At this time of year, approaching Tisha B’Av, the familiar interpretation resurfaces: the Second Temple was destroyed because of baseless hatred. According to the well-known version in the Babylonian Talmud (Tractate Yoma), there is a clear distinction between the two destructions: the First Temple was destroyed because of the three severe transgressions – idolatry, sexual immorality, and bloodshed – whereas the Second Temple, in which, according to the baraita, people were engaged in Torah study and observance of mitzvot, was nevertheless destroyed because of baseless hatred. This distinction has almost become a cliché.
But according to the Jerusalem Talmud, the picture is different. Before the opinion is brought that distinguishes between the sins of the First Temple and those of the Second Temple, another opinion appears – one that is almost never quoted – according to which both Temples were destroyed for exactly the same reasons: “We find that the First Temple was destroyed only because they committed idolatry, sexual immorality, and bloodshed – and so too the Second.”
According to this view, the Second Temple was not destroyed because of baseless hatred, but because of the same three severe transgressions that undermine every moral foundation of society: idolatry, sexual immorality, and bloodshed.
The view that speaks of baseless hatred appears immediately afterward, and like in the Bavli, it seemingly arises from the need to explain how such a great destruction could have befallen a generation of Torah scholars and mitzvah observers:“In the Second Temple they toiled in Torah and were meticulous in mitzvot and tithes, and all manner of good conduct was among them – but they loved money and hated one another with baseless hatred.”
The Talmud’s question is based on a solid assumption – that it’s unlikely that a generation engaged in Torah and mitzvot also perpetrated severe violence.
But perhaps this very assumption – that Torah study and mitzvah observance cannot coexist with moral wrongdoing and actual violence – is an assumption that must be reexamined.
The Talmud, perhaps with innocence or hope, asserts that Torah study and religious observance cannot dwell alongside bloodshed, and therefore suggests that the problem in that generation must have been something else, a bit less violent but still destructive – baseless hatred.
But this year, it is harder to hold on to that assumption.
The recent Israeli reality forces us to confront a painful truth: yes, it is possible.
It is possible that people who engage in Torah and mitzvot, who are considered to be kind and scholarly – commit bloodshed, support violence, or remain silent in the face of severe moral wrongdoing.
And here another problem arises in the repeated use of the term "baseless hatred" in the context of destruction. The focus on baseless hatred diverts attention from the truly grave issue: actual violence, a distorted moral compass, the lack of sound judgment by sovereign leadership, and the use of spiritual and religious imagery to justify anti-moral actions.
One could say that the term “baseless hatred” suits a “diasporic” reality: a situation in which we lack political control, and all we can do is turn inward and work on our interpersonal relationships, hoping that this will elevate our worth in the eyes of the powers that oppress us.
But when we are a sovereign people, with an army, with control – the greatest danger is no longer disunity, but rather the abuse of power, up to and including violence and bloodshed.
As the Torah and the Prophets remind us again and again – there is nothing that defiles the land more than bloodshed: “Do not pollute the land… for blood pollutes the land, and the land cannot be atoned for through the blood that is shed in it, except by the blood of the one who shed it.” (Numbers 35)
This year – I do not want to talk about baseless hatred.
This year, with great pain – I want to talk about blood. About the reality of bloodshed. About a society that has lost its conscience in the name of self-defense and excessive nationalism. About a moment in which we return again to a cycle we swore never to return to.
But I do not give up on the Torah. Nor on the Temple. Not because they are perfect, but because they are supposed to be the vessels through which morality, justice, and peace are revealed.
The Temple is not just a house of ritual – it is meant to be a symbol of closeness to God, that same God about whom Abraham said, “Shall the Judge of all the earth not do justice?” Of concentrated holiness, about which it is said, “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy… and you shall love your neighbor as yourself,” and of the preservation of life, “and you shall live by them.” The Torah is not just a system of commandments – it is a Tree of Life, a foundation for moral and just living.
If the Torah and the Temple are being used to justify violence or oppression – that is not a testimony to a flaw in them, but to a flaw in us. The problem is not with the vessels – but with the content and the way we are using them.
And so, destruction is not just a matter of love or hate.
It is a matter of morality. Of life.
And what lies before us – just as it did then – is a choice.
“And you shall choose life, so that you may live.”
May it be God’s will that we return to that choice.
Not only in words – but in actions.
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Rabbi Shoshana Cohen is a senior faculty member and research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, where she serves as program rabbi and mentor for Israeli and American gap year/mechina students. She has served as as scholar in residence in communities around the US as part of Hartman’s Courageous Communities project. Shoshana is educational advisor to a several programs at the Institute, including the UJIA-UK partnership and leads programming for Rabbinical students spending the year in Israel. She is a scholar of rabbinic literature with a focus on midrash and gender studies and an eye towards social justice and received Orthodox semicha by Rabbi Daniel Landes in Jerusalem, where she has lived for over twenty years.Shoshana is a graduate of Matan, Midreshet Lindenbaum, and Hebrew University. Before coming to Hartman. she taught Talmud, midrash and feminism at the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem for over a decade.
