‘Tisha B’Av feels closer to home this year’

    

chabad.org

Tisha B’Av, arriving Wednesday at sunset, is a Jewish observance that may be of interest to Freemasons in a counterintuitive way normally, but that bears greater meaning this year.

In the mainstream of Freemasonry, a lodge room is a place representing King Solomon’s Temple, and Tisha B’Av is a day of mourning a number of tragedies in Jewish history, including the destruction of that temple by the Babylonians circa 586 BCE. Observance includes fasting and reading from Lamentations.

Counterintuitive because in our lodges we do not think of the Temple as being destroyed. KST is viewed as architectural perfection for its proportions and its harmonious and artistic assembly to the glory of the Grand Architect of the Universe.

Well, except for that one thing.

But in current events, we plainly see reasons for worry—for lamentations even. In recent weeks we’ve seen violence against Masonic people and properties that we’re supposed to accept as independent uncoordinated attacks, but how coincidental can they be if the motives are similar?

Yesterday, an arsonist broke into the Scottish Rite Valley of El Paso and started a fire that damaged the ground floor. The Scottish Rite in Athens, Greece was targeted by a bomber July 13. Three days before that, Bro. Robert Wise was shot to death outside McAllen Lodge 1110 in Texas, after the lodge meeting. Last month, Leesburg Lodge 58 near Orlando, Florida was burned down by an arsonist. The list in the recent past is long, and takes us from Masonic Hall in Manhattan to Freemasons Hall in Dublin, and more.

I typically don’t write about these events; I cede the terrible news to the Dummies blog. But, since we’re on the eve of Tisha B’Av, these desecrating crimes trigger visceral energy beyond the pain of being victimized.

Last Thursday, the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Washington issued a memo to be read aloud in the lodges that encourages the brethren to be alert, particularly when at the lodge and when wearing items that signal Masonic membership.

However you fit in the demographics pie chart—be you Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, or whoever—and wherever dispersed about the face of the earth you are, be diligent, prudent, temperate, and discreet.