Tag Archives: Jeremiah

The Three Oaths & the Three Gifts

“And it will be, when you come into the land which YHWH, your God, gives you for an inheritance, and you possess it and settle in it…” (Deuteronomy 26:1)

This week’s parasha, Ki Tavo, begins with the command for Israel to go to the Holy Land, possess it, inherit it, work the land, and then give thanks for its wonderful produce. The Torah is clear on the fact that the Jewish people belong in the Land of Israel. In fact, the Talmud (Ketubot 110b) states that a Jew who lives outside of Israel is likened to an atheist that doesn’t have a God:

תָּנוּ רַבָּנַן: לְעוֹלָם יָדוּר אָדָם בְּאֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל אֲפִילּוּ בְּעִיר שֶׁרוּבָּהּ גּוֹיִם, וְאַל יָדוּר בְּחוּצָה לָאָרֶץ וַאֲפִילּוּ בְּעִיר שֶׁרוּבָּהּ יִשְׂרָאֵל, שֶׁכׇּל הַדָּר בְּאֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל דּוֹמֶה כְּמִי שֶׁיֵּשׁ לוֹ אֱלוֹהַּ, וְכׇל הַדָּר בְּחוּצָה לָאָרֶץ דּוֹמֶה כְּמִי שֶׁאֵין לוֹ אֱלוֹהַּ. שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״לָתֵת לָכֶם אֶת אֶרֶץ כְּנַעַן לִהְיוֹת לָכֶם לֵאלֹהִים״

The Sages taught: A person should always reside in the Land of Israel, even in a city that is mostly populated by gentiles; and should not reside outside of Israel, even in a city that is mostly populated by Jews, because anyone who resides in Israel is considered as one who has a God, and anyone who resides outside of Israel is considered as one who does not have a God, as it is stated: “To give to you the land of Canaan, to be your God.” (Leviticus 25:38)

The Talmud then challenges this statement, arguing that it can’t be that living outside of Israel makes a Jew an atheist. So, it gives a better answer: “Anyone who lives outside of Israel is likened to an idolater!” At this point, we are presented with a story about how Rabbi Zeira really wanted to make aliyah, but his teacher Rav Yehuda disapproved. Rav Yehuda took the following verse quite literally: “They shall be taken to Babylonia and there they shall remain until the day that I recall them, said the Lord.” (Jeremiah 27:22) Rav Yehuda believed leaving Babylon for Israel without a clear sign from God was a transgression.

‘The Flight of the Prisoners’ by James Tissot, depicting the Jewish people’s exile after the destruction of the First Temple.

Of course, that verse in Jeremiah is speaking of the period between the First and Second Temples, and had no direct relevance to Rav Yehuda’s generation many centuries later. But this was not the approach that Rabbi Zeira took to refute his teacher’s position. Instead, he reminded Rav Yehuda that the previous verse in Jeremiah is “concerning the vessels that remain in the house of the Lord”. The whole thing is clearly talking about the Temple items, not about the Jewish people, who are always welcome in their own Promised Land.

Rav Yehuda changes course and rebuts with a different verse from Tanakh: “I adjure you [ishba’ati], O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles and by the hinds of the field, that you not awaken nor stir up love, until it please.” (Song of Songs 2:7) He uses this as proof that Jews shouldn’t go back to Israel until it pleases God. Rabbi Zeira counters that this verse refers to an oath (shvu’a, based on the term ishba’ati) that the Jewish nation apparently took upon themselves when going into exile. There are actually three verses in Shir haShirim (2:7, 3:5, 8:4) that begin the exact same way, with the same ishba’ati word that implies an oath. Thus, there were three oaths that God adjured:

First, that the Jewish people should not return to Israel en masse, “like a wall”, through an organized political or social movement. Second, that the Jewish people should not rebel in exile against their gentile overlords. The third oath was that, in turn, the gentile nations would not oppress the Jews too much. In other words, Jews should be allowed to live in relative peace and safety among the gentiles, in exchange for not seeking to go back “like a wall” to the Holy Land. So, Rabbi Zeira believes that while large groups and mass movements of Jews should not make aliyah en masse, individuals and families could make aliyah to Israel if they wish. Rabbi Zeira thus argued that it was permissible for him to move to Israel.

