Kamsa and bar Kamsa

By the Chazzan Paul Heller

During the three weeks between the 17th of Tammuz and Tisha B’Av, a fast day that memorializes the destruction of the Temples in 586 BCE and 70 CE, the Jewish community faces heightened tensions, divisions, and protests this year.

While having no authority over the military, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and other members of his far-right Otzma Yehudit party announced that they were heading to the facility in southern Israel to protest soldiers’ detention acussed of abusing a Palestinian detainee.

The IDF said that the Military Police investigation into suspected serious abuse was opened per the orders of the Military Advocate General, Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi.

The link between the destruction of the Temple and unnecessary hostility among Jews has a long historical background.

In the Babylonian Talmud (Yoma 9b), the rabbis suggest that the Second Temple was destroyed due to senseless hatred, and elsewhere (Gittin 56a) they provide an example of that hatred through a story of two rivals whose discord led, indirectly, to the Roman invasion: The story of Kamsa and Bar Kamsa—a friend of Kamsa’s hates Bar Kamsa, and insults him to the point where he turns to the Romans.

The Talmud boldly holds the rabbis accountable for the destruction, attributing it to their failure to confront the actions of their fellow Jews, whether due to reluctance or incapacity.

Why aren’t religious authorities holding these “far-right extremists” accountable and ensuring they are prosecuted to stop this harmful trend?