Of In Groups and Out Groups, Baseless Hate and Boundless Love
Tech Tribe Dispatch 164
💡 Think:
The following is adapted from the introduction and conclusion of our latest Jewglers X Tech Tribe Class, given at Google. The entire class is available for streaming exclusively for #ChaiSociety members.
This Shabbat is the 9th of Av, the saddest day of the year. It’s a time of mourning over loss, and reflection on what can be corrected. The fast of the 9th is observed this Sunday. The Talmud1 recounts the destruction of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem was precipitated by a meal:
It happened this way: A certain man had a friend named Kamtza and an enemy called Bar Kamtza. He once made a party and said to his servant, “Go and bring Kamtza.” The man went and brought Bar Kamtza.
When the man who gave the party found Bar Kamtza there he said, “See, you are my enemy; what are you doing here? Get out!” Said the other: “Since I am already here, let me stay, and I will pay you for whatever I eat and drink.”
Said the host: “Absolutely not.”
“Then let me give you half the cost of the party.”
The host refused.
“Then let me pay for the whole party.”
Still the host refused, and took him by the hand and threw him out.
Said Bar Kamtza, “Since the Rabbis were sitting there and did not stop him, this shows that they agreed with him. I will go and inform against them to the government.”
He went and said to the emperor, “The Jews are rebelling against you.”
—
One wonders, what exactly did Kamtza do wrong, that the Sages said, because of Kamtza, Jerusalem was destroyed? Kamtza seems to be an innocent bystander in all of this - never invited to the meal, he’s only mentioned by name.
The great Maharal2 of Prague, Rabbi Yehudah Loew ben Bezalel (1512-1609) explores this question:
The names of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza serves as a catalyst to help us better understand the nature of Baseless hatred. Whereas the first Temple was destroyed due to the most egregious of misdeeds - murder idolatry and general immorality - the second Temple was destroyed, the Sages say, due to baseless hate.
Hate works in two ways: Yes it causes us to hate others, to loath them, to embarrass them and escort them from the meal. Yet it is also the nature of baseless hatred to love certain specific people as well. By loving someone not unconditionally, but rather as a part of an in group, leads to the same sorry end of hate itself.
This was the case with Kamatza and Bar Kamtza. The love for Kamtza represents that biased love, the hate for Bar Kamtza, the baseless hate. The names Kamtza and Bar Kamtza themselves suggest division and discrimination. Kamatz, represents a splintering and fragmentation - think of the Hebrew vowel kamatz ָ or the act of kamitza in the Temple, when the Cohen would take a handful of flour to offer in the temple - grabbing some while pushing aside the rest.
The names of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza show the inequity of the generation where we could separate and love one group while specifically hating another.
It is then, from a place of profound love, that we can be reunited once more.
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