Rav Yehuda didn’t give up, and countered that the phrasing of “not waken nor stir up” in the Shir haShirim verse implies both large groups and individuals. At this point, Rabbi Levi enters the fray and says that the extra language is for a different reason: each oath is actually two oaths, and there are a total of six oaths, not three! The extra three oaths are that Jewish scholars should not reveal when the End of Days and the Final Redemption would come; but that they should also not “distance” the Final Redemption and cause it to be postponed; and finally that Jews shouldn’t reveal “the secret” to the nations of the world. It is unclear what exactly this “secret” is. Rashi suggests it refers to the secrets of the divine Jewish calendar and intercalation of months (as does Yalkut Shimoni II, 986), or perhaps the deeper mystical secrets of the Torah. One might also read it simply as not revealing the secret time of the Redemption to anyone, Jew or gentile.

The Talmud then explains what is the meaning of the latter words in the Shir haShirim verse, “by the gazelles and by the hinds of the field.” Rabbi Elazar quotes God saying to the Jewish people: “If you fulfill the oath, it is good, and if not, I will abandon your flesh ‘like the gazelles and like the hinds of the field.’” In other words, if we don’t fulfil the oath, we will be left alone in the field, without any divine protection, presumably to be hunted down like gazelles. Then Rabbi Elazar adds one final statement before the Talmud moves on to a different discussion about burial: “Anyone who resides in the Land of Israel dwells without transgression…” So, what do we make of this puzzling passage?

Violating Oaths, Fulfilling Oaths

On the surface, the Talmud seems to be telling us that Rav Yehuda held that Jews shouldn’t seek to live in Israel until the coming of Mashiach and the Final Redemption. Rabbi Zeira, on the other hand, believed that Jews should move to Israel and it is praiseworthy for them to do so—but they should immigrate individually, and not as a mass movement. This is evidently the majority position of the Talmudic sages, since the whole passage begins by saying that any Jew who doesn’t live in Israel is an atheist or idolater, and goes on to say how wonderful it is for a Jew to live in Israel. Rabbi Elazar’s concluding opinion is most intriguing, and seems to suggest that while he also agrees Jews shouldn’t move to Israel en masse, if they have already done so anyway then, bedieved, it is fine and they are sinless.

In the previous century, many Hasidic and Haredi rabbis took an anti-Zionist stance because of this Talmudic passage of the “Three Oaths”. Yet, ironically, some of the earliest figures who made aliyah to Israel en masse, “like a wall”, were actually Hasidim and Haredim! (For more on this, see the class on ‘The Hidden History of Zionism’.) The first was probably Rabbi Yehuda haHasid Segal (c. 1660-1700) who led a group of 1200 Jews to Israel from across Eastern Europe and the Ottoman Empire in 1697. Then came 300 Hasidim with Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk (c. 1730-1788) in 1777. In 1808 arrived someone from the opposite side of the spectrum, the Litvish Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Shklov (d. 1827), a disciple of the Vilna Gaon, who brought with him 150 Mitnagdim. Meanwhile, the Sefardi world, led by Sir Moses Montefiore, Rabbi Yehuda Alkali, and Rabbi Yehuda Bibas, sent many more Jews to Israel throughout the 1800s. And, of course, the First Aliyah (which began in 1881 and totalled some 25,000 people) was made up almost entirely of Hasidim fleeing the pogroms of the Russian Empire! And this brings us back to the Three Oaths.

The Oaths state that Jews would remain in exile without protest on condition that the nations would not oppress Israel too harshly. Clearly, history shows that the nations did not uphold their end of the deal. Jews were tormented endlessly and brutally, whether by Crusaders or Inquisitors, Almohads, Cossacks, or Nazis. It is clear that the Oaths were violated by the nations, and thus rendered null and void. Jews had no choice but to move to Israel en masse.

The first major wave actually came following the Spanish Expulsion of 1492. It was those Sephardic Jews—coming in the many thousands—that rebuilt the four holy cities of Jerusalem, Hebron, Tzfat, and Tiberias and re-established vibrant communities there in the 16th century. There would be no Shulchan Arukh and no Kitvei Arizal and no Lecha Dodi (all of which were composed in 16th-century Tzfat) were it not for the “wall” of Sephardim that migrated there. The “wall” of religious Jews that came in the 1800s and early 1900s set the foundations for the modern State of Israel, and established some of the most religious Jewish neighbourhoods in the world like Mea Shearim and Bnei Brak.

