The ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av coincides this year with sundown on July 19th, recalls the collapse of ancient Judaism’ central religious institution — the Jerusalem Temple. The First Temple, built by King Solomon and destroyed by the Babylonians, was, according to the Talmud (Yoma 9b), destroyed because the Israelites practiced idolatry, rape/incest, and murder. The Second Temple, destroyed by Rome, was destroyed, according to the same source (Gittin 56a), because of casual hatred between people.

In each case, the rabbis taught, a religious institution failed because of the failing of those who worshipped there. In that approach lies an important lesson for all people who look to those outside their own religious community to understand why the institution they love may not be doing as well as they would like.
Rather that cast blame at the feet of others, the sages of the Talmud remind their followers that even for a relatively poor and powerless people, both the roots of past failures and the keys to future success, are usually found closer to home than the faithful often imagine. This is not about blaming the victim as much as it is about empowering the victim to take responsibility for their past and reminding them of their capacity to build a better future.
Whether a sufficient explanation or not, the rabbis’ approach is worthy of attention. Both of their answers point us toward what is essentially the same problem, one which is painfully present in virtually every religious community functioning today: the privileging of doctrine over people.
The sin cycle of idolatry/improper sex/murder, sometimes called Judaism’s ‘Big Three’, is defined by the three acts for which one must give up their life if asked to commit. In Jewish law, all other transgressions are insignificant compared to saving a life, but not these three. Why?

Because in the case of the ‘Big Three’, the transgressor imagines that nothing in the world is more important than themselves and what they want to do – God is made small and people lose significance altogether.
According to the Sages, the First Temple collapsed because it was supported by people who had life backwards – they put themselves before others, with no limitations. The God which they worshipped was simply a reflection of themselves, never offering corrective exhortation or even an alternative view of reality, and this justified their doing to others whatever they felt like doing, including raping and murdering them. Any Temple which was central to that kind of culture should have collapsed.
When the temples in our life provide nothing but excuses for that which we already want to do, and when they fail to sensitize us to those beyond the temple’s walls, as was apparently the case in ancient Israel, the collapse of those temples is a reasonable, if tragic, result. And the same can be said for the loss of the Second Temple.
The Talmud teaches that casual hatred caused the collapse of the Second Temple and tells stories to illustrate what that means. The stories all boil down to the same issue – people, intoxicated with their own interpretation of events, are prepared to hurt and shame other human beings who happen not to share the same understanding of reality. I know that sounds, tragically, like an all-too-contemporary story.
As in the events which lead to collapse number one, collapse number two was also a function of people putting themselves and their particular ideas ahead of any basic respect for the needs and feelings of others. In that sense, the Talmud’s two explanations for the destructions of the Temples are really one explanation framed two ways. How Talmudic!
Either way, what was true two millennia ago, remains true today: the integrity of our temples is guaranteed not by their walls, the armies that guard them, or the rituals performed within. The integrity of our temples is assured, if at all, by the way in which we treat both those who worship in them and also those who don’t.
When our temples, be they religious, political, cultural, or otherwise, serve people more than people serve them, then those temple deserve to survive. When it’s the other way around, not so much.
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