In Tehillim there is a certain chapter describing the destruction of Beis HaMikdash, and it has quite a peculiar beginning:
A song of Asaf. O G-d, foreign nations have entered into Your inheritance...
The Midrash points out the problem here: Scripture should have said, “A weeping of Asaf,” or, “A wailing of Asaf,” or, “A eulogy of Asaf.” Why does it say, “A song”? The answer is that the matter may be compared to a king who built a wedding chamber for his son. He painted it and decorated it. But the son went off on evil ways. Upon this, the king went to the wedding chamber and tore the curtains and broke the rods. The son’s teacher picked up a reed flute and began playing a tune. They said to him, “The king turned his son’s wedding chamber upside down, and you are sitting and playing a tune?” He answered, “I am playing a tune because he overturned his son’s wedding chamber, and didn’t pour out his wrath on the son himself.”
In the same vein, they said to Asaf: “HaKadosh Baruch Hu destroyed His Heichal and Mikdash, and you are sitting and singing?” He answered, “I am singing because HaKadosh Baruch Hu poured out His wrath on sticks and stones, and did not pour out His wrath on the Jewish people.”
Now, it is hard to understand why Chazal call Beis HaMikdash “sticks and stones.” The Midrash says that when the nations of the world sought to destroy Beis HaMikdash, Yerushalayim was lifted off the ground and suspended above in the air until Hashem pushed it back down.
So why is it considered as if Hashem destroyed mere “sticks and stones”? Powerful spiritual forces were at work there; it was a lot more than sticks and stones.
Furthermore, let’s take a look at the laws and customs we keep as zeicher l’churban. The mourning begins on 17 Tammuz, the day the city’s walls were breached, and from then, on it progressively intensifies: Rosh Chodesh Av, then the week in which Tishah b’Av falls, then Erev Tishah b’Av and the se’udah hamafsekes, which is considered aninus (bereavement), and then Tishah b’Av itself, when we are considered as mourners. We sit on the floor, we don’t don tefillin, and we even remove the paroches from the shul’s aron hakodesh. This is all leading up to the terrible moment when Beis HaMikdash was set on fire.
Yet, surprisingly enough, when Tishah b’Av afternoon arrives, the awful time when fire was set to Beis HaMikdash, the intensity of the mourning starts to break: we get up from the floor, we don tefillin, and we put the paroches back in place. This is really puzzling. Tishah b’Av is not even over yet, and we are already easing up on the mourning?
Another question: Is this really a case of Hashem pouring out His wrath only upon “sticks and stones”? The very same “Song of Asaf” goes on to present a chilling description of what happened at the time of the churban:
...They placed the carcasses of Your servants as food for the birds of the sky, the flesh of Your pious ones for the beasts of the earth. They spilled their blood like water around Yerushalayim, with no one to bury them.
It is clear that the people, too, suffered intensely when Yerushalayim was destroyed. It was not just “sticks and stones” that bore Hashem’s fury.
Destroying the Cause
At first glance, we might think that “He poured out His wrath on sticks and stones” means as follows: There was a Heavenly decree of annihilation upon the Jewish people. However, Hashem wished to keep them alive, so in order to appease His wrath, He destroyed Beis HaMikdash instead. Lehavdil, this is like someone who goes and smashes a window to vent his anger, rather than taking it out on a loved one.
Far be it from us to accept such a superficial understanding of the matter. There is a wonderful parable that brings out the true meaning of it:
A master artist wished to create a certain painting that would be his magnum opus. This painting would be the ultimate expression of his talent, and he would invest all his energy into it. To this purpose, he ascended a mountaintop that afforded the most breathtaking view possible. He set up his canvas and easel, and proceeded to paint with total concentration for days and nights. He put his entire self into this creation. In the end he produced an absolutely amazing piece of art. It truly was the work of his life.
Now, he had a friend with him up on the mountaintop. When he finally finished working on the painting, he told his friend that he was going to examine it and see how well it came out. Since it is hard to get a proper perspective on a large picture from up close, he began taking steps backward from the easel, focusing all his thoughts on the marvelous work in front of him. He moved backwards step after step, oblivious that the edge of the mountaintop was only a few feet behind. He was rapidly approaching a steep cliff below which there was a deep, rocky abyss. His friend shouted out to him, “Stop! You’re about to go off the edge!” but he was so entranced by the painting that he didn’t hear a word. He kept moving backwards despite his friend’s frenzied shouting.
When the friend saw that the artist couldn’t be shaken from his trance and was about to fall to his death, he did the only thing left to do: he lunged at the painting and ripped it apart.