So, it seems no one made a particularly big deal about the Three Oaths until recently. It was just a little-known idea from a short passage in the Talmud that is almost never mentioned in any other ancient texts. In fact, it wasn’t until Religious Zionism was hijacked by more secular Political Zionism that people started to remember the old Talmudic oaths. Now, one might argue those oaths don’t matter anyway because they are not halakhah, and just part of a personal debate between Rav Yehuda and Rabbi Zeira. (After all, the Jews never literally took any such oaths, and neither did the nations of the world.) However, even if one goes with the position that the oaths were firm and binding, the modern State of Israel still does not violate them.

The Maharsha (Rabbi Shmuel Eidels, 1555-1631) comments here on Ketubot 111a (appropriately, in his Chiddushei Aggadot, not Chiddushei Halakhot!) that there is an exception to ascending “like a wall” to Israel. He connects the mysterious term “like a wall”, chomah, to Nehemiah 2:17, where Nehemiah says to the exiled Jews: “You see the bad state we are in—Jerusalem lying in ruins and its gates destroyed by fire. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem [chomat yerushalayim] and suffer no more disgrace.” The Maharsha asks how could it be that Nehemiah was inspiring thousands of Jews to return to Israel “like a wall” and rebuild it? Doesn’t this violate the oath? The Maharsha answers that it didn’t violate the oath because Nehemiah had the king’s permission to do so. This was not an act of rebellion against the nations! Which brings us back to the case of modern Israel.

The Jews that were returning to Israel en masse, starting in the 15th century, were doing so with the full permission of the Ottoman Empire who ruled over the land. In fact, Don Joseph Nasi (1524-1579) was given a charter by the Ottomans to recreate a semi-autonomous Jewish state with its capital in Tiberias, and was given the official title “Lord of Tiberias”. This is essentially the same situation as Nehemiah was in. The Jews in the 1800s were similarly buying plots of land from the Ottomans legally. Then the British took over and became the new overlords of the land. The Balfour Declaration demonstrated the intent of the British to establish a Jewish state in the Holy Land. The San Remo Conference of 1920 adopted and affirmed the Balfour Declaration, with the international powers agreeing to establish a Jewish state in Israel. And finally, the UN voted to establish a Jewish state in November 1947 through the consensus of a majority of nations. (As many have pointed out, far from being an “illegal occupier”, the State of Israel is possibly the most legal state on the planet!) Thus, the creation of the modern State of Israel would mirror the times of Nehemiah and, according to the reasoning of the Maharsha, would not be a violation of the Three Oaths.

Finally, if we go back to the Scriptural source for the Three Oaths, the verses say that we shouldn’t “awaken until it pleases” God. How exactly would we know if it pleases God? Perhaps through a series of miracles and signs? Supernatural occurrences and clear divine favour? Does modern Israel not fit the bill? Turning swamps and deserts into high-tech metropolises, re-establishing forests with literally hundreds of millions of new trees, exporting fruit to the world, desalinating water so that the land and its people no longer have to worry about being parched, and fighting off wave after wave of attack from aggressive neighbours. Do we ignore the miracles of 1948 and 1967 and 1973? Did we forget all the prophecies in Tanakh that have come true right before our eyes? How many more signs do we need to confirm that, indeed, “it pleases God”?

It hasn’t been easy, of course, and there has been a great deal of suffering along the way, but it was never meant to be easy, and Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai told us long ago that three gifts are acquired through pain: “The Holy One, Blessed be He, gave Israel three precious gifts, all of which were given only by means of suffering: Torah, the Land of Israel, and the World to Come.” We have thankfully already received the first two gifts. Hopefully, the suffering we are experiencing now as a nation is the necessary bit of pain before the third and final gift which is right around the corner.

Netanyahu and Yirmiyahu

This week’s parasha, Bechukotai, contains an infamous list of curses that could befall the Jewish people, has v’shalom, if they stray from God’s ways. Jewish history shows that we have indeed experienced such tragic curses over the millennia every so often, and not just in the distant past but recently on October 7. As difficult and inexplicable such events may be, we have to keep in mind that while they come at the hands of various political entities and ethnoreligious groups, ultimately the source of the pain is God Himself. As the parasha tells us, the tragedies are both an unfortunate retribution for our transgressions, and a wake-up call to be better.

