A Belated Tisha B'Av Thought

On Tisha B'Av, I went to a shiur by Rav Ari Kahn which I found very meaningful. It discussed a range of topics and themes relating to Tisha B'Av and I cannot do justice to the entire shiur, but I would like to recount a small section of it as best I can. And when I say "small section", I mean that this is kind of long, so you may want to read it over dinner or something.
The story of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza is one of the few things that we are permitted to study on Tisha B'Av. It is in Talmud Bavli, Gitin 55b. I will summarize it, but I encourage you to look it up here and read it over for yourself.
There was a certain man who had a friend named Kamtza and a sworn enemy named Bar Kamtza. He told his servant to invite Kamtza to a party that he was having, but the servant accidentally invited Bar Kamtza. Bar Kamtza came to the party and the host, shocked to see his enemy sampling the hors d'oeuvres, furiously told him to leave. Bar Kamtza requested that the host let him pay for whatever he ate, but to let him stay. The host refused. Bar Kamtza then upped the ante and offered to pay for half of the party if the host would just let him stay. The host refused. Bar Kamtza then desperately offered to pay for the entire affair, if only the host would let him stay. But the host refused, and threw him out. Bar Kamtza noticed that "the Rabbis" were at the party, and that they did nothing to stop the host, clearly indicating that they were in agreement with the Bar Kamtza's unnamed enemy.
The vengeful Bar Kamtza went to the Emperor and told him that the Jews were rebelling against him. The Emperor asked how he knew this and Bar Kamtza said "Send them an offering and see if they will offer it on the altar." The Emperor sent a fine calf back to the Jews with Bar Kamtza, but Bar Kamtza purposely made a blemish on its upper lip (according to some versions, in the white of its eye) which would render it unfit for a Jewish sacrifice but not a Roman one. This presented the Jews with a very serious problem. Should they offer the sacrifice the calf despite the blemish for the sake of national security? Or should they refuse to defile the altar of the Lord with a blemished animal? "The Rabbis" took the former position, and R. Zechariah ben Avkulas took the latter. A compromise was suggested where they would refuse to sacrifice the animal but kill Bar Kamtza, thereby fulfilling both objectives, but R. Zechariah objected again, saying that such an action would lead people to believe that one who blemished sacrifices was liable to the death penalty.
The story ends with a comment by R. Yochanan, the storyteller. He says "Due to the scrupulousness of R. Zechariah b. Avkulas our Beit HaMikdash was destroyed and we Jews were exiled from our land."
The Maharsha offers a fascinating explanation of the story. "Bar" in Aramaic means "the son of." Perhaps Bar Kamtza was really Kamtza's son, and Kamtza's best friend (the unnamed host) was also Kamtza's son's sworn enemy. A strange arrangement, to be sure, but, as Rav Kahn pointed out, it makes the story far more interesting.
The invitation to the party must have seemed to Bar Kamtza like a peace offering. He probably assumed that his father had finally spoken to his obstinate friend and that this was an opportunity to end the hatred. When he was met with a chilling reception at the party by the host, all of his hopes for reconciliation must have come crashing down in an instant. When he tried to convince the host to give him a break and was rebuffed at every turn, he must have started to wonder... "My father's close friend invites me to a party only to publicly humiliate me? How can he do this to me? He is my father's friend! Unless... It can't be! My father must be in on this! He must hate me too!"
It probably seems, certainly to any parent, absurd logic. A father who hates his son? A father who would want to see his own son humiliated by a friend? But to the son, this fits in perfectly. His father, Kamtza, never tried to make peace between his son and his friend. Why not? Perhaps this is his father's way of showing his son whose side he is really on. Bar Kamtza leaves the party bearing the pain of his father's imagined hatred and is driven to destroy his entire people by his lack of faith in the love of his father.
