(?) Good Reason (s)
The Tenth of Tevet marks the Babylonian siege of the First Temple. According to Pogrebin, only observant Jews know much about it. It is not the pinnacle event, but it is the harbinger. Rabbi Yosef Blau, who Pogrebin interviews, directs our attention to one lesson in particular. “We should notice the clouds; they could warn of an approaching tornado” (127).
My brother echoed this sentiment one sunny day in the car driving through Rishon Letzion. As a result of a novel I was writing, we were discussing the current policy of the Spanish government that restored citizenship to Jewish people who were expelled. My brother turned away from the steering wheel and said simply, “Jews always want a second passport.” In short, that plastic coated book is an apt symbol for multigenerational trauma rooted in the need not only for an escape plan but a backup for the escape plan.
Blau emphasizes, “There’s a sense on the Tenth of Tevet that we should always be concerned about what things may lead to, instead of waiting for some tragedy to happen. . .The fact that we fast even for the beginning of the destruction, not just for the destruction itself, is probably a reminder that we should be sensitive to dangers even early in the game” (127)
In the elapsed time between 586 BCE and 2025 AD, where are we in this game?
This January I am excited to give my time as a national juror for the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. I am filling an extra space for one particular regional award. The only group of writing I was assigned was fantasy/science fiction. Over the course of the week leading up to Tenth of Tevet I read 21 submissions or 21 reasons to pay attention. Every young author wrote of a dark time, an amount of time they wished they could turn back, so they could save a friend, themselves or the world.
Reading an overwhelming quantity of regret and 'what ifs' and 'what nows' from the middle and high school authors, who were likely not born when Pogrebin wrote her book, gives me pause. A more tangible example of this struggle is Jade Adia's main character's self-appointed task in Our Shouts Echo, a Young Adult novel I reviewed for the Cybils 2024 Award. Sixteen-year old Niarah’s self-appointed task of a Doomsday bunker is a unique illustration of the multiple, conflicting, and too often overwhelming situations youth prepare to face. Niarah seeks purpose and safety through the act of doing something that she knows may never be enough in an imagined future against the very real social and environmental challenges around her.
The lyrics of Lady Gaga's song Million Reasons begin to echo in the air around me.
When I bow down to pray
I try to make the worst seem better
Lord, show me the way
To cut through all his worn out leather*
Tenth of Tevet is a fast day. Fasts have different purposes. Rabbi Ethan Tucker explains that this fast, different from Yom Kippur, is meant to “turn the spotlight away from yourself” (130). Pogrebin wrote My Jewish Year in 2015, but she could have asked the same questions of her fast today about warnings and signs. Talking. Listening. Hearing. Seeing. Which sense can we make sense of? What are we not noticing? Not talking about what we noticed? Not talking loud enough?
I did not fast on the Tenth of Tet. I don’t know if we are currently ‘early’ or ‘late’ in the game to which Blau refers, but I am very much guilty of laying out worst case scenarios in my novels.
I've got a hundred million reasons to walk away
As a writer, I choose untidiness to teach by creating tension between assumptions, and I can do better.
But baby, I just need one good one, good one
A writing instructor once told me, "You can ask your reader to work hard, but you have to show them how."
Tell me that you'll be the good one, good one
For one tornado, uncounted winds and for one story, uncounted words, may swirl but have not gathered, yet.
Baby, I just need one good one to stay*
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