‘Destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem’ by Francesco Hayez (1867)

One of the first such unspeakable catastrophes took place roughly twenty-five centuries ago, at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians. They massacred tens of thousands of Jews, enslaved and exiled many more, destroyed Jerusalem, and burned down the Holy Temple. Yet, the prophet Jeremiah quotes Hashem saying Nebuchadnezzar is His “servant” (Jeremiah 43:10), His instrument in bringing about punishment. The sad reality is that history’s wicked tormentors were tools of God. They would not arise had we not deserved it. We read in Isaiah 45:7 that “I am God, and there is no other; I form light and create darkness; I make peace and create evil, I am Hashem, doing all of these things.” If it is God’s Will to do such things, what does that make of the free will of the human tormentors?

Our Sages teach that when a person ascends to a high political position, and holds the lives of many in their hands, God limits that person’s free will. God will occasionally “harden their hearts” (as He did with Pharaoh) and steer their choices if necessary. This was described long ago by King Solomon when he said “Like channeled water is the heart of a king in God’s Hand; He directs it wherever He wishes.” (Proverbs 21:1) The Talmud cites this verse in saying that each person should pray “for a good king”, meaning we should pray that God direct political leaders to act justly and kindly with the populace (Berakhot 55a). God can cause a political leader to do more good, or to bring about punishment. And this takes us right back to October 7:

Everyone is puzzled by the fact that the Israeli government missed all the warning signs, was paralyzed by inaction on the morning of, and seemingly allowed the October 7 massacre to happen. It appears to be totally inexplicable and, not surprisingly, has given rise to multiple conspiracy theories. Did the government deliberately allow the massacre to happen? Did they want a serious external conflict to end the civil unrest that was taking place in the months prior to October 7? Did they have a hand in planning the attack? Did they purposely keep the border unguarded, or move military units away from the border, or give an abnormally large number of soldiers holiday vacations, or jam communication channels, or change permits to move the Nova festival from its original location right to the Gaza border? The theories are numerous, each more sinister than the next. Personally, I find them hard to believe, and although I am no fan of the government, it feels absurd to suggest that anyone could deliberately allow something like this to happen to their own people.

But then I was reading Jeremiah—the same Jeremiah that refers to Nebuchadnezzar as God’s servant, and the same Jeremiah from whom we read this week’s Haftarah. We find something quite amazing in the Book of Jeremiah: it is the one place in the Tanakh that describes a family called “Netanyahu”. (Another is briefly mentioned in a list in I Chronicles 25:12.) Jeremiah first speaks of a righteous court official named Yehudi ben Netanyahu (36:14). Yehudi delivers a scroll bearing Jeremiah’s gloomy prophecy to the king, and reads it before him. Judea’s King Yehoyakim refuses to heed the warning and thinks he is safe from the Babylonians. He scoffs and burns the prophetic scroll of Jeremiah. We hear no more of Yehudi ben Netanyahu after this.

We then read how Jeremiah’s prophecy was tragically fulfilled. The Babylonian armies arrived, destroying Jerusalem and the Temple and starting the grim period of the Babylonian Captivity. However, the Babylonians did not expel all the Jews from the Holy Land, and even allowed the Jews some autonomy to continue governing themselves. They appointed a Jewish leader named Gedaliah ben Ahikam as governor of Judea. Gedaliah reassured the remaining Jews that everything would be okay; to stay in the Holy Land and rebuild.

Here we are introduced to another Jewish leader, called Ishmael ben Netanyahu (40:8). A descendant of the Davidic monarchy, he had dreams of becoming king and making himself the undisputed leader of Israel. Gedaliah, of course, stood in his way. Ishmael made a secret alliance with the king of Ammon (same place as today’s Amman, capital of the Palestinian state of “Jordan”) to assassinate Gedaliah. Gedaliah was warned of Ishmael’s sinister plans, but dismissed the rumours, thinking no self-respecting Jew could ever stoop so low.

