Filled With Fire and Light: Portraits and Legends From the Bible, Talmud, and Hasidic World by Elie Wiesel

Author:Elie Wiesel [Wiesel, Elie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Religious, history, Jewish, Religion, Biblical Criticism & Interpretation, General, Judaism
ISBN: 9780805243536
Google: tS9GEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2021-11-15T00:12:29.102523+00:00

At the same time, the king, his family, and his courtiers ate well, lived well. Agrippa II spent his time with Vespasian, Rome’s procurator in Judea. And so did his sister, Berenice, who charmed the procurator with her beauty and her gifts—and succeeded in making his son, Titus, fall in love with her.

When Jerusalem fell it was, ultimately, not because of Roman superiority but because of the Judeans’ internal demoralization. The Baryonim, the Zealots, although brave and patriotic, are not exactly objects of the Talmud’s admiration. Why? Because the dominant viewpoint expressed in the Talmud was that of the pacifists, and also because the rebels did not rise above petty dissensions. When the Romans would let up on their attack, the Zealots would attack one another. Yes, they fought for national sovereignty and dignity, but their tactics were wrong. At one point, they burned all the food supplies in Jerusalem, just to increase the pressure on the population to join in their attack on the Roman army. Mad with hunger, people would become filled with hate toward the enemy—at least that’s what the Baryonim thought would happen. But it didn’t. The hate turned inward, toward fellow suffering Jews. The Talmud is explicit: the First Temple was destroyed because of adultery, idolatry, and violence; the Second Temple, because of sinat hinam, gratuitous hatred. People hated one another, slaughtered one another, for nothing. “Never was a generation so wicked,” wrote Flavius Josephus—who never missed an opportunity to slander his people.

The Talmud illustrates this with a striking story:

It was because of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza that Jerusalem was destroyed. In those days there lived a man in Jerusalem who decided to arrange a sumptuous dinner. He sent a servant to invite his friend, Kamtza. Instead, the servant mistakenly invited his enemy, Bar Kamtza. When the host saw his enemy in the room, he exploded. “What are you doing here?” he said. “Your presence is unwanted. Get out.” “Please,” said Bar Kamtza, “do not shame me in public. I came because I was invited. I realize now it was a mistake, but let me stay and I shall pay for my meal.” “No!” said the host. “Go!” “Let me stay and I shall pay for half of all the meals.” “No!” “Allow me to stay and I shall pay you for the entire banquet,” pleaded Bar Kamtza. “Out!” shouted the host. And Bar Kamtza was publicly, humiliatingly ejected.

Bar Kamtza took it badly. He said to himself, there were many scholars present and none came to my defense. That means they were accomplices. And so he went to see the Roman emperor and said, “The Jews are rebelling against you.” “Prove it,” said the emperor. “I shall,” said Bar Kamtza. “Send them an offering; let us see whether it will be accepted in the Temple.” And so the emperor gave him a calf for that purpose. On his way to Jerusalem with the calf, Bar Kamtza intentionally wounded its lip—some say, its eyelid—creating a blemish that made it unfit for sacrificing in the Temple.

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