The Destruction of the First Temple - Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz

were're discussing yesterday the Yosh and uh his tragic death because of the overconfidence that he had that the nation was righteous and therefore even though parro was not attacking ER Israel parro was going up north to go through ER Israel to wage war against B but Yosh thought that there was a promise in the tah that if you keep the mitzvos a sword shall not pass through your land by a foreign nation and that and even if they're not coming to attack you so he raised an army to block parro there was a great encounter in Mido and yoshio was was killed and in his last moments he was mod sadem Hashem is righteous Ma I have rebelled against his word and uh he died and as I indicated the fourth peric of AA uh which you wouldn't know yosh's name is not mentioned but the fourth peric of which begins how has the gold been dimmed is yed for yes and he when the happened 22 years later as we will see uh he Incorporated that that L that hpid into the book of Lamentations because in retrospect uh the die was cast in retrospect that was the end because if anybody could have now remember the actual gazer that the B Mikes would be destroyed was made in the reign of manashe yosio however had the power to maybe change it had he been successful in the Chua uh after yoshio died it was apparent that nobody would be able to stop this and therefore it became part of the hpit now there is um as I said there is one of the kenos we're going to recite on Tish actually tells this story poetically it's a poetic rendition of of the story in n and it mentions one statement in the Kina that uh is very interesting it says in the Merit of yahu that was Masid Yos with the 22 letters of the alates because the hpid is alphabetical arnic like all of is except the last peric so in the Merit of yahu using the 22 letters of the Al B to be hasem delayed theik by 22 years meaning thein should have happened with the death of Yosh in the of the of theem gave them 22 more years so it's very very fascinating you know the kenos well I'll talk about this an TI of itself uh the kenos were written in the Middle Ages but they based on all sorts of midashim so what mafor and the Kos try to do is they try to show you the midic or the kazal source for everything that the Kino say so the one thing I remember is on this one uh the commentary say they don't know what medish is being referred to meaning there is no statement in that says there was a delay of 22 years in the Merit of the H of 22 Pim so this is an example of the Kina either being mes thought maybe it's a mish or what is of in the case and this is an interesting phenomenon a little bit disturbing that there are many midrashim that we've lost there's it is undeniable that there are many MIM that would that have been lost because we know rishonim will quote things in the name of the medish that we don't have and the only conclusion is midrashim were lost uh so this might be an example of that as well so things get lost it's an amazing thing now we have to be my men that anything that's not that's no does not get lost hem will always allow the Torah to be correctly observed and therefore anything we need to keep the we have to assume although I can't prove it necessarily but it would seemly we have to assume that we're not going to lose that uh that's why we lost part of the TMI we never lost part of the T right that difference because the is like the tal but there are of mus and mid and hashkafa that that are in midashim that we P had lost okay so Yosh dies now what happened of course also is that by definition par uh kind of he conquered in other words at this point mitzraim is now ruling over ER Israel but mitam was not ruling over ER Israel in the terms of uh replacing it they left the Jewish Kings there but ER Israel now had to pay you tributes to so upon the death of Yos which is really maluda is now under the domination of er MIT right it's not so far away right in other words Jam is here and Egypt is you know a few hundred miles away and the like so the first king yoshio has three sons so the first king is a king whose name is yoas now it's interesting why yhas became king because yhas his age when he became king is given at 23 and we will see that he will be succeeded by his brother whose age was given as 25 normally the older brother takes over the malas for reasons that are not clear in theim at all for some reason the second brother took over the malus and the older brother will get the malus only later so yhas yhas only ruled for three months three months par who was calling the shots didn't like him now once again there's a lot of stuff we don't know what what is it that par didn't like about him was did he suspect him of disloyalty did he suspect him of rebellion but pyro just opposed him parro imprisoned him parro slept him to Egypt and then we are told yah has died now it's interesting also very ambiguous it doesn't say pyro killed him says he was taken to Egypt and he died it's tempting to assume he was killed on the other hand um if you you know this type of euphemism is normally not used I mean when when someone is killed the book of M normally says he's killed so we don't know but be as it may Yas was deposed by par after only three months Yas was taken to Egypt Yas died he was replaced by his brother yosi's oldest