Although the entire British Mandate for Palestine was originally promised to the Jewish people, the British suddenly gave away more than two-thirds to the Arabs to form a new Palestinian state now called “Jordan”. (Credit: Eli E. Hertz)

But then, “in the seventh month” (Tishrei), Gedaliah was having a holiday feast and Ishmael joined him for the yom tov meal (41:1). Wicked Ishmael suddenly struck down Gedaliah “and all the Jews who were with him” (41:3). The next day, pilgrims “came from Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria” to bring holiday offerings. Ishmael came out to greet them and invited them into town before turning on them and slaughtering them, too (41:7). Ishmael threw all the corpses into a cistern. He didn’t stop there:

Ishmael carried off all the rest of the people who were in Mizpah, including the daughters of the king—all the people left in Mizpah, over whom Nebuzaradan, the chief of the guards, had appointed Gedaliah son of Ahikam. Ishmael son of Netanyah carried them off, and set out to cross over to the Ammonites. (41:10)

Ishmael took hostages and fled back to Ammon. A Judean general named Yochanan ben Kareach finally figured out what’s going on and chased after Ishmael with his men, managing to free the hostages. Ishmael, however, escaped and we don’t know what happened to him afterwards.

In the aftermath of the massacre, the frightened and traumatized Judeans feared the Babylonians would come back to punish them for the death of the Babylon-appointed governor Gedaliah. Despite Jeremiah’s protests and assurances that all would be fine, the remnant of Jews decided to flee to Egypt. The result of Ishmael’s treachery was that the Holy Land lost its last Jews, along with its semi-autonomous Jewish government. The last traces of the Kingdom of Judea were officially obliterated.

For this terrible tragedy, we still observe the “Fast of Gedaliah” today every year immediately following Rosh Hashanah. Though the Tanakh doesn’t say exactly which holiday it was, according to tradition the Gedaliah massacre occurred on Rosh Hashanah. Since we don’t fast on holidays, the fast is observed on the third of Tishrei. However, a careful reading of the Tanakh suggests that the holiday may have been Sukkot, hence the pilgrims that came the following day to bring offerings. Altogether, the narrative is eerily similar to what we experienced last Sukkot in Tishrei, when Ishmaelites came into the land and slaughtered Jews peacefully celebrating a holiday, while taking other Jews hostage.

Strangely, the villain in the Jeremiah narrative (also recounted in II Kings 25) is a power-hungry Jewish leader named Ishmael ben Netanyahu. It would be another millennium before an Ishmaelite by the name of Muhammad would arise, and henceforth “Ishmael” would always be associated with the Muslims. If this episode in Tanakh is not only historical, but prophetic, I wonder what it might mean for all of us today.

I am reminded of the fact that our own Netanyahu was all too kind to the Ishmaelites, giving record-high work permits to Gazans to enter Israel (the Bennett government gave 10,000 before Netanyahu came back to power last year and doubled it to 20,000), transferring Qatari suitcases of cash to support them, and refusing pre-emptive strikes when warned by military officials. The same Netanyahu has yet to fulfil a single objective in the current war. Nearly eight months later, most of Hamas’ tunnel infrastructure is still in place, their leaders still at large, rockets still being fired on Israel, and worst of all, a multitude of hostages still in captivity. The government of Israel is paralyzed, the Knesset remains a circus of corruption (on both sides left and right, secular and “religious”), and “there is no one to rely on but our Father in Heaven.” (Sotah 49b)

Will today’s Netanyahu be more like the righteous Yehudi ben Netanyahu—who supported Jeremiah the Prophet and sought to lead people towards truth and repentance, while confronting the corrupt government of Yehoyakim—or is he more like Ishmael ben Netanyahu, a power-hungry manipulator and a collaborator with Israel’s enemies, a facilitator of Jewish massacres? Will he go down in history as a real “Yehudi”, or as an imposter “Ishmael”? I hope time will prove the former to be the case, but I fear the reality is fast-approaching the latter. If Benjamin Netanyahu does not make some dramatic changes for himself and his country, he may well end up like Ishmael ben Netanyahu long before him; shamefully fleeing his country, remembered for centuries thereafter as a villain.

Whatever happens, Jeremiah in this week’s Haftarah reminds us of a critical principle never to lose sight of: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man… Blessed is the man who trusts in God; and God shall be his security.” (17:5-7)

Why Was the Temple Really Destroyed?

