A Servant Brings the Wrong Guest to the Party

The Talmud tells this story with almost no fancy language, and the plainness of it is the point. There was a rich man in Jerusalem. He had a friend named Kamtza and an enemy named Bar Kamtza. He was throwing a big party. He told his servant, 'Go and bring Kamtza.' The servant went and brought Bar Kamtza.

The host walked into his own dining room, saw his enemy sitting at his table, and marched over. 'What are you doing here? Get up. Get out.'

'Please,' said Bar Kamtza. 'I'm already here. Let me stay. I'll pay for whatever I eat.'

'No,' said the host, and started pulling him toward the door.

'I'll pay for half the party.'

'No.'

'I'll pay for the whole party.'

'No.' The host dragged him out.

The great Sages of Jerusalem were sitting at that table. The Talmud says one terrible line about them: they saw the whole thing and didn't say a word.

Bar Kamtza walked out into the street, still burning with embarrassment. 'If the rabbis were there and didn't stop it,' he thought, 'they must be okay with this. If they're okay with this, I have no home.' He went to the Roman authorities and told them the Jews were about to rebel.

To prove it, he suggested the emperor send an animal to be offered in the Temple. On the way, Bar Kamtza made a tiny nick in the animal's lip (or maybe its eye) — the kind of blemish that makes an animal unfit for a Jewish offering but is perfectly fine for a Roman one. He handed it to the priests knowing exactly what would happen. The priests were stuck. If they offered it, they broke Torah. If they refused it, they insulted the emperor. Some Sages said: offer it anyway, the whole nation is at stake. Rabbi Zekharyah ben Avkulas said: no — people will think blemished animals are okay. Others said: then kill Bar Kamtza before he can go back to Rome. Rabbi Zekharyah said: no — people will think you can be killed for blemishing an animal.

The offering was refused. Bar Kamtza went back to Rome and told the emperor the Jews had rejected his gift. The emperor sent an army.

Rabbi Yochanan looks back at the whole chain and says the diagnosis out loud: 'The gentleness of Rabbi Zekharyah ben Avkulas destroyed our House, burned our Sanctuary, and sent us into exile.' And the Talmud somewhere else says something else — the First Temple fell for idol worship, murder, and forbidden relations, but the Second Temple, when Torah study and mitzvot and kindness filled the country, fell for one thing only: sinat chinam, hatred between one Jew and another for no reason at all. Hatred that lets a servant bring the wrong man to the door and lets a whole room of rabbis watch him get thrown out and stay quiet.

This is the story that runs under every dispatch to come. Rome will do the physical work. But the reason there was anything for Rome to walk into was written the night the host said no for the fourth time.