Let us digress momentarily and discuss R. Zechariah b. Avkulas and his actions. He was very scrupulous about Halakha, to the point where he didn't actually end up making a decision. If you look carefully at the story, R. Zechariah never actually makes a psak, or legal ruling. He only points out that the suggestions on the table are not viable. He makes no suggestions of his own. And in the end, his indecisiveness is the worst of all possible positions and leads to the destruction of the Temple.
Rav Kahn found one other place in the Talmud that R. Zechariah is mentioned. In BT Shabbat 143a there is a discussion of how to dispose of bones on Shabbat (due to issues of muktza). R. Sheshet spat them out, R. Papa threw them behind the couch, and R. Zechariah spat them behind the couch. I know, it's a strange argument, but notice - R. Zechariah couldn't decide if he should spit them our or throw them behind the couch, so he simply played it safe and complied with both positions, rather than make a Halakhic choice.
In the Tosefta on Shabbat, Perek 16, Halakha 7 (Perek 17, Halakha 4 at Mechon Mamre) there is a further discussion of this issue. Beit Hillel held that one could pick up a plate with bones on it and dispose of them. Beit Shammai held that one had to pick up the entire tray (in Talmudic times, people generally ate on separate, private trays instead of one big table) and then dispose of the bones. R. Zechariah did not act in accordance with Beit Shammai or Beit Hillel, but rather, spat the bones behind the couch. R. Yosi commented on this that due to the humility [an alternate translation, it fits the shoresh of the word better and meshes with the character of R. Zechariah well] of R. Zechariah, the Beit HaMikdash was burned.
Once again, R. Zechariah does not have the composure to choose what is right or wrong, but rather avoids the decision entirely.
The Maharatz Chiyut comments, on BT Gitin 56, that R. Zechariah couldn't poskin for his life (that's a direct quote) and that he was so worried about doing something that might not be totally Halakhic because perhaps he was not great enough to make a Halakhic decision in a dire situation. And his "humility" was so much so that he would not stand by an opinion of his own - and this was the reason that the Beit HaMikdash was destroyed.
Rav Moshe, in Igrot Moshe Yoreh Deah, Chelek 1, Siman 101 addresses the issue of hesitancy to poskin and basically says (I am majorly paraphrasing and it's a great teshuva, so if you can you should look it up) that the fear of giving psak, especially when dealing with tricky issues, especially when someone suffers as the posek continues to push off making a Halakhic decision, is exactly what destroyed the Beit HaMikdash. He even references the Kamtza/Bar Kamtza sugya!
So it seems that a lack of self confidence was the reason that the Beit HaMikdash was destroyed.
In fact, the first Tisha B'Av in Jewish history was in the Midbar, after Bnei Yisrael decided that they didn't want to go into Israel after all, thanks to an inspiring report about the conditions there from the spies (well, everyone except for Yehoshua and Kalev). They spent the night crying about how they would never succeed as Israelis. Hashem got pretty annoyed about that and declared that, due to the fact that they had spent the night crying over nothing, Hashem would give them something to cry about forever. At least that's what it says in BT Ta'anit 29a.
Let's take a slightly closer look at what exactly Bnei Yisrael were crying about. Loosely translated, Bamidbar 13:33 means: "And there we saw the Nefilim, the sons of Anak from the Nefilim, and we were like grasshoppers (chagavim) in our eyes and so to in theirs."
Anotherwards, Bnei Yisrael felt inadequate and assumed that they, in fact, were inadequate. Nothing could be further from the truth, especially considering the fact that GOD was on their side! I feel the need to call your attention to Bamidbar 22, which tells the story of Balak Ben Tzippor, the king of Moav. As it turns out, the Jewish people terrify him. So apparently, the Jewish people are only grasshoppers in their own eyes. Not anyone else's.
And now for the icing on the cake:
Targum Onkelos translates the work chagavim as kamtzin.
Yeah.
As in Kamtza and Bar Kamtza.

Looks like if we all try to have a little more faith in ourselves and the fact that God is on our side,
the next Tisha B'Av might be a happy one.