QUESTION: Was the Beis Hamikdash destroyed because of sinas chinam, baseless hatred, among frum Jews?
ANSWER: No, there’s no sinas chinam among the Jews. Don’t let anyone tell you that. The sinas chinam the Gemara talks about means the causeless hatred of the type that comes from Avneri, the representative of toeivah in the Knesses today. He hates decent Jews. The communists there too, or the Mapai, they hate the Jews. That’s the sinas chinam; but decent Jews don’t have sinas chinam. In the times of the Beis Hamikdash it wasn’t Shamai and Hillel and their talmidim who had sinas chinam. It wasn’t the Pharisees and the multitudes of the frum Jews who were their followers, who were the problem. The sinas chinam was from the Tzedukim and the Notzrim. They hated the Sages and the frum Jews who sided with the Sages. And it was because they were Jews, it was their sinas chinam for which the Jewish nation suffered. I understand that even some well-meaning writers and speakers have attempted to apply the accusation of baseless hatred to the frum Jews at the time of the churban, but it’s a serious error.
Reprinted from the Parshas Mattos-Masei 5784 email of Toras Avigdor (Tape #R-55, May 11, 1971).
