What About the REAL Real Reasons for the Destruction?
More Tisha B'Av revisionism, or something else?
Over the past few years I’ve been writing about how Tisha B’Av has undergone revisionism in various ways. Contrary to popular ideas today, it’s not about yearning for spirituality, it’s about mourning tragedy. And contrary to widespread belief, this mourning is not primarily about the tragedy of the destruction of the two Batei Mikdash. The Temples were the ultimate symbol of the Jewish nation’s status and center of our way of life, even after corruption had emptied them of spiritual significance, and thus the day on which they were destroyed was the logical date to select for annual mourning. But Megillat Eichah and the kinnot are primarily about the destruction of the first two Jewish commonwealths, with the enormous loss of life and human suffering that were involved.
In this post I’d like to explore another seeming case of Tisha B’Av revisionism. In yesterday’s guest post by Rabbi Eli Clark, he argued that while the Sages’ reason for the destruction of the Second Commonwealth, sinat chinam, is usually understood to mean baseless hatred among the nation as a whole, this ignores other statements in Chazal that demonstrate them to be referring to the moral corruption and failure of the priestly and rabbinic leadership. Meanwhile, some others explain sinat chinam to refer to the sectarianism that divided the nation. And Chazal elsewhere give all kinds of other reasons for the destruction, including the desecration of Shabbat, the interruption of Torah study for children, people not rebuking bad behavior in others, people disrespecting Torah scholars, etc.
But surely all these kinds of explanations ignore the most obvious reason for the destruction of the Second Commonwealth: that the Jews started a rebellion against Rome which they lost!
The same is the case with the destruction of the First Commonwealth. The Sages attributed it to the sins of idolatry, illicit relationships, and bloodshed. But surely the real reason was that the Jews started a rebellion against Babylon which they lost!
And it’s not as though this is some kind of secular heretical perspective. With the destruction of the First Commonwealth, the prophet Yirmiyah himself was explicit about this being the cause! He told King Tzedkiah to submit to Nebuchadnezzar, or else Judah would be destroyed and the people would be massacred. Likewise, with the destruction of the Second Commonwealth, the Sages blamed R. Zecharia ben Avkolos for rejecting the Emperor’s sacrifice and provoking Rome. So why would the Sages give different explanations than these accurate historical-political ones?
There are two answers that I can think of. One is that while the Sages were obviously well aware of the proximate historical causes, they were describing the underlying metaphysical causes, stemming from ethical and spiritual shortcomings in the nation. These too are things that Yirmiyah mentioned. Had these sins not existed, God would have arranged for the problems with Babylon and Rome not to have existed.
Another answer would be that the Sages took the opportunity to point out more general and widespread problematic behaviour that needed to be fixed. And just like the Sage who attributed it to the desecration of Shabbos was not ruling out other causes, the Sages were not excluding the problematic behavior of Jews who were arrogant or overly-confident that God was on their side, instead of accepting that they should show some deference to Babylon and to Rome.
The lesson for us today should be clear. True, we don’t need to listen to dictates from the farcical UN and ICC and ICJ, and there are innumerable people who will be opposed to Israel no matter what we do. But nevertheless there is a particular problem of Jews who think that we can do whatever we want, and do not remotely need to take into account what anyone else thinks, because Israel is strong and God is on our side. Rome Schmome!
Alas, the events of our history prove otherwise. This mistake cost us the land twice before, and it can do so again. We are not invulnerable, and we are not guaranteed to have God’s protection. We need to be as strong as we can - not just militarily, not just economically, but also in our moral integrity. But even with all that, we need to accept that we also need to be wise rather than arrogant, and know when we need to be deferential. Putting all those together correctly is the path to surviving and thriving.