Last week I discussed Richard Samuelson’s Mosaic essay painting a rather dire portrait of the prospects for religious liberty in theUnited States. In a response essay on Mosaic conservative George Mason University law professor David Bernstein agrees that things are indeed as bad as Samuelson makes them out to be and asks what this portends for the future of Jews and Judaism in the United States.

He notes that based on current demographic trends the active Jewish community will be divided among a large but shrinking population of religiously liberal Jews a smaller but vigorous group of modern and centrist Orthodox Jews and a large and rapidly growing group of chareidi Jews “whose current rate of per-year population growth stands at an astonishing 5.5% [and] will form a significant element of the public ‘face’ of American Jewry. The Jon Stewarts Bernie Sanderses and Ralph Laurens of the world [Note: To me and you they’re Stewart and Lauren but to their mothers they’re Liebowitz and Lifschitz — EK] will compete in the minds of Americans with various ultra-conservative rabbis and community leaders.”

So far so good. But Bernstein continues “[s]ome of these Haredi notables may demand (or may be perceived as demanding) housing and other subsidies from the government for their followers who barely participate in the general civic life of the country. This is unlikely to ingratiate them with American conservatives and it will provide fodder for ‘alt-right’ anti-Semites.”

Stop. Reasonable minds can differ about the wisdom of Orthodox dependency on government largesse but this community takes advantage of programs that have been made available to all and I don’t think I’ve ever heard of an Orthodox notable “demanding government subsidies.” In a post just last year Bernstein cited the 2013 Pew survey of American Jewry’s finding that “about six-in-ten Orthodox Jews (58%) say they would prefer a smaller government that provides fewer services over a bigger government providing more services compared with 36% of other Jews.” He would have done well to cite that here.

Next precisely what does it mean to say that their followers “barely participate in the general civic life of the country”? They certainly vote regularly which is more than one can say for very significant percentages of their fellow citizens. Likewise the content of the community’s publications — not to mention the Erev Shabbos mikveh chatter — evince a great interest in the political and other issues of the day that’s at least as intense as that of other communities.

I’m not aware that large numbers of Americans are attending evening symposia on the Constitution at the local public library or anything remotely similar; the ’50s-era notion of civic engagement is well from the ’50s. So exactly what “civic life” are my co-religionists shunning? Movies? Rock concerts?

Is this the new litmus test for a community’s right to partake of the nation’s blessings — not whether they work hard raise wholesome intact families and create law-abiding communities but whether they patronize morally degraded entertainment venues? Do the displays of support from Orthodox neighborhoods for the heroic law enforcement agencies that serve them as when all ofLakewoodturns out for a heroic police officer’s funeral count for anything? And for two weeks out of the year in autumn and spring New Yorkers and New Jerseyites are witness to a very visible engagement by thousands of Orthodox families in parks museums and every other imaginable center of “civic life” that comports with their moral standards.

In any event Bernstein sees the greater threat as coming from the left. He writes that the animus directed by progressives toward the Mormons “may come to seem minor when compared with the hostility directed at Haredim as their population stretches from 6–7 figures and they increasingly assert electoral and political power.”

He seems to be mistaken on several counts not least in overestimating how soon it will be barring Mashiach’s anticipated imminent arrival that the chareidi population “stretches from 6–7 figures.” He also appears unaware that notwithstanding their more conservative personal orientations Orthodox communal leaders work both sides of the political aisle and often remain firmly non-partisan in order to maximize their clout.

Heavily Orthodox neighborhoods tend to be situated in blue-state urban areas which are usually dominated by liberal Democratic politicians thus creating a symbiotic relationship in which neither side can afford to write the other off. In other wordsBoroPark in deep-blueNew York ain’tUtah which can be ignored entirely.

As it happens Orthodox communities already face far greater animus and actual obstruction than virtually any other religious group and it’s not coming specifically from the left. When a community can’t count on being able to string a near-invisible eiruv around its perimeter without having to endure years of litigation and media attacks and when the expansion of every sizable Orthodox area along with its individual institutions is fought tooth and nail by surrounding towns and their political representatives that has nothing to do with right-left orientation.