‘Destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem’ by Francesco Hayez (1867)

Tonight, we usher in Tisha b’Av to commemorate a number of tragedies in Jewish history, most notably the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash, Jerusalem’s Holy Temple. The first iteration of the Temple, built by King Solomon, was destroyed by the Babylonians in the middle of the 1st millennium BCE. The second, originally built by Jewish leaders like Ezra, Nehemiah, and Zerubbabel upon the conclusion of the Babylonian Exile—and later greatly magnified and renovated by King Herod at the end of the 1st century BCE—was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE. Why were these Temples destroyed? What did the Jewish people really do (or not do) to merit such catastrophes?

We have all heard the simplistic answers before. Now especially, with what’s going on in the State of Israel, many are quick to point out that sinat hinam, baseless hatred and divisiveness among Jews, is the reason. People on the left and right of Israeli society today are warning that sinat hinam will do us in yet again. But the real story is much more complicated, and interesting, than that.

The reasons for the destruction of the First Temple are simpler to understand: there was a general lack of Torah observance. Idolatry was rampant, as described throughout the Tanakh, and there was a plethora of sexual sin and even bloodshed (Yoma 9b). In addition, the people failed to properly observe Shabbat and Shemitah (the Sabbatical year). Among other things that the Talmud (Shabbat 119b) notes are failure to recite Shema twice daily, interfering with children’s Torah education, a lack of honour for elders and priests, and Jews turning a blind eye and not rebuking each other for their sins.

The Talmud (Sanhedrin 64a) tells us that following the Babylonian Exile, the Sages that rebuilt Judea and ushered in the Second Temple era convened a special assembly and beseeched God to remove the desire for idolatry. God acquiesced, and idolatry was no longer really an issue among Jews going forward. Thus, Torah observance in the Second Temple era was much better. In fact, it was so much better that it was perhaps too much, and the Talmud (Bava Metzia 30b) says the Second Temple was destroyed because people were too exact with the law, and didn’t go lifnim mishurat hadin, “beyond the letter of the law”. This phrase is typically interpreted to mean that they should have been even more stringent than the law requires, but it can also mean the opposite, that they should have been more understanding and rule more kindly and favourably (see Ben Yehoyada here, as well as Rashi on Bava Metzia 83a).

In fact, we know that there was a push to make Jewish law extra strict in the times leading up to the Temple’s destruction. The most infamous case of this was when Beit Shammai took over the Sanhedrin and forcibly passed 18 new decrees, including the requirement to consume only pat Israel (Jewish-made bread), and to forbid all gentile-made cheese (gevinat ‘akum) and gentile-made wine. When this happened, Rabbi Yehoshua sadly remarked that they had “erased the measure”: by making Judaism even more difficult, few would want to observe it and it would ultimately serve to drive people away from God’s law. The Talmud Yerushalmi (Shabbat 1:4) goes so far as to call this event as tragic as the Golden Calf!

Another major factor in the Temple’s destruction was sexual immorality (Yoma 9b). Although the statement here in the Talmud is said with regards to the First Temple in particular, we know this was an issue in Second Temple times, too, as we see in other places. In Gittin 58a, for instance, we are presented with a convoluted story where a young apprentice desired the wife of his master, so he cooked up a plan that ended with the apprentice stealing the wife of his master, and enslaving the master to serve them. It was at this specific point that God decreed the Second Temple’s destruction. And it was not an isolated case either. In Sotah 47a we read how Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai, the leading sage in Judea during the Second Temple’s destruction, abrogated the entire sotah procedure for a suspected adulteress because there was just too much adultery going on!

There are few things God hates more than sexual licentiousness and public promiscuity. Such behaviour is undoubtedly a cause for catastrophe, and we should keep this in mind when reflecting on the disgusting hyper-sexualization of society going on today. We must not forget the Sages’ teaching that God did not decree the Great Flood until that generation had started marrying two men and even men to beasts (see Beresheet Rabbah 26:5, as well as Chullin 92a-b). The former has now not only become common but bizarrely needs to be celebrated, while the latter might still seem absurd but has started to happen in our days, too. There is an ironic connection to the Temple here that is worth pointing out:

The villain initially cast for the role of destroying the Temple was the Roman emperor Nero (Gittin 56a). However, he soon realized that God was using him as a pawn: Nero learned that God uses despicable people as His agents of evil, so that He could then punish them, too. Nero understood he was that evil pawn, and would eventually perish for it. So, he abandoned the task. From historical sources, we know that he committed suicide because everyone left him—including his own royal guard—as they were fed up with his monstrosity. Nero had killed his wife, then regretted it so much that he found a slave boy that looked like her, castrated him, dressed him up like the wife, and married the boy. This is the kind of villain God tasked with destroying the Temple. Today, such a person might be celebrated by secular society and the mainstream media as a progressive hero.

