Hidden Hatred
Understanding Aggada
Yeshivat Har Etzion
Shiur #08a: Hidden Hatred
Why
was the
Rabbi
Yochanan and Rabbi Elazar both say: The earlier ones (the generation of the
(Yoma 9b)
We understand the gemara's distinction
between the two destructions regarding the end being revealed, as there was a
prophetic prediction about the duration of the first exile (seventy years; see
Yirmiyahu 25:11) and no such prediction about the length of the second. Indeed, we still suffer from the
continuation of the second exile without a clear promise of when it will end.
Yet what does this have to do with
sins being revealed? Moreover, why
were the earlier sins revealed in a way that the latter ones were not? Is there some aspect of groundless
hatred that lends itself to being hidden?
This leads the Maharsha to explain that
the Jews at the time of Bayit Sheini pretended to love their colleagues
and neighbors, but stabbed each other in the back at the first opportunity; the
gemara refers to sins that were not revealed because those sins were covered up
with a facade of false friendship. To bolster his argument, Maharsha cites the
famous idea of Chazal (Bava Kama 79b) that the gazlan (mugger)
pays less than the ganav (burglar) because only the latter keeps his
crime a secret, attempting to maintain a righteous veneer for society. According to this explanation, hypocrisy
makes a sin much more grievous and difficult to repent of; the exile continues
because we have not successfully combated this hypocrisy. In our age of advertising and public
relations, this call for authenticity should certainly strike a
chord.
Alternatively, the Ben Yehoyada suggests
that people were upfront about their enmity, but did not treat it as a serious
crime; what was hidden from them was the understanding of sinat chinam as
a major transgression. When people
evaluated the gravity of their crimes, the sin of hatred was not exposed for the
horror it is. People understand
that murder and adultery are seriously wrong, but often make light of a little
communal discord; the quarrelling and enmities of shul or school politics seem
like a ubiquitous feature of Jewish life that need not overly concern us. However, Jewish history has shown us the
terrible dangers of groundless hatred. With all our contemporary internal
squabbling, this second message should also hit home.
Yet another view is presented by Rabbi
Moshe Feinstein (Darash Moshe 29), who explains that the hatred was clear
to all, but not the baseless quality of that hatred. Unlike the Maharsha, Rav Moshe contends
that the people did not hide their feelings, but also unlike the Ben Yehoyada,
Rav Moshe argues that they fully appreciated the conceptual problem of
groundless hatred: they simply did not think that their own hatreds and enmities
qualified. Usually, both sides of a
conflict tend to consider the dislike of the other to be fully justified. No one
repents of sinat chinam, because no one thinks that their sina is
truly chinam. Rav Moshe reminds us to forthrightly face the question of
whether our strong dislikes are justifiable based on real reasons, or are due to
such poor motivations as feeling threatened, not liking having competition or
something as silly as finding another's laugh to be irritating. Only when we
recognize the groundlessness of much of our enmity will authentic repentance
become a possibility.
These three interpretations emphasize
three crucial themes. Firstly, we
need to show love rather than just make an external show of talking about
it. Furthermore, we need to see
communal and personal strife as serious matters. Finally, we need to assess whether or
not our carefully constructed grounds for disliking others are really
justified.
This website is constantly being improved. We would appreciate hearing from you. Questions and comments on the classes are welcome, as is help in tagging, categorizing, and creating brief summaries of the classes. Thank you for being part of the Torat Har Etzion community!