When the artist saw that, he cried out in utter pain and shock, “What did you do? You wrecked my life’s work!”
His friend responded, “Just turn around and take a look. One more step and you were gone. That painting almost killed you!”
This is the meaning of, “He poured out His wrath on sticks and stones.” When Beis HaMikdash stood, the Jewish people were sinking into sin, and this threatened their lives. (In the first Beis HaMikdash it was idolatry, illicit relations and murder; in the second Beis HaMikdash it was baseless hatred). One reason for this, likely the key reason, was the very existence of the Beis HaMikdash itself.
We will explain.
The Jewish people once had a House in which Hashem dwelled among them in great closeness. He is a great and merciful Father, and He bestowed upon them a never-ending abundance of kindness and mercy.
On Yom Kippur all their sins were atoned by the goat sent to Azazel, as the Rambam states:
The goat sent to Azazel atones for all the sins in the Torah, light and severe, whether committed deliberately or unintentionally, whether one found out about them afterwards or not. Everything is atoned by the goat sent to Azazel.
Everyone came out of Yom Kippur pure and cleansed. Not only that, but all year long, if a Jew committed a sin (such as unintentional chillul Shabbos), he would bring a korban and be atoned:
Why is Beis HaMikdash called “Levanon” [the white one]? Because it whitens the sins of the Jewish people.
This sounds wonderful, and it is, but there is also a downside to having such readily available kaparah. When a Jew faced a nisayon or challenge of some sort, he might think to himself that even if he is not careful, at worst it will just “cost” him a korban.
About this it is written:
Make your foot uncommon in your Friend’s House.
The Gemara explains that this refers to sin-offerings and guilt-offerings.
As Rashi explains:
You shouldn’t sin and need to bring a sin-offering and a guilt-offering.
It is not right that a person should often bring korbanos to Hashem’s House for the sake of kaparah. When a person brings such a korban he can’t be sure whether the korban will help him or hurt him.
To bring out the point, let’s imagine a Jew who forgot that today is Shabbos. He calls up his stockbroker and gives an order to buy stocks for $50,000. As soon as he hangs up the phone, he remembers that it is Shabbos and slaps himself on the forehead. “Oy, what did I do?!” But in the meantime, the broker already bought the stocks, and later it turns out he made half a million on the deal.
He goes to the rabbi and asks him what to do. “You have to buy a korban and bring it to Beis HaMikdash,” says the rabbi. He doesn’t hesitate. He goes and buys the choicest animal he can find. He plunks down $10,000 on a big, plump cow, goes up to Beis HaMikdash to offer it as a korban, and while he’s there, he even makes a kindly donation of $5000 to the Temple’s bedek habayis fund.
When he gets back home and adds it all up, he sees that he grossed half a million and incurred expenses of fifteen thousand. He says to himself, “Not so terrible after all...” It comes out that this korban was actually a very bad influence on his spiritual state of health.
Along these lines, the existence of Beis HaMikdash furthered the Jewish people’s downfall. If this House had not been set on fire, nothing would have remained of the Jewish people, chas v’shalom. They would have completely sunk into sin without even sensing it.
The Jewish people, like the artist fixated by his creation, were engrossed in the kedushah and closeness to Hashem that Beis HaMikdash granted them, so much so that they didn’t even notice what was happening with them. They lived with the feeling that they could be carefree, and Beis HaMikdash would atone for it all. (It is not this way after the churban. Every Jew knows that if he desecrates Shabbos, he will bear this sin for the rest of his life unless he does proper teshuvah.) Thus, the Jewish people grew distant from Hashem, stepping steadily backward toward the brink, while Hashem was shouting out through the prophets, “Stop! Stop!” but to no avail.
It was a situation where Hashem had no choice but to “pour out His wrath on sticks and stones” — to destroy the Beis HaMikdash itself.
We could also compare it to a father who sees that his young child keeps riding his bike precariously into the street among honking cars, in imminent danger of his life. The father is so angry that he wants to give his child a proper spanking so he won’t ever do it again, but instead he decides on a more effective course of action: he breaks the child’s bicycle, thus preventing him from repeating this life-endangering behavior.
This is the meaning of, “He poured out His wrath on sticks and stones.” It is not like someone who smashes a window to vent the anger he feels toward his children. It is rather like someone who breaks a hazardous tool that is endangering his children’s life. Hashem saved the Jewish people from an impending decree of destruction, by removing the cause of it.
In other words, the destruction of Beis HaMikdash occurred when it itself was bringing on an even greater destruction. As it says:
Has this House become a cave of wrongdoers?
