Something to Ponder! FWIW I heard a great lecture on this Sugya.
KT, RRW
Time for courage
By Shammai Engelmayer
(C) 2002 - all rights reserved by the author
An Orthodox colleague approached me recently with a request. The Three Weeks are about to begin, he said; perhaps it is time to reprise a column I wrote over four years ago.
The Three Weeks, of course, is that period between the Fast of Shiva Asar b’Tammuz (17th of Tammuz) and Tisha B’Av (9th of Av) that is marked by an escalating level of mourning for the sacking of Jerusalem and the razing of the Temple both in 586 BCE and 70 CE. This year, that period began on Thursday (June 27) and will end well after 9 p.m. on July 18.
The column in question had to do with why Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE. Of specific interest to my colleague was not the story itself, but the lesson it taught for future generations. The recent UJA-Federation study of Bergen County Jewish life, my colleague said, is not the triumphant document of vibrant Jewish life that it is being made to appear. Its references to the high number of unaffiliated Jews in the county and other statistics, such as the number of Jews under age 35 who have Christmas trees in their homes (it is over 30 percent), only reaffirm that American Jewry is in the midst of a demographic nightmare. American Jewry may disappear entirely in a generation or two, if the horrifying trends continue.
Yet, my Orthodox colleague said, the streams continue to fight among themselves as if there is nothing wrong. The story of why Jerusalem was destroyed, he said, had something to say about that.
What was most interesting (other than that a 4-year-old column had made such an impression on him) was that the story he was referring to usually is cited inaccurately. In fact, we have heard the inaccurate version so many times that we accept it as fact: Jerusalem was destroyed because of the sin of “baseless hatred” (sinat chinam); the Talmud says so, so it must be true.
Actually, the Talmud offers many reasons for why Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman. In the Babylonian Talmud tractate Shabbat (119b), for example, it offers a laundry list of reasons. Among them are that “Shabbat was desecrated there”; “Jerusalemites neglected reading the Shema”; “neglected [the education of] school children”; acted without concern for how their actions looked to others; acted as though the most ignorant of the law were the equals of those most knowledgeable; “closed their eyes to the evil around them and did nothing to correct the situation”; or “that scholars there were despised by the general population.”
The Jerusalem that these scenarios conjures up was one rampant in secularism and disdain for “the religious.” A picture of another sort is painted in BT Yoma (9b), and it is here that we are given the most popular reason for Jerusalem’s destruction: “But the second Temple -- during which period they occupied themselves with Torah, mitzvot, and gemilut chasadim – why was it destroyed? Because there existed there sinat chinam. That is meant to teach you that baseless hatred is considered even worse [a sin] than the three sins of idolatry, sexual immorality, and bloodshed combined.”
That is strong stuff, but especially since the three sins it outranks are the only ones for which the Talmud insists a person should suffer martyrdom rather than be forced to commit the offense.
What is absent here, however, is an explanation of this “baseless hatred.” For that, another talmudic text, BT Gittin (55b-56a) is usually cited, the infamous tale of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza. There is only one problem with this citation: It has nothing to do with “baseless hatred” and makes no such claim. Those who cite it either have never studied the text, or deliberately cut off the tale at its knees to distort the true message before it reaches the general Jewish public.
“The destruction of Jerusalem came through a certain Kamtza and a Bar Kamtza in this way,” Rabbi Yochanan explains in this section of Gittin. “A certain man had a friend named Kamtza and an enemy named Bar Kamtza. He once made a party and said to his servant, ‘Go and bring me Kamtza.’ The man went and brought him Bar Kamtza instead. When the [host] found [Bar Kamtza] there, he said, ‘Behold, you are the one who tells stories about me. Why are you here? Leave.’ Said [Bar Kamtza to the host]: ‘Since I am already here, let me stay, and I will pay you for whatever I eat and drink.’”
The host said no, and all the efforts of Bar Kamtza to avoid being embarrassed proved futile. He even offered to pay for the whole party, but the host took him by the hand and threw him out, while all of Jerusalem’s elite reportedly stood by in silence.
“Said [Bar Kamtza], ‘Since there were Rabbis sitting there and [they] did not stop him [from behaving so boorishly], I understand from this that they agreed with him. I will go to the [Roman] government and inform on them.’”
Thus, according to the testimony of Bar Kamtza, the reason for his perfidy was the silence of the Rabbis, not the animosity shown to him by the anonymous host. That animosity, in fact, may not have been baseless, at all. The host cites his reason: that Bar Kamtza spread tales about him, presumably of an evil nature. Bar Kamtza does not deny the charge. Rather, he pleads not to be embarrassed in front of Jerusalem’s elite.
