Jewish History. בין המצרים This past Tuesday began a three week period in the Jewish calendar known as

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1 Rabbi Steven Rein Park Avenue Synagogue Parashat Pinhas 3 July 2010 Jewish History בין המצרים This past Tuesday began a three week period in the Jewish calendar known as literally, between the narrow places. This string of 21 days links the day when the troops of King Nebuchadnezzar breached the walls of Jerusalem to the culmination of this calamity, the destruction of the First and Second Temple on ט ' ב"אב the Ninth of Av. As our focus turns toward this period of mourning I want to look at the destruction of the Second Temple through two specific lenses: the rabbinic narrative as recorded in the Talmud and the historical narrative found in the annals of history. What accounts for the discrepancies in these two accounts? Why did the rabbis feel the need to create their own version of history? What meaning, if any, does this have for modern Jews in the 21 st century? I begin with our sages. The rabbis of the Talmud ascribe the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem to a circumstance involving two Jews: Kamtza and Bar Kamtza. A certain man, who had a friend named Kamtza and an enemy named Bar Kamtza, made a banquet. He told his attendant, Go and bring Kamtza to join me at the banquet. The attendant went and mistakenly brought him Bar Kamtza. When the host arrived at the banquet and found Bar Kamtza sitting there, he said to Bar Kamtza, You are my enemy! What are you doing here? Get up and get out! Bar Kamtza said to him, Since I have come, let me stay and I will give you the value of whatever I eat and drink. The host said to Bar Kamtza, No, I will not let you stay! Bar Kamtza said to him, I will give you the value of half your banquet. Again the host said to him, No! Bar Kamtza said to the host, I will give you the value of your entire banquet. The host said to Bar Kamtza,

2 No! He then grabbed hold of Bar Kamtza with his hand, stood him up and threw him out of the banquet. Bar Kamtza said to himself: Since the Rabbis were seated at the banquet and did not rebuke him for the way he treated me, it is evident that what he did was acceptable to them. I will go and spread slander against the Rabbis in the royal palace. He went and told Caesar, The Jews have rebelled against you send them an animal sacrifice and see whether they offer it in their Temple. While returning to Jerusalem with a calf, Bar Kamtza placed a blemish on the calf s upper lip, ensuring the Rabbis would not offer it in the Temple. When Bar Kamtza sent a report of the rejection to Nero in Rome, Nero was convinced that a rebellion was afoot and he set out toward Jerusalem. Ultimately, Bar Kamtza s revenge led to the destruction of Jerusalem, and so concludes the rabbis narrative. (Gittin, 55b- 56a). Historically, the Second Temple was destroyed in 70 CE at the conclusion of a powerful clash between the Jews and the Roman Empire known as the Great Revolt. Works of history make no mention of a clash involving the likes of Bar Kamtza and a banquet host. Rather, in the years leading up to the revolt, a messianic fervor took hold of the Jewish community. Most felt that God would defeat the Romans, fueling inspiration to the Jewish fighters. The masses began to hate the Roman rulers as a result of harsh taxes and support of the non-jewish, Greco-Syrian culture. Roman rule in Judea was bankrupt causing anarchy to reign in Jerusalem. Villages suffered from the extortion of bandits and a social revolution was brewing between the upper and lower class. The Jews indeed had a militia but they lacked leadership. Competition between various leaders and factions did much to interfere with the war effort. Concurrently, the Roman procurator in Caesarea oppressed the Jews. Jewish leaders wanted to lodge a complaint with the Emperor. While moderates were reluctant, zealots became 2

