However, considering that the people during the Second Temple period were engaged in Torah study, observance of mitzvot, and acts of kindness, and that they did not perform the sinful acts that were performed in the First Temple, why was the Second Temple destroyed? It was destroyed due to the fact that there was wanton hatred during that period. This comes to teach you that the sin of wanton hatred is equivalent to the three severe transgressions: Idol worship, forbidden sexual relations and bloodshed. The Gemara continues: They were wicked; however, they put their faith in the Holy One, Blessed be He. With that statement we have come to the First Temple era, about which it is written: “Her chiefs judge for bribes, her priests give rulings for a fee, and her prophets divine for pay; yet they rely on the Lord, saying: The Lord is in our midst, no tragedy will overtake us” (Micah 3:11). At least the final portion of the verse was to their credit. Therefore, the Holy One, Blessed be He, brought upon them three decrees corresponding to their three wicked sins, as it is stated: “Therefore, due to you Zion will be plowed as a field, Jerusalem will become heaps of ruins, and the Temple Mount will be a like a shrine in the woods” (Micah 3:12). The Gemara asks: And in the First Temple era was there really no baseless hatred? Isn’t it written: “Cry and wail, son of man, for this will befall my people, this will befall all the princes of Israel: They will be cast before the sword together with my people, therefore strike the thigh” (Ezekiel 21:17)? Rabbi Eliezer interpreted this verse and said: These are people who eat and drink with each other, and stab each other with verbal barbs. Apparently, even those who were close were filled with hatred toward one another. The Gemara answers: That behavior was found only among the princes of Israel, as it is written: “Cry and wail, son of man, for this will befall my people”; and it was taught in a baraita: “Cry and wail, son of man, for this will befall my people”; one might have thought that this unsavory trait was common to all. Therefore, the verse states: “This will befall all the princes of Israel.” It was only the leaders of the nation who harbored baseless hatred for each other; the people of the nation as a whole did not hate one another. § It was Rabbi Yoḥanan and Rabbi Elazar who both said: In the case of the former, the people in the First Temple era, whose sin was exposed and no attempt was made to disguise their conduct, the end of their punishment was exposed, and the prophet informed them that they would return to their land in seventy years. In the case of the latter, the people in the Second Temple era, whose sin was not exposed; rather, they attempted to disguise their conduct, the end of their punishment was not exposed.
Yair Rosenberg, Other People’s Sin’at Chinam, Tablet Magazine, July 2013
What’s striking about this tale is that it apportions blames to the people recounting it, namely, the rabbis who did not intervene at the party. The host of the affair, the ostensible culprit, is never even named. While the Talmudic sages could easily have pinned the entire episode on him, they chose instead to share the blame themselves. National tragedy, in the traditional understanding, is not an opportunity to assert our own sense of superiority, but to foster a spirit of self-critique. As the Mussaf prayer every Rosh Chodesh reminds us, “because of our sins, we were exiled from our land.”
On Tisha B’Av, of all days, we are not meant to point to flaws outside ourselves, however apparent they may be, but rather to examine those within. After all, we can never truly know the minds and motivations of others. The only baseless hatred we can diagnose is our own.
If we were destroyed, and the world with us, due to baseless hatred, then we shall rebuild ourselves, and the world with us, with baseless love — ahavat chinam.
(ג)ע֭וֹלָם חֶ֣סֶד יִבָּנֶ֑ה
(ג) והוכיח אברהם את אבימלך וגו' - אמר רבי יוסי בר חנינא: התוכחת מביאה לידי אהבה, שנאמר (משלי ט): הוכח לחכם ויאהבך. היא דעתיה דרבי יוסי בר חנינא דאמר: כל אהבה שאין עמה תוכחה, אינה אהבה. אמר ריש לקיש: תוכחה מביאה לידי שלום, והוכיח אברהם את אבימלך, היא דעתיה, דאמר: כל שלום שאין עמו תוכחה, אינו שלום.
(3) And Abraham rebuked Avimelech: R. Yosi ben R. Hanina said: Rebuke leads to love, as it says, rebuke a wise man and he will love you. Such indeed is R. Yosi ben Hanina’s view, for he said: Love unaccompanied by rebuke is not love. Resh Lakish said: Rebuke leads to peace; hence, ‘And Abrhaman reproved Avimelech’. Such is his view, for he said: Peace unaccompanied by rebuke is not peace.
The time between Tisha B'Av and Yom Kippur, this great seven-week time of turning, is the time between the destruction of Jerusalem -- the crumbling of the walls of the Great Temple -- and our own moral and spiritual reconstruction....The walls come down and suddenly we can see, suddenly we recognize the nature of our estrangement from God, and this recognition is the beginning of our reconciliation.
The work of the month of Elul is clearly laid out for us; it is the work of cheshbon hanefesh, of an accounting of our souls, our actions, of taking stock of who we are now and who we want to be next year. But what do we do until then? Love. If the cause of Tisha B’Av, according to the sages, is sinat chinam — baseless hatred, what would it look like to live our lives in ahavat chinam, in baseless love.