That’s a toxic brew of dislike of the unlike and oftentimes secular Jewish self-loathing and guilt that goes beyond partisan politics.

FROM GRIEF TO GLADNESS  A long-married couple once went to speak with an adam gadol known for his ability to dispense very wise advice. During the conversation the husband mentioned that after so many years his wife still continued inexplicably to bring up things he’d done in the past that had upset her. The adam gadol’s response was characteristically concise: “Then that means that you continue in some sense to do those things.”

From the Rambam’s description of Tishah B’Av it would seem that those words are the very point of this saddest of days. He writes (Hilchos Taaniyos 5:1):

There are days on which all of Yisrael fasts because of the tzaros that occurred on them in order to awaken the hearts and open paths of teshuvah. And this will be a reminder of our bad deeds and our ancestors’ deeds which were like our deeds now which brought those tzaros upon them and us. By remembering these things we will return and better ourselves.

“A reminder of our bad deeds and our ancestors’ deeds which were like our deeds now.” Tishah B’Av is a national exercise in remembrance a mirror into which we peer as we strain to remember what our forefathers did in order to realize what it is we continue to do that keeps us in this bitter galus. We study our history and apply the axiom that if Hashem continues to bring up things from the past well then we must still be doing those things.

And yet Av is unique among months in being split into two strikingly contrasting halves. It begins as the most joy-deprived mazal-challenged of months and then as the month reaches its crescendo with the fullness of its moon the fifteenth of Av bursts into view — a day about which the mishnah in Taanis (4:8) states: “There were no greater Yamim Tovim within Klal Yisrael than Yom HaKippurim and Tu B’Av.” Indeed Rav Tzadok HaKohen (Pri Tzadik Maamarei Tu B’Av 3) writes based on a pesikta that the building of the third Bais HaMikdash will take place on the fifteenth of Av.

But Av is not schizoid. It cannot be. The Eretz Tzvi designates it the month of shalom of peace and completeness commencing appropriately on Rosh Chodesh Av when Aharon Hakohen the greatest lover and pursuer of peace both entered and left the world. Its first half if its lessons are learned and if utilized as a means to return to Hashem will lead directly into the joy of reunification and redemption that commences with its latter half.

The Kedushas Levi writes that the two letters that comprise the month’s name aleph and beis stand for arur (cursed) and boruch (blessed) thereby reflecting its dual nature. But although Chazal teach that ein arur misdabek b’baruch the accursed cannot bond with the blessed an arur can transform into a baruch.

When a person repents and transforms from a rasha into a blessed tzaddik he reaches a level higher than could be attained by even a complete tzaddik who never sinned. So too when through our return to Hashem this month turns from a time of deep sadness into one of profound joy its happiness must perforce surpass that of any other day.

The month began with us peering backward in time studying the past as prologue to discern what it is that continues to hold us in exile. But it ends with us looking into the distance ahead to discern the faint glimmer of a supernal light yet to shine.

Rav Moshe Wolfson shlita explains that Tu B’Av is an unparalleled Yom Tov because its light is an ohr hachozer shining backward in time as it were from a Final Redemption whose miracles will also be unparalleled even by those of Yetzias Mitzrayim. The six historical events cited in the Gemara (Taanis 30b) as occurring on Tu B’Av are not causes but by-products of that ohr hachozer in the same way that Yetzias Mitzrayim cast its glow back in time to produce on a fifteenth of Nissan hundreds of years earlier Avraham’s victory over the four kings and the birth of Yitzchok. The real basis for Tu B’Av writes Rav Wolfson is the machol the circle dance that Hashem will hold for tzaddikim in Gan Eden — the very dance that young Jewish women would re-enact each year on that day. How very fitting then for this forward-looking Yom Tov of Tu B’Av to be a time for matches to be made and weddings to be celebrated. It is a time when each new couple (including a very special one named Gershon and Leah) rebuild as Chazal teach yet another of the ruins of Yerushalayim on the road to the Geulah Shleimah in a Yerushalayim habenuyah.