish future. In such a moment, criticism can easily be misunderstood as stepping away from the Jewish people, or as judging from the outside what others are trying to hold from within.

But criticism can also be an expression of self-reflection. It can ask not only what others are doing wrong, but where I am falling short, what I am not seeing, and what I need to do differently. That kind of critique can come from deep belonging and from a desire to help the Jewish community become stronger, more thoughtful, and more able to grow.

This requires seeing critique not only as something directed toward others, but also as something we are willing to direct toward ourselves. It asks us to listen to what others may be telling us, to examine how we speak and respond, and to consider whether our own choices are contributing to the divisions around us. Used this way, criticism becomes an opportunity for introspection, improvement, and renewal.

Rabbi Simcha Bunim taught that every person should carry two slips of paper, one in each pocket. On one: “For my sake the world was created.” On the other: “I am but dust and ashes.” The teaching asks us to hold conviction and humility together, each one placing necessary limits on the other.

Conviction means knowing that we stand for something. We hold beliefs about what Jewish life should look like, about the responsibilities we carry, about what is right and wrong, and about the kind of people and communities we are trying to become. Conviction gives us the clarity to defend those beliefs, to act on them, and to resist becoming so open-ended that we no longer know what we believe.

Humility asks us to bring doubt into that certainty. It requires us to consider where our convictions may have hardened into assumptions, what we may not be seeing, and how our own words and choices may be contributing to the problems we are trying to address. It asks us to turn some of our scrutiny inward and to remain open to the possibility that another person may see something that we do not.

The challenge is to hold both at once: to stand firmly for what we believe while remaining capable of questioning ourselves; to speak with clarity while listening seriously; and to resist allowing ideas, symbols, or political positions to place people into camps before we have heard what they are actually saying. That balance gives us a way to examine who we are becoming without abandoning what we stand for.

Holding conviction and humility together allows us to look inward without confusing reflection with blame. Doing so preserves our ability to ask where we are in the story and what may still be ours to change.

This year, Tisha B’Av asks us to mourn what has been taken from us and to name clearly those responsible for the hatred and violence directed against Jews. Tisha B’Av  also creates space to look inward: to consider what we are not seeing, where we need to change, and how we can build Jewish communities more capable of listening, learning, and growing. This is what is ours to repair.

Shuki is the founder and CEO of M²: The Institute for Experiential Jewish Education. Previously, Shuki served as director of Service Learning and Experiential Education at Yeshiva University, where he founded the Certificate Program in Experiential Jewish Education and a range of programs mobilizing college students to serve underprivileged communities worldwide. Shuki has lived in Israel, New York, and South Africa. A Schusterman Fellow, Shuki studied Jewish philosophy, education, and scriptwriting and currently lives in Jerusalem with his wife and their four children.