By Rabbi Jonathan Kaplan 

As we near the end of the three week period known as Ben HaMetzarim - the twenty-one days from the Seventeenth of Tammuz and prepare for the ninth of Av, the day on which we mourn the destruction of the Temple, we should remember that the rabbis teach us that the Temple was destroyed on account of baseless hatred among the Jewish people (sinat chinam). The following story from the Talmud (b. Gittin 56a) reminds us that this hatred was so extreme that it continued even among the Jews who were trying to survive Vespasian's siege of Jerusalem before the Holy City was sacked and the Temple destroyed on Tisha B'Av. As we read this story and commemorate the destruction of the Temple through fasting this year, may be encouraged to depart from our own destructive hatred and follow Messiah Yeshua's example by pursuing ahavat Yisrael (love for fellow Jews) and ahavat chinam (boundless love).

The biryoni (zealots) were then in the city. The Rabbis said to them, "Let us go out and make peace with them [the Romans]." They would not let them, but on the contrary said, "Let us go out and fight them." The Rabbis said, "You will not succeed." They then rose up and burnt the stores of wheat and barley so that a famine ensued. Martha the daughter of Boethius was one of the richest women in Jerusalem. She sent her man-servant out saying, "Go and bring me some fine flour." By the time he went it was sold out. He came and told her, "There is no fine flour, but there is white [flour]." She then said to him, "Go and bring me some." By the time he went he found the white flour sold out. He came and told her, "There is no white flour but there is dark flour." She said to him, "Go and bring me some." By the time he went it was sold out. He returned and said to her, "There is no dark flour, but there is barley flour." She said, "Go and bring me some." By the time he went this was also sold out. She had taken off her shoes, but she said, "I will go out and see if I can find anything to eat." Some dung stuck to her foot and she died. Rabban Johanan b. Zakkai applied to her the verse, "The tender and delicate woman among you which would not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon the ground" (Deuteronomy 28:57).  Some report that she ate a fig left by R. Zadok, and became sick and died. For R. Zadok observed fasts for forty years in order that Jerusalem might not be destroyed, [and he became so thin that] when he ate anything the food could be seen [as it passed through his throat.] When he wanted to restore himself, they used to bring him a fig, and he used to suck the juice and throw the rest away. When Martha was about to die, she brought out all her gold and silver and threw it in the street, saying, "What is the good of this to me," thus giving meaning to the verse, "They shall cast their silver in the streets" (Ezekiel 7:19).