Kamtza, Bar Kamtza, R' Zekhariah ben Avkulas, and the danger of silence

Rabbi Yoḥanan said...Jerusalem was destroyed on account of Kamtza and bar Kamtza.

...there was a certain man whose friend was named Kamtza and whose enemy was named bar Kamtza. He once made a large feast and said to his servant: Go bring me my friend Kamtza. The servant went and mistakenly brought him his enemy bar Kamtza. The man who was hosting the feast came and found bar Kamtza sitting at the feast. The host said to bar Kamtza. That man is the enemy [ba’al devava] of that man, that is, you are my enemy. What then do you want here? Arise and leave. Bar Kamtza said to him: Since I have already come, let me stay and I will give you money for whatever I eat and drink. Just do not embarrass me by sending me out.

The host said to him: No, you must leave. Bar Kamtza said to him: I will give you money for half of the feast; just do not send me away. The host said to him: No, you must leave. Bar Kamtza then said to him: I will give you money for the entire feast; just let me stay. The host said to him: No, you must leave. Finally, the host took bar Kamtza by his hand, stood him up, and took him out. After having been cast out from the feast, bar Kamtza said to himself: Since the Sages were sitting there and did not protest the actions of the host, although they saw how he humiliated me, learn from it that they were content with what he did. I will therefore go and inform [eikhul kurtza] against them to the king. He went and said to the emperor: The Jews have rebelled against you. The emperor said to him: Who says that this is the case? Bar Kamtza said to him: Go and test them; send them an offering to be brought in honor of the government, and see whether they will sacrifice it. The emperor went and sent with him a choice three-year-old calf. While bar Kamtza was coming with the calf to the Temple, he made a blemish on the calf’s upper lip. And some say he made the blemish on its eyelids, a place where according to us, i.e., halakha, it is a blemish, but according to them, gentile rules for their offerings, it is not a blemish. Therefore, when bar Kamtza brought the animal to the Temple, the priests would not sacrifice it on the altar since it was blemished, but they also could not explain this satisfactorily to the gentile authorities, who did not consider it to be blemished. The blemish notwithstanding, the Sages thought to sacrifice the animal as an offering due to the imperative to maintain peace with the government. Rabbi Zekharya ben Avkolas said to them: If the priests do that, people will say that blemished animals may be sacrificed as offerings on the altar. The Sages said: If we do not sacrifice it, then we must prevent bar Kamtza from reporting this to the emperor. The Sages thought to kill him so that he would not go and speak against them. Rabbi Zekharya said to them: If you kill him, people will say that one who makes a blemish on sacrificial animals is to be killed. As a result, they did nothing, bar Kamtza’s slander was accepted by the authorities, and consequently the war between the Jews and the Romans began.

Rabbi Yoḥanan says: The excessive humility of Rabbi Zekharya ben Avkolas destroyed our Temple, burned our Sanctuary, and exiled us from our land.

“The precious sons of Zion, who were valued in gold, how are they considered earthenware jugs, the handiwork of the hands of the potter?” (Lamentations 4:2).
“The precious sons of Zion,”...in what way was their preciousness manifest? None of them would attend a feast until he was invited twice.

There was an incident involving a certain man in Jerusalem, who made a feast. He said to a member of his household: ‘Go and bring me my friend, Kamtza.’ He went and brought his enemy, bar Kamtza. He entered and sat among the guests. [The host] entered and found him among those invited to the feast. He said to him: ‘You are my enemy, and you are sitting in my house? Get up and leave my house.’ He said to him: ‘Do not shame me, and I will give you the cost of my meal.’ He said to him: ‘You will not recline [at the feast].’ He said to him: ‘Do not shame me and I will sit, but I will not eat and I will not drink.’ He said to him: ‘You will not recline [at the feast].’ He said to him: ‘Do not shame me and I will give the cost of this entire feast.’ He said to him: ‘Get up [ and leave].’ Rabbi Zekharya ben Avkulas was there and it was within his ability to protest, but he did not protest. Immediately, [bar Kamtza] left. He said to himself: ‘These who are reclining at the feast are sitting in serenity; I will slander them.’ What did he do? He went to the ruler and said to him: ‘Those offerings that you send to the Jews for them to sacrifice, they eat them and sacrifice others in their stead.’ [The ruler] reprimanded him. He went to him again and said to him: ‘All those offerings that you send to the Jews for them to sacrifice, they eat them and sacrifice others in their stead. If you do not believe me, send with me one official and offerings, and you will immediately know that I am not a liar.’ While they were traveling on the way, the official fell asleep. [Bar Kamtza] arose during the night and rendered them all blemished animals in a discreet manner. When the priest saw them, he sacrificed others in their stead. The emissary of the king said: ‘Why did you not sacrifice these offerings?’ He said to him: ‘[I will sacrifice them] tomorrow.’ The third day arrived and he did not sacrifice them. He sent and said to the ruler: ‘The matter that the Jew said, he spoke the truth.’ Immediately, [the ruler] ascended to the Temple and destroyed it.

That is what the people say: ‘Because of the differences between Kamtza and bar Kamtza the Temple was destroyed.’

Rabbi Yosei said: ‘The humility of Rabbi Zekharya ben Avkulas burned the Sanctuary.’....

