Tisha b’Av: The Cost of Speaking Up Is Worth It

This week, a documentary called The Darkest Light, about singer and spiritual leader Shlomo Carlebach’s sexual abuse of women premiered. In the last couple of weeks, the Jewish community has debated the merit or mistake of bringing streamer Clavicular (a known abuser of women and alleged rapist) on a public trip to Israel.

Today, on the eve of Tisha B’av, I’m considering the loss of the Beis Hamikdash (Holy Temple) that was burned to the ground 2,000 years ago, catapulting the Jewish people into a painful exile, where we’ve been murdered, expelled, and tortured in almost every land we’ve ever lived in since then. I am thinking how the protection of the people above (and so many like them) are related to why we remain in exile. But I may have found new insight into how we can end this nightmare based on a new translation of a familiar Tisha b’Av term, coupled with standing up to said abusers.   

We are told that the Temple was destroyed due to sinas chinam – which is usually translated as “baseless hatred,” but to be honest, I’ve never understood how that term relates to the famous story of Kamsa and Bar Kamsa, which the Talmud says was the beginning of the end of our being self-determined in our own land. 

There was a wealthy man who lived in the 1st century C.E. For an upcoming party he sent his servant to deliver an invitation to his friend Kamsa. However, the servant accidentally delivered the invitation to Bar Kamsa, an enemy of the wealthy man. Upon seeing his enemy at his party, the host ordered Bar Kamsa to leave. Bar Kamsa, attempting to save face, tried to bargain and beg and find a way not to be thrown out. First he offered to pay for the food he ate, then for half of the expenses of the party, and then for the entire party. Each request was rebuffed by the angry host. Finally, the host forcibly removed Bar Kamsa, in the presence of the communal leaders who didn’t have the courage to protest the shameful actions of a wealthy and powerful member of their community.

Bar Kamsa vowed revenge against the rabbis who sat idly by as he was publicly humiliated and embarrassed. He visits the Roman Caesar who controlled the region and told him the Jews were inciting to revolt against the Roman Empire. Caesar, unsure of whether to believe Bar Kamsa, sent an animal to be sacrificed as a peace offering in the Temple in Jerusalem along with Bar Kamsa. On the way, Bar Kamsa made a small incision in the animal’s lip which disqualified it for a Jewish sacrifice. The rabbis refused the offering which incensed Caesar and led him to believe that the Jews were planning to revolt. He then sent an army to lay siege to Jerusalem, eventually leading to its downfall in the year 70 C.E.

So how does the story of Kamsa and bar Kamsa connect to a new translation of sinas chinam and the protection of abusers? The abuse that Bar Kamsa experienced wasn’t only from the host. It was painfully compounded by the bystanders who saw what was happening, but didn’t have the courage to stand up to it and stop it.

There is a cost of speaking up, which is why human nature leads many people to remain as bystanders. At JITC, we see this every day. There is a cost of speaking up to the studios to fight antisemitism (which we do in our Hollywood Bureau). There is a cost of standing up to Orthodox leadership, which we do in our Tikun branch. We are solving problems that most people would never tackle because they are too afraid of confrontation. Instead, they settle for the “freeness” – the chinam – of letting evil prevail. The sinas chinam that destroyed our Temple perhaps was due to the many people who didn’t want to pay the price of stopping abuse and injustice around them. But the Talmud teaches, “To be silent is to be complicit.” 

Every single one of us has the power to prevent another chorban (destruction) of a fellow Jew’s life. Any one of us who knows of a dangerous person out there going unchecked, has a Torah commandment to  not stand idly by our neighbor’s blood.

 After 2,000 years of torture, we still haven’t gotten this right. We won’t be returned to our homeland (as a people), the wholeness of our nation restored, unless we are all courageous enough to protect the innocent against those who do them harm. We can stop the charismatic leaders, we can refuse to parade around known abusers. Kamsa and Bar Kamsa is not a story about the past. 

Speak up in the face of injustice and abuse. Silence may seem like the easier road to take, but we’ve been paying its price for 2000 years.

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