The story, however, is not over. Rabbi Yochanan has more to say:
“[Bar Kamtza] went and said to [the local governor, personal representative of] Caesar, ‘The Jews are rebelling against you.’ [The Roman] said, ‘How can I tell?’ Said Bar Kamtza to him: ‘Send them an offering and see whether they will offer it [on the altar].’”
Bar Kamtza, of course, had a plan. He knew that the Romans would choose a perfect calf for the offering. He hoped that he would be the one to take it to the Temple, and he was. “While on the way,” said Rabbi Yochanan, Bar Kamtza “made a blemish on its upper lip, or some say that it was on the white of its eye, in a place where according to our way of thinking it is a blemish [thereby rendering the calf ineligible as a sacrifice], but according to [the Roman] way of looking at it, it is not [considered a blemish].”
Now Rabbi Yochanan gets to his point:
“The Rabbis reasoned that it should be offered, in order to keep peace with the government, but Rabbi Zechariah ben Avkulas said to this: ‘They will say [in the future] that blemished animals are offered on the altar.’ [The Rabbis] then suggested that Bar Kamtza be killed so that he could not go and inform against them [a second time], but Rabbi Zechariah ben Avkulas said to this, ‘They will say [in the future] that someone who makes a blemish on consecrated animals should be put to death.’”
On both points, apparently, Rabbi Zechariah ben Avkulas was able to sway the majority to his viewpoint. Said Rabbi Yochanan: “Because of the humility of Rabbi Zechariah ben Avkulas, our House was destroyed, our Temple burnt and we ourselves exiled from our land.”
We are not certain who this Rabbi Zechariah ben Avkulas was, because he never again appears (at least by that name) in the entire Talmud, although a Rabbi Zechariah ben Eucolos makes a solo appearance in BT Shabbat in a discussion of how to get rid of the kernels of Syrian dates. The traitorous Jewish historian Josephus, who ascribes the beginning of the war to the refusal to accept the offering of the emperor in 66 C.E., mentions someone with a similar name and says he was an important figure in the rabbinic circles of the day.
Who he is, however, is less important than what Rabbi Yochanan meant by humility. From the context of the story, it is clear that he meant that Rabbi Zechariah refused to bend the law even though refusal to do so could lead to tragic consequences. It is as if he said, “Who am I, a mere human, to change God’s immutable law even this once?”
That is, in fact, how most sources understand Rabbi Yochanan’s use of the word humility (both the English Soncino translation and the Hebrew Steinsaltz translation define it as “stubborness”). For Rashi, the great commentator of the Middle Ages, this was an unacceptable definition, however. In his world – the world of Ashkenaz, the Crusades and the mass murder of Jews – extremism was the route to holiness. When offered the choice of “convert or die,” the Jews of Ashkenaz were instructed to choose death, even at their own hand. Rashi, therefore, offered his own translation of humility: patience. It is not a definition that makes sense in the context of the story, but it was one that suited Rashi’s world view. (This world view is reflected in the ArtScroll translation, which uses the word “tolerance” directly in the text, avoiding “humility” altogether.)
Rabbi Yochanan’s point, however, is clear: Jerusalem was razed and the Temple set afire because one rabbi insisted that God’s law was immutable and uncompromising, and the consequences be damned.
The true lesson of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza, and the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, is that the consequences must be considered. If God was the ultimate author of the calamities of 70 C.E., then it was God Himself who rejected following a strict interpretation of halachah in the face of impending disaster. It was He who punished His people for not allowing a more liberal interpretation of the law to hold sway long enough to avert disaster.
Sometimes, God was saying, religious authorities must set aside their aversion to compromise. When the fate of the People Israel is at stake, they must be more accepting of other views and must be more honest in admitting that their views may not be the only ones that will please God. They can hold to their views, but they must neither demonize nor delegitimate those who think differently.
Put into the context of the demographic nightmare facing us, which was the point of my colleague’s request, it will take all three streams working together to stem the tide of disaster. Each must revisit its hardened opinions and decisions. Each must find ways to recognize the validity of the other and the usefulness of the other in trying to reawaken Judaism in the hearts of the born-Jewish. Each must set aside its triumphalism and its competitiveness, and sit together in formulating the battle plans for saving the Jewish future.
What was lacking in the Kamtza/Bar Kamtza story was rabbinic courage. The Rabbis at the party did not have the courage to stand up to the anonymous host. They lacked courage again in the face of the stubbornness of Rabbi Zechariah ben Avkilus.
If they lack the courage now, we are doomed.