That is why this chapter of Tehillim is called “A song of Asaf” and not “A eulogy of Asaf.” Even though it was a tragedy, and we indeed weep over it every year, the destruction of Beis HaMikdash was actually what saved the Jewish people.
A Honey Jar and a Snake
When R. Yochanan ben Zakkai was smuggled out of a besieged Yerushalayim shortly before the destruction of the second Beis HaMikdash, a remarkable discussion took place between him and Vespasian, the general of the Roman army, as recounted by Chazal:
When R. Yochanan ben Zakkai came there he said, “Peace be unto you, O king, peace be unto you, O king!” Vespasian replied, “You are liable for death on two accounts. First, because I am not king, and you called me ‘king.’ Furthermore, if I were king, why did you not come to me until now?” R. Yochanan countered, “Regarding that which you said, ‘I am not king,’ in truth you are king, for if you were not king, Jerusalem would not be delivered into your hand.... And regarding that which you said, ‘If I were king, why did you not come to me until now,’ the reason is that the ruffians among us did not allow me to come.” The general responded, “If there was a jar of honey that had attracted a poisonous snake, wouldn’t one break the jar in order to be rid of the snake?” R. Yochanan kept his silence. Regarding this Rav Yosef said, and some say it was R. Akiva, “He rebuffs the wise, and confounds their understanding.” R. Yochanan should have replied to him, “One picks up a tongs and takes the snake and kills it, and lets the jar be.”
Although R. Yochanan’s failure to respond was the work of Heaven, as Rav Yosef said, the whole exchange between R. Yochanan and Vespasian remains hard to understand. The claim of the Roman general, who was Caesar-to-be, was that one should break the honey jar when it attracts a snake. But this really makes no sense. Anyone with sense knows that the solution is pick up a tongs and get rid of the snake. (Vespasian was hinting that the Sages in Yerushalayim should have gotten rid of the ruffian troublemakers [the “snake”] and thereby be in a position to make peace with the Romans, even if it meant forfeiting the “honey jar,” i.e., Yerushalayim.) How can it be that R. Yochanan did not answer him so?
I heard an amazing explanation of the matter from R. Avigdor Miller. Vespasian indeed spoke foolishly, but R. Yochanan heard in the general’s words an echo of what Heaven had pronounced regarding this matter. Hashem had decided that there was no other way: Yerushalayim must be destroyed in order to save the people from a much greater destruction.
To this explanation I would add the following idea. In the period before the destruction of the first Beis HaMikdash, some of the kings of Yehudah and Yisrael were very wicked, such as Achaz, Menasheh and Yehoyakim. These kings ruled with a strong hand over the Jewish people and constantly strove to incite them to sin; the situation came to the point where the Jewish people were destined for utter destruction. So what did Hashem do? He “broke the jar in order to get rid of the snake.” He destroyed everything and rebuilt the Jewish people, and then the leaders of the generation were great and righteous people: Ezra, Nechemiah and Zerubavel.
It was the same before the destruction of the second Beis HaMikdash. In that period the dynasty of Herod ruled, and on their heels came all the ruffians and wicked people. Because of their wicked deeds, the Jewish people were again threatened by utter destruction. Hashem saw that the only alternative was to “break the jar.” He destroyed everything, and all the “snakes” — all the evildoers — slithered away. The role of leadership after the churban was taken over by R. Yochanan ben Zakkai, Rabban Gamliel, and other tzaddikim.
It seems that this was the purpose also of the Holocaust that our people went through fifty years ago. I was not there myself, but the testimony of people who lived in that period brings us to the aweful conclusion that if not for this terrible tragedy, nothing would have remained of the Jewish people, chas v’shalom. The Jewish people in that period were in danger of being severed from the Torah, bringing them to absolute spiritual destruction.
To illustrate how bad things had become in pre-war Europe, my father-in-law recounts that when he was a bachur back then in Mir Yeshivah, Poland, his family lived in the town of Bransk, which had a big Jewish population. There were only two yeshivah bachurim in the whole town: him and another bachur. When they would come home from yeshivah, they would try to avoid leaving the house, due to the great embarrassment that somebody looking like a yeshivah bachur would experience if he walked around town. Not only that, but if he would be sent out once in a while to buy something at the store, he would always have to wait behind everyone else until all the other customers were served first. Even the servants and the maids came before him, because he looked like a yeshivah bachur.
Throughout Europe — in Germany, Lithuania, and Poland — the spiritual state of the Jewish populace was in epic decline, like a horse galloping toward the edge of an abyss. In those days, most people who had the opportunity would go to study in university. The Jewish people was on course for total ruin, chas v’shalom.