3 incensed resulting in widespread riots. Against an initial legate (le-get) from Syria, the insurgents were victorious. Their victory, however, was short lived. The Emperor sent Vespasian into the Galilee with 60,000 men, leaving the Jewish army powerless. After defeating the Western Galilee, cities began to fall to the Roman forces, culminating in an attack and destruction of Jerusalem and the holy Temple. The rest as they say is history, and this is what you will find in nearly any history book that you read. Which narrative best represents the events resulting in the destruction of the Temple? The rabbis told a touching story, but did they really believe that war resulted from a banquet feud? I want to suggest that both narratives represent the truth. When sitting to record the history of our people, an author begins a journey down a path replete with obstacles and difficult decisions. Both the rabbis and modern historians bring to the forefront the fine print of their agenda and historical narratives, allowing the reader to gain a glimpse into the past. We are all familiar with the kind of narration found in works of history, journals, and encyclopedias. What were the rabbis trying to communicate? When we read rabbinic literature, we must put on our Jewish lens. Traditionally, history is comprised of facts, what happened to who and when. In Judaism, we are not so much concerned with what happened in the past as we are with the more crucial aspect of how and why it happened. If we look at the Torah, at its core we find a recital of the acts of God, yet its narrative is filled predominantly with the actions of men and women and the deeds of Israel and her surrounding nations. The late professor of Jewish History, Yosef Yerushalmi, asserts that every event as recorded in the Bible may not be factual in the modern sense, yet by the same token, however, its poetic or legendary elements are not fictions in the modern sense either (Yerushalmi, 13). The same holds true for the rabbis 3

4 of the Talmud. For a people in ancient times these were legitimate and sometimes inevitable modes of historical perception and interpretation. Jews have found little or no reason to chronicle their history, as would a conventional historian. The history of the Jews has largely been based upon understanding the traditions of the past, interpreting the past in order to enlighten the future, and creating a Jewish memory that ultimately reveals Jewish History. When the rabbis set out to write works of rabbinic literature: biblical commentary, midrash, the Talmud, and others, they did not set out to write a history of the period in which they lived. Instead, they were engaged in an ongoing exploration of the meaning of the history bequeathed to them, striving to interpret it in living terms for their own and later generations. Returning to the story of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza, what are the rabbis trying to communicate? The events leading to the destruction of the Second Temple were a consequence of שנאת חינם causeless or baseless hatred. We saw the uninvited guest, Bar Kamtza, willing to pay for the entire banquet in order to remain at the party and not to be embarrassed publically. The host, who could have received full payment for the banquet, instead made a spectacle of his adversary and threw him out. The hatred in this story was truly worthless, outweighing the capacity for love. The complete lack of respect was not only an affront to Bar Kamtza, but also to God. Seeing that this sentiment permeated the Jewish community, God saw fit to destroy Jerusalem, using Rome to carry out God s will. Looking at the world in which we live, perhaps we can begin to understand the perspective of the rabbis. For the record, as a modern Jew committed to scholarship, history is indeed necessary to understand our past, yet it often does little to motivate our future. We are all aware that שנאת חינם still exists in the world today, both within the Jewish community and the 4

5 global community. This understanding catapults ancient history to the forefront of our modern sensibilities. Perhaps this is an oversimplification. Although I think the rabbis conception of hatred still remains at the core of our complex reality. When the rabbis and their contemporaries mourned the loss of the Temple, they all knew the date of the month, few were likely to know or care about the exact year, let alone the tactics and weapons used. Our ancestors certainly knew that Babylonia and Rome had been the perpetrators, but neither were historical realities. Historiography in rabbinic Judaism came to a long halt while the belief in the meaning of history remained. Our rabbinic heritage indeed inculcated patterns and habits of thought in later generations that were, from a modern point of view, if not anti-historical, then at least ahistorical (Yerushalmi, 26). Nevertheless, this reality did not prevent the transmission of our Jewish past from one generation to the next, nor did Judaism loose its fundamental link to history or its historical orientation. In the words of Professor Yerushalmi, this apparent incongruity lies in a poverty of language that forces us to apply the term history both to the sort of past with which we are concerned, and to that of Jewish tradition (ibid). Jewish history in the 21 st century demands that we simultaneously study the history of our past and the history of our tradition. Our sages and modern historians each present a unique narrative detailing a communal experience. They each provide us with a unique lens that can be used to decipher and reveal a portrait of the Jews and the history of our people. Utilizing these multiple lenses, a student of history can capture a glimpse into the past and, as a result, a greater understanding of the present. The challenge for us all is what we do with our present. 5