But according to the Jerusalem Talmud, the picture is different. Before the opinion is brought that distinguishes between the sins of the First Temple and those of the Second Temple, another opinion appears – one that is almost never quoted – according to which both Temples were destroyed for exactly the same reasons: “We find that the First Temple was destroyed only because they committed idolatry, sexual immorality, and bloodshed – and so too the Second.”
According to this view, the Second Temple was not destroyed because of baseless hatred, but because of the same three severe transgressions that undermine every moral foundation of society: idolatry, sexual immorality, and bloodshed.
The view that speaks of baseless hatred appears immediately afterward, and like in the Bavli, it seemingly arises from the need to explain how such a great destruction could have befallen a generation of Torah scholars and mitzvah observers:“In the Second Temple they toiled in Torah and were meticulous in mitzvot and tithes, and all manner of good conduct was among them – but they loved money and hated one another with baseless hatred.”
The Talmud’s question is based on a solid assumption – that it’s unlikely that a generation engaged in Torah and mitzvot also perpetrated severe violence.
But perhaps this very assumption – that Torah study and mitzvah observance cannot coexist with moral wrongdoing and actual violence – is an assumption that must be reexamined.
The Talmud, perhaps with innocence or hope, asserts that Torah study and religious observance cannot dwell alongside bloodshed, and therefore suggests that the problem in that generation must have been something else, a bit less violent but still destructive – baseless hatred.
But this year, it is harder to hold on to that assumption.
The recent Israeli reality forces us to confront a painful truth: yes, it is possible.
It is possible that people who engage in Torah and mitzvot, who are considered to be kind and scholarly – commit bloodshed, support violence, or remain silent in the face of severe moral wrongdoing.
And here another problem arises in the repeated use of the term "baseless hatred" in the context of destruction. The focus on baseless hatred diverts attention from the truly grave issue: actual violence, a distorted moral compass, the lack of sound judgment by sovereign leadership, and the use of spiritual and religious imagery to justify anti-moral actions.
One could say that the term “baseless hatred” suits a “diasporic” reality: a situation in which we lack political control, and all we can do is turn inward and work on our interpersonal relationships, hoping that this will elevate our worth in the eyes of the powers that oppress us.
But when we are a sovereign people, with an army, with control – the greatest danger is no longer disunity, but rather the abuse of power, up to and including violence and bloodshed.
As the Torah and the Prophets remind us again and again – there is nothing that defiles the land more than bloodshed: “Do not pollute the land… for blood pollutes the land, and the land cannot be atoned for through the blood that is shed in it, except by the blood of the one who shed it.” (Numbers 35)
This year – I do not want to talk about baseless hatred.
This year, with great pain – I want to talk about blood. About the reality of bloodshed. About a society that has lost its conscience in the name of self-defense and excessive nationalism. About a moment in which we return again to a cycle we swore never to return to.
But I do not give up on the Torah. Nor on the Temple. Not because they are perfect, but because they are supposed to be the vessels through which morality, justice, and peace are revealed.
The Temple is not just a house of ritual – it is meant to be a symbol of closeness to God, that same God about whom Abraham said, “Shall the Judge of all the earth not do justice?” Of concentrated holiness, about which it is said, “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy… and you shall love your neighbor as yourself,” and of the preservation of life, “and you shall live by them.” The Torah is not just a system of commandments – it is a Tree of Life, a foundation for moral and just living.
If the Torah and the Temple are being used to justify violence or oppression – that is not a testimony to a flaw in them, but to a flaw in us. The problem is not with the vessels – but with the content and the way we are using them.
And so, destruction is not just a matter of love or hate.
It is a matter of morality. Of life.
And what lies before us – just as it did then – is a choice.
“And you shall choose life, so that you may live.”
May it be God’s will that we return to that choice.
Not only in words – but in actions.
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Rabbi Shoshana Cohen is a senior faculty member and research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, where she serves as program rabbi and mentor for Israeli and American gap year/mechina students. She has served as as scholar in residence in communities around the US as part of Hartman’s Courageous Communities project. Shoshana is educational advisor to a several programs at the Institute, including the UJIA-UK partnership and leads programming for Rabbinical students spending the year in Israel. She is a scholar of rabbinic literature with a focus on midrash and gender studies and an eye towards social justice and received Orthodox semicha by Rabbi Daniel Landes in Jerusalem, where she has lived for over twenty years.Shoshana is a graduate of Matan, Midreshet Lindenbaum, and Hebrew University. Before coming to Hartman. she taught Talmud, midrash and feminism at the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem for over a decade.