Unlike other fast days in the Jewish calendar, Tisha B'Av does not have a specifically religious character. The keenly expressed lament read on the holiday, which begins with the words, "How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people," is marked with tragic scars that are the result of a true historical event. This event - the destruction of the Second Temple - has affected every Jew, but especially those whore are citizens of the Jewish State. Tisha B'Av 5765 breathes new life into the ancient text of Lamentations.

After 2000 years of exile, during which the Jews despaired of ever having political sovereignty, Zionism made a bold move. A small group of people rebelled against the exile and sought to reestablish a national home for the Jewish people. The Holocaust of the Jews of Europe, which came while the legitimacy of this effort was still under discussion, turned the desire for a state into reality. The international community welcomed the State of Israel. It saw its moral justification and recognized its sovereignty.

Now, less than 60 years after the land was won by the small band of people who broke into dance after the UN vote and then went off to fight a war of survival, the young country is repeating the event that long ago sealed its fate: The destruction of the Second Temple was not only the ruin of the physical Temple in Jerusalem, it was also the ruin of the national home. The actual destruction was carried out by foreigners, but it was the blind zealots, saturated with a megalomaniacal hunger for power, who presumed to lead the tiny Jewish state on their own stubborn path, turning their back on political reality and speaking in the name of a single principle: religion, according to their interpretation.

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The zealotry of those who destroyed the Temple and the national home sprouted from the fundamentalist flower beds of the religious hierarchy, which cloaked itself in eternal power in the name of a jealous God, deaf to the world and refusing all compromise. In the struggle over the image and existence of that Jewish state, the zealots bested the yearners for peace. The former chose suicide, slaughter and exile, and sealed the fate of the entire Jewish people. Much to our horror, the third Jewish commonwealth now faces a challenge which draws its inspiration from similar sources.

The location is identical, and the balance of power between the state and the international community is similar. Once again, the fragile sovereignty of a state fighting for survival can be perceived. Once again, a stubborn, irresponsible, megalomaniacal group of zealous rabbis has arisen, kicking indiscriminately at the sovereignty of the state and at the chances for a normal, just life within the family of nations, and threatening to bring down the house if it does not get its way.

At first glance, Israel seems to be dealing with a problem similar to that of the Western democracies, who are deporting the religious extremists who threaten their sovereignty. But these countries, whether Christian or secular, are fighting Islam, while Israel is attempting to make its way in the world while threatened from within by the zealous leaders of Judaism - the root of the nation from which the state itself sprouted.

Tisha B'Av this year is therefore a day of deep spiritual reckoning. In light of the historical lesson that it evokes, the Jewish State must steel itself for the struggle it now faces, for the sake of its sovereignty and to prevent a third destruction of its home.