The task of destroying the Temple was ultimately left to Vespasian and his son Titus. The exact way that it came about is through the infamous story of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza (Gittin 55b-56a). In short, a wealthy man intended to invite his friend Kamtza to his party, but the invitation went to the wrong address and instead came his enemy, Bar Kamtza. The wealthy man wished to eject Bar Kamtza, and Bar Kamtza was so embarrassed he offered to even pay for the entire party if only they would let him stay and not suffer the shame. The host refused and kicked him out unceremoniously. People often misunderstand this story and think that here is an example of terrible sinat hinam that caused the Temple destruction. But that’s not how the story ends!

After getting kicked out of the party, Bar Kamtza said: “the Sages were sitting there and did not protest the [humiliation]!” How could the rabbis at the party stay silent? Angry, Bar Kamtza went to the Romans and told them that Israel is plotting a rebellion. He said he could prove it if they would send an official Roman sacrifice to the Temple. The Romans would see that the Jews would refuse their offering. As the sacrificial animal was being delivered, Bar Kamtza nicked it so that it would be blemished and unfit for offering. The Sages and priests were in a bind: on the one hand, they could not offer up a blemished sacrifice, as this would be insulting to God. On the other hand, rejecting the official Roman offering would certainly insult the Caesar and trigger a cruel response from Rome. One of the leaders at the time, Rabbi Zechariah ben Avkolas, concluded that their hands were tied and they should simply do nothing. The Romans were insulted, and the war began.

What is typically overlooked here is not the villainy of Bar Kamtza or his host, but the weakness, silence, and indifference of the rabbis. In fact, the passage concludes with Rabbi Yochanan teaching: “The ‘humility’ of Rabbi Zechariah ben Avkolas destroyed our Temple, burned our Sanctuary, and exiled us from our land.” The fault is placed not on Bar Kamtza, nor his host, nor the sinful Jewish masses, but squarely on the rabbis.

Today, again, we have rabbinic leaders who stay silent, who are indifferent, who are afraid to act, who don’t empathize with their flock, who rule stringently without heart, and who don’t bother getting involved in difficult issues. We have rabbinic leaders who take bribes masked as “charity” and avoid rebuking the wealthy and powerful; who spend their time in business and politics instead of spiritual upliftment and community building. Rabbinic leaders who do nothing to actually solve the many issues plaguing the Jewish world, and instead cowardly choose to support an unhealthy status quo. The prophet Jeremiah saw this long ago when he quoted Hashem declaring v’tofsei haTorah lo yeda’uni, “and the ‘guardians of the Torah’ don’t know Me!” Those who claim to hold steadfastly to the Torah—the supposed, self-appointed tofsei haTorah—are really the furthest from Hashem.

And so, the Temple was destroyed not simply because of sinat hinam. It was destroyed because of lax Torah observance, and also because of overly strict Torah observance. It was destroyed because of sexual immorality and shameless promiscuity. And perhaps foremost, it was destroyed because of the silence and indifference of rabbinic leaders. The Temple has yet to be rebuilt because we are still dealing with these same problems. Until every Jew speaks out and refuses to play along, nothing will change. Until every Jew rises up and opposes the insanity on both sides of the social, political, and religious spectrum, we shouldn’t expect a rebuilt Temple or a Mashiach. Crying about it and pretending to be sad on Tisha b’Av is essentially pointless—two thousand years of that clearly hasn’t brought us one iota closer. To conclude with an oft-used (and oft-misused) verse: et la’asot la’Hashem, heferu Toratecha! “It is a time to act for God, for they have violated your Torah!” (Psalms 119:126)

Wishing everyone a meaningful fast

More Learning Resources for Tisha b’Av:
The Untold Story of Napoleon and the Jews
The Powerful Link between Tisha b’Av and Tu b’Av
The Jews Who Destroyed the Temple