So what did Hashem do? He “broke the jar.” He destroyed all of European Jewry in the frightful Holocaust, and afterward rebuilt the people with new leaders who had great spiritual stature.
Now we can understand Chazal’s teaching that “Hashem poured out His wrath on sticks and stones.” True, the “sticks and stones” of Beis HaMikdash were not mere inanimate objects, but after it was all over, the soul remained. In fact, it was for this soul that all the rivers of blood were spilled and Beis HaMikdash was burnt. It was in order to save the Jewish soul.
So, too, in the period of the Spanish Inquisition. Many Jews forfeited life itself in order to protect themselves and their children from losing their Judaism.
There are times when the body must be sacrificed for the sake of the soul.
Heaven’s Hints before the Churban
There is another point that needs to be added: we should know that Hashem did not burn down Beis HaMikdash right away. The Tanach recounts at length how Hashem sent His prophets to warn the people again and again that they were approaching the edge of the abyss.
One of those prophets was the Navi Yirmeyahu. He repeatedly reproved them and warned them about the coming churban.
Behold, you are placing your trust in false words that are ineffective. Can a person steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and go after other gods that you never knew, and then come and stand before Me in this Temple, upon which My Name is proclaimed, and say, “We are hereby saved!” in order to keep doing all these abominations? Has this Temple, upon which My Name is called, become a cave of wrongdoers in your eyes? Moreover — behold, I have seen it — the word of Hashem. For go to My sacred place that is in Shiloh, where I first brought My Name to dwell, and see what I did to it because of the evilness of My people Yisrael. So now, since you do all these deeds — the word of Hashem, and I have spoken to you, but you did not respond — I shall do to the Temple, upon which My Name is called, in which you place your trust, and to the place that I have given to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh.
Yirmeyahu spoke strong. But the Jewish people were not shaken up by all the admonitions and warnings. Their false sense of security stemmed from the fact that they had the Beis HaMikdash in their midst.
Before the Holocaust, too, the Jewish people were warned again and again. Besides the warnings issued by the Gedolim of those times, the people of that era also received hints from Heaven speaking the same message: If you don’t do teshuvah, we will have to “break the jar.” It will be necessary to destroy it all.
These hints from Heaven came in a most astounding way. Hashem sent us a bas kol, a “Heavenly voice,” so to speak, in the form of that cursed man named Hitler. To those who take a deeper look at things, it seemed as if the anti-Jewish laws enacted by the Germans in the period prior to the Holocaust had but one purpose: to get the Jewish people back on the right path.
A law was issued that Jews may not live in a house shared with non-Jews. They were allowed to live only with Jews. The lawmaker surely had anti-Semitic intent, but in truth, this law bespoke an impassioned call from Heaven: Put a healthy distance between you and your non-Jewish neighbors.
Another statute that those wicked people made: A Jew was not allowed to study in a non-Jewish university. One might think that these were the words of the Chofetz Chaim...
Then came the ordinance that a Jew cannot marry a non-Jew. It was as though the Shechinah itself was speaking from the mouth of our oppressors!
There was another law that our enemies enacted. The Jews of that period were wont to attend the theaters and movie houses, so it was proclaimed that Jews were barred from any public gathering, except for the shul and the beis midrash. This sounds like a proclamation from the Gedolei Hador!
But the Jewish people did not heed all these warnings. So it became necessary for Hashem to “break the jar” and then rebuild the people.
Save Today’s Beis HaMikdash
Also in our generation, a ben Torah who reflects on what is happening in the Torah world will see that Hashem is speaking to us and sending us hints and warnings, as if to say, “Has this Temple, upon which My Name is called, become a cave of wrongdoers in your eyes?”
Yet, we tend to feel that things are okay by us. In former times, a Jew would rise before the morning light, daven Shacharis properly from beginning to end, and then go out to his day’s labors. This is a Jewish form of life.
By way of contrast, nowadays there are yeshivah students who allow themselves to roll out of bed late, then peruse the newspaper, and when they finally get to shul, they have their own way of going through the davening. They find shortcuts by hearing a barechu over here, catching a kedushah over there, and otherwise making a quick job of it. And the person who does this feels it’s not so bad. Soon he will get to the beis midrash, where his chavrusa is waiting for him, and he will learn well and come up with a good sevara and maybe even say over a chaburah. He will still have a good name and people will still say nice things about him when he becomes a chasan. He lacks the sense that something is not okay here.
This person thinks he is okay, he is put-together, he will go straight to Gan Eden because he is a “yeshivah bachur”; he learns in a good yeshivah and dresses as appropriate. He forgets that “ben Torah” is an exalted title that expresses a deep inner...
