Posted on 07/27/25
The Churban
“All the Roman commanders who saw the internal conflict among the Jews viewed it as a gift from heaven and urged an immediate attack. But Vespasian wisely counseled patience: ‘If we wait, we will find our enemy fewer in number, after they have worn themselves out through their internal struggle. It is better to leave the Jews to destroy one another.’”[1]
The Beit HaMikdash was destroyed because we saw each other as enemies. Our infighting weakened us and made us vulnerable to attack by our actual enemies, who waited patiently for us to exhaust each other. Indeed, the Churban was a natural result of baseless hatred, not just an external punishment. This historical lesson should serve as a stark reminder of the dire consequences of disunity.
October 7 and the Aftermath
Though we have finally returned to Israel after two millennia, we are still plagued by baseless hatred and its consequences. Hamas’s invasion did not occur in a vacuum. They attacked us after months of our vicious infighting. Like 2,000 years ago, we weakened ourselves, and our enemies took advantage.
Thankfully, October 7 brought us to our senses, and we responded by standing together against Hamas, Iran, and our other enemies. Left and right wings, religious and secular, fought shoulder to shoulder on the battlefield and supported each other on the home front.
Although we united, we were not unified. We fought a common enemy, but we did not strengthen our relationships with one another. Our achdut was merely external and thus disintegrated over time. Indeed, in recent months, arguments and mutual recrimination have returned to October 6 levels. Right versus left, coalition versus opposition, religious and secular — all the familiar divisions have reemerged.
October 7 showed us the need for achdut. Everyone speaks about its importance, but also about how evil the “other side” is and why we lack achdut because of “them.” We all emphasize the importance of unity and speaking respectfully, but we often fail to apply this across divides. "They" are the reason we face challenges in the war; "they" are why the hostages remain in captivity; "they" are to blame for the burden on reservists. Each group decides who is worthy of respect; each is demonized by others.
Although we recognize that October 7 occurred because of our disunity and that we therefore need to unify, unity still eludes us.
Rav Kook
Rav Kook, whose ninetieth yahrtzeit we mark next month, addressed a similar reality in his time. Divisions in Israeli society are not new. Baseless hatred sent us into exile, accompanied us throughout our time there, and returned with us to Israel. Rav Kook decried the hatred and divisions he saw in the people returning to Israel:
It seems that we are divided into two camps. We have become accustomed to using two names to define ourselves: ‘Religious’ and ‘Not Religious.’ These are new labels that were never commonly used among us before.
We always knew that people are not equal in their spiritual levels… But to assign a fixed, defined name that designates parties and factions — that we never knew.
The sacred unity that must rest upon Israel as a whole people is as though hidden from our eyes, and we grope like the blind in darkness. We have no other advice, truly, than to remove these foreign names from our camp.[2]
The two camps Rav Kook referred to have turned into tens in the ninety years since his death. We, too, use these labels to dismiss and justify distancing ourselves from each other.
Rav Kook viewed Jewish infighting in Eretz Yisrael as a greater desecration than exile itself: "Indeed, all the exiles, with all their degradation, do not compare in severity to that terrible desecration of G-d’s name — the desecration of the name of Israel, the desecration of the name of our holy Land, the desecration of the name of all our sacred aspirations and longings, embodied in the return to Zion, the building of the Land, and the national revival that is powerfully awakening within us.”[3]
Scattered throughout hundreds of countries worldwide, we could not be unified. That should have changed upon our return to Israel. Thankfully, we now live as one people speaking the same language in our ancestral homeland. For our return to lead to redemption, we need to reverse the sin that caused the exile in the first place — baseless hatred.
Disagreement is natural. Hashem created each person differently. Two Jews have at least three opinions. However, we must remember that we are one people, one family, and act accordingly, even when we disagree. We should continue to strongly advocate for our positions, but always remember that we are negotiating with siblings.
May we heed Rav Kook’s call from almost one hundred years ago: “Let us come to know one another under the inclusive name Yisrael, not by factional or partisan titles.”[4] “Let us learn to look at each other as brothers. To see the others with the eyes of merciful brothers suffering together and ready to unify for one holy goal: assisting, honoring, and protecting the entire nation.”[5]
May doing so help us vanquish our enemies and merit the completion of the redemption and the rebuilding of the Beit HaMIkdash.
Rav Reuven Taragin is the Dean of Overseas Students at Yeshivat Hakotel and the Educational Director of World Mizrachi and the RZA.
His new book, Essentials of Judaism, can be purchased at rabbireuventaragin.com
[1] The War of the Jews, Josephus Flavius.
[2] Ma’amarei HaRe’iyah 1, pg. 76.
[3] Ma’amarei HaRe’iyah 2, pg. 365.
[4] Ibid., 1, pg. 76.
[5] Ibid., 2, pg. 365.