(7) The School of Hillel said: One may take bones and peels off the table. The School of Shammai said: One moves the entire table and shakes it. Zekharia ben Avkulos did not comply with either the School of Shammai nor the School of Hillel. Rather, he would take [the refuse] as he ate and throw it behind the couch. Rabbi Yosi said: The humility of Rabbi Zekharia ben Avkulos is what burned the sanctuary [of the Temple]

Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel disputed the proper way to recite Shema. Beit Shammai say: One should recite Shema in the manner indicated in the text of Shema itself. Therefore, in the evening every person must recline on his side and recite Shema...And Beit Hillel say: Every person recites Shema as he is, and he may do so in whatever position is most comfortable for him, both day and night...With regard to this halakha, Rabbi Tarfon said: Once, I was coming on the road when I stopped and reclined to recite Shema in accordance with the statement of Beit Shammai. Although Rabbi Tarfon was a disciple of Beit Hillel, he thought that fulfilling the mitzva in accordance with the opinion of Beit Shammai would be a more meticulous fulfillment of the mitzva, acceptable to all opinions. Yet in so doing, I endangered myself due to the highwaymen [listim] who accost travelers. The Sages said to him: You deserved to be in a position where you were liable to pay with your life, as you transgressed the statement of Beit Hillel. This statement will be explained in the Gemara.

Rabbi Ishmael said: Ten times did the sons of Jacob say to Joseph, "thy servant, our father." Joseph heard the word, and was silent. Silence gives consent; therefore were ten years deducted from his life...

...At the same time another incident occurred in the Temple: Eleazar, son of Ananias the high priest, and a very rash young man then holding the position of captain, persuaded those who officiated at the Temple to accept no gift or sacrifice from a foreigner. This action laid the foundation of the war with Rome; for they renounced in consequence the sacrifices offered for Rome and the emperor. The chief priests and the prominent citizens earnestly appealed to them not to abandon the customary offerings for their rulers, but the priests would not give in. Their numbers gave them great confidence, backed as they were by the stalwarts of the revolutionary party; but they pinned their faith above all on the authority of the captain, Eleazar.

(3) Thereupon the leading citizens assembled with the chief priests and most prominent Pharisees to discuss the position of affairs now that they faced irreparable disaster. They decided to try an appeal to the revolutionaries and summoned the people before the Bronze Gate - the gate of the inner sanctuary facing eastward. They began by denouncing vehemently the recklessness of this revolt and pointed out that such a war would be total; then they proceeded to ridicule the absurdity of pretext. Their ancestors, they said, had adorned the sanctuary mainly at the expense of other peoples and had always accepted gifts of foreign nations and so far from debarring any man from offering sacrifice-for this would be sacrilege - they had set up the votive offerings around the Temple which were still visible and remained there for so long a time. And here were these men provoking Roman arms and courting war with them by an alien innovation in their religion, and, besides endangering the city, laying it open to the charge of impiety, if Jews henceforth were to be the only people to allow no foreigner the right to sacrifice or worship. Should such a law be introduced to debar a single individual, they would be indignant at such an inhumane decree; but they made light of putting the Romans and Caesar outside the pale. There was danger, however, that once they rejected the sacrifices offered for the Romans, they might not be allowed to sacrifice even for themselves, and that their city would be placed outside the pale of the empire unless they quickly recovered their common sense, restored the sacrifices, and wiped out the affront before it was reported to those they had insulted.

(4) While they pleaded thus, they brought forth priests with expert knowledge on the traditions, who testified that all their ancestors had accepted offerings from aliens. But none of the revolutionaries would listen and not even the Temple ministers came forward to support and thus were they instrumental in bringing about war. So, seeing that they could not suppress the insurrection and that the vengeance of Rome would fall on them first, the leading citizens took steps to establish their own innocence. They sent two delegations, one to Florus, headed by Simon, son of Ananias, the other to Agrippa which included such eminent persons as Saul, Antipas and Costobar, all members of the royal family. They begged them to come with troops to the city and suppress the insurrection before it got beyond control. To Florus, the news was splendid, and in his eagernes to kindle the war, he gave the emissaries no reply. But Agrippa, equally concerned for the rebels and for the nation against which they were rising in arms, anxious that the Romans should not lose the Jews, nor the Jews their Temple and mother city, and aware that he himself would gain nothing by troubles, dispatched to the aid of these citizens two thousand horses from Auranitis, Batanaea and Trachonitis under Darius the cavalry commander, and Philip, son of Jacimus, as general.

...in order to incense the feelings of the Zealots' leaders as well, he accused Ananus of brutality, asserting that their threats were meant particularly for them. These leaders were Eleazar, son of Gion...and one Zecharia, son of Amphicalleus¹, both members of priestly families. When these two heard the personal threats against them, besides the general menaces...they were at a loss what to do, as they were so desperately pressed for time, since the people were prepared to attack them quite soon...

1 - Zecharia, son of Amphicalleus, or Avqilas, was a scrupulous Pharisee. His actions are known to us from the Talmud (Tosefta Shabbat XVII, 9; Gittin 56a). "He may be regarded as typifying the Pharisee Zealots, whose aim was to revolt against Rome with a view to casting off the yoke of her subjugation from the nation without giving due consideration to the actual factors of the movement" (G. Alon, ibid., p. 43). Or he may be the person mentioned in the Talmud Gittin 46 [sic., 56a] who ordered the cessation of the offering of sacrifices on behalf of the Roman emperor, which served as a signal for starting the great revolt. This expressed the views of the Pharisees who sympathized with the Zealots, and who taught that it was fundamentally forbidden to accept the Roman yoke. In any case, Zecharia headed the Zealots at the moment of the incident related above, or after. It may be observed, on the other hand, that other Pharisaic sages opted for submission to Rome because, among other things, "it seemed to evince greater ability in preserving public security." In any case, these realistic nationalists managed to survive even the fall of the state towards the end of the first century AD and after.