The Third Temple
You no longer need to imagine what the fall of the Temple in Jerusalem was like. You no longer need to reconstruct a coherent picture from fragments of eyewitness reports filtered through ancient historians’ narratives. Scrolls no longer need be purchased from enterprising Bedouins in the Judaean Desert and caves need not be braved by archeologists crawling in search of shards and trinkets that would help reconstruct a credible hypothesis to a tattered past soaked in blood.
The Rabbis of the Talmud said: “The Second Temple, in which they dealt in Torah, Mitzvoth, and acts of loving kindness – why was it destroyed? Because senseless hatred existed within it.” Talmud, Masechet Yoma, Page 9, B. In our Yom Kippur prayers we say: “Because of our sins were we exiled from our land.”
The sages were well aware of Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. They had heard of, read of, and, in many cases, witnessed the devastation of conquest by the great empires. What they were after, however, was not a physical, geopolitical explanation for imperialism. They were after the root causes of social and cultural fragmentation that lead to a disintegration from within a society. They were researching social cancer.
Thanks to an era ushered in by a slew of populist politicians promoted, elected, supported, and adored by multitudes, we can now walk through a giant laboratory of senseless hatred made accessible to all. Senseless hatred is the foundational material from which the walls of this giant laboratory are built, the currency with which to purchase the goods offered within this laboratory, the very essence of the acrid air we now breathe.
Senseless hatred is not an external element that invades our biosphere – it is self-produced. It is the byproduct of anxiety, fear, frustration, impatience, anger, and a desire for quick fixes. Senseless hatred blossoms in our willingness to turn a deaf ear to the cry of the vulnerable and a blind eye to the suffering of the other. Senseless hatred is the Pharaoh within each of us, biding his time in the shadows of our tenuous existence.
Just like any living creature on earth, senseless hatred needs nurturing. It needs to be encouraged, supported, and protected. Just like love, senseless hatred is proven by the fruit it bears. Just like love, senseless hatred must be put into action. Look around. Turn on the TV. Check your Facebook page. Go on Instagram. Glance at the headlines in print media. Senseless hatred is everywhere, all the time.
Everywhere means everywhere around the globe, but I have two places in mind that matter to me in a very personal way: Israel, and the USA.
In many ways these two, vastly different countries, mirror each other, and for good reason: The modern State of Israel, through its declaration of independence, was greatly influenced by Thomas Jefferson’s vision of an ideal society. Not to be cute, but so was the United States of America, though one would be hard pressed at this moment in time to feel Jefferson’s spirit in the halls of Congress or in the mass media.
Senseless hatred did not just spring up from a cake during a recent surprise birthday party gone awry. We have been watching it bubble up over the past 30 years or so, both here, in the United States, and in Israel. Watching and hearing but doing very little to actually deal with it.
There can be no doubt that in Israel this pernicious matter has been brought to a head in the last three years, beginning with the hotly contested attempt at judicial reform and then corresponding with the horrific events of October 7th and the bloody aftermath that has ensued. In the United States, this began with the presidential elections of 2016, and then amplified and magnified with the January 6th, 2021, riots and the ensuing political mayhem that has not abated until this very moment.
There are theological, social, historical, regional, global, and economic reasons for displeasure, frustration, anger, and resentment felt by multitudes. They get examined, dissected, researched and written about in academic journals, pseudo-popular books, and endless essays in magazines. They even get reduced to digestible nuggets in the printed media and then spoon-fed like deglazed droplets of gastrique to the viewing public by glib talking heads on what passes these days for TV news.
At the end of the day, what matters to me more than anything else is this: how much cruelty will we permit to be visited on the other, on the vulnerable, the detested stranger, the enemy? This is not a philosophical or theoretical question. We are long past hypotheses, both in the USA and in Israel.
Alligator Alcatraz and Gestapo-like raids in California, targeting day-laborers and suspiciously brown-looking civilians with no prior criminal records have become part of our daily bread in America. Elementary schools, strawberry fields, and Costco parking lots are our new battlefields, to which we send masked soldiers to defend America against malicious bus boys, nannies, gardeners, and food truck operators.
Daily pronouncements about the animalistic nature of Palestinians, the need to ‘cleanse’ the Gaza Strip, the imperative of keeping even one grain of food out of the decimated slice of hell two million people call home, and the need to concentrate the remaining miserable masses into a secure ‘safe town,’ built on the ruins of Rafah, have become routine in the Knesset and the Israeli government offices.
Both in America and in Israel, anyone who speaks out against these cruelties is immediately branded as a radical, self-hating American or a self-hating Jew, by patriotic zealots – those who would defend the indefensible.
I was recently branded a ‘Capo’ by one such Jewish zealot for daring to express my grief for the death of so many Palestinian children in Gaza. Let’s please examine this one: a person who cries for burnt, dismembered, and dead Palestinian children is now branded a Nazi collaborator.
Where conversation becomes impossible, violence will eventually fill the vacuum. Where reason yields to passions and base fears, chaos will always ensue. Where tribalism and nationalism replace compassion and empathy – values commanded to us by the very scripture the defenders of cruelty claim to uphold – society will break down and despair will supplant hope.
I refuse to surrender hope. I refuse to remain silent in the face of senseless cruelty and cynicism. I refuse to give up my cherished beliefs in Jewish values, in the capacity of the human soul for compassion and love, in the promise of America, so magnificently articulated by our founding fathers.
If the Third Temple is to fall – so be it. I would like to be standing on the rubble with fellow travelers, looking for a way to build a better one that will stand as a beacon for generations to come, shining the light of mercy, compassion, and justice.