son whose name was yakim okay I'm not going to test you on remembering all the names but Y is three months replaced by yakim yakim actually rules for 11 years years uh and for some of that time he is a Subs subservient to mitzraim but in the fourth year of YH yim's Reign right yoakim is ruling 11 years but in the fourth year of yo yim's reign something happens the Babylonian Empire is beginning to rise become powerful Iraq under the king nuhad netar NAD netar begins conquering all of the countries the first Empire that he toppled was Assyria that that had exiled the 10 tribes so in the first year of his Reign he conquered Assyria and Assyria was no longer an Empire it was under nebat netar right Assyria had been a world Empire NAD netar took it over in the second year of nadar's Reign he conquered arth Israel so this was in the fourth year of yakim now yahim ruled 11 years so what that actually means is the first three years of yim's rule he was a vassel to MIT and then from the fourth year to the end of his Reign uh 11 years he was under so this is called in kazal Kush yakim the conquest of Babylon over erel in the reign of yakim so yakim was not the post yakim remained a vassel king of Babylon and okay we'll see how Yim died it's also not so clear okay y who only ruled for three months was a Russia yakim who ruled for 11 years was even a bigger Russia yoim even though he's his father was Yosh Yim was a Russia who did such disgusting things that it almost is something that one shouldn't even talk about butal described the of yakim and among his toas was he engraved in his male organ the shame Hashem YK so he could essentially relieve himself on it or next to it that unbelievable in the book of yo there's a fascinating story where yo wrote a letter a message that if you don't do chuva if the people don't do Chua this Corbin is coming this a awful Corbin is coming just imagine the scene you could like almost make a movie out of it you could really visualize it and the scroll is brought to yoakim and he is given the scroll to read and he was sitting in his Winter Palace Kings used to have two palaces a Winter Palace which had thick walls and very small Windows to hold in the Heat and a Summer Palace that would have more air and the like so he's sitting in the Winter Palace and he's cutting a fruit he's peeling a fruit with a knife and he's reading this scroll that says all of these bad things are going to happen and it mentions just very casual and he's sitting in front of a fire because it's cold rainy and he's reading the scroll and he's taking a knife and he's cutting the scroll and he throws the pieces of the parchments in the fire this was Yo's first draft of which we don't have later he wrote after the Corbin he wrote all of those things but he had written an before the and is just casually he's so unaffected by this and he's showing his total disregard for the words of Hashem and the words of the Prophet he's just cutting the knife throwing it into the fire like old newspaper to be burnt up yakim a Russ 11 years again first three years a vassel to uh parro from the fourth year onward conquered by Babylonia that had already begun right Babylonia was always a little country in other words there always was a b but bbel used to be just B began the expansion of the Babylonian empire into a world Empire that started with the toppling of Assyria and then spread to where Israel and eventually to Egypt other countries as well Kush yaho yaho yakim by the way that's why you find a little bit sometimes that when the Tanakh talks about ashure they're actually talking about B simply because ashure was such a powerful Empire that the Babylonians liked to call themselves the Assyrian Empire because that was way of saying we conquered the Assyrian Empire so be careful sometimes when the Pim talk about asure it means Assyria and sometimes when it talks about ashure it actually means Babylonia because that was one of the names that the Babylonian Empire took for itself it called themselves the new Assyrian Assyrian Empire okay by the way don't it's obvious don't confuse Syria with assria Syria in in tanak is Aram which car is right Assyria is ashure asure and Aram are two different countries Iram was a powerful Nation but it was a small nation Iram did not have a a big Empire as a sure a sure did okay uh the PK says after the 11 years yakim just died doesn't say anything in particular kazal have a m however that uh the Egyptians who were not happy with him at the end actually dragged his body on the ground and they left his body out to be eaten by the uh By the birds and Etc it's not clear exactly what he did to elicit that respon I mean spiritually we know why Hashem made it that way but what was the dissatisfaction I mean as I say pyro deposed yhas after 3 months we have to assume because yhas was was disloyal yakim kind of hung around with Babylon I'm sorry not I'm sorry wouldn't be would be bub that did it uh he hung around with both mriam and then Babylonia but eventually uh he met a very uh despicable burial okay so yhaz is son number two but King number one yaho yakim is son number one but King number two now after Yim died his son yosh's grandson became king and the name of this son of yakim yosi's grandson is again I'm not going to test you on this uh Y which actually comes in a few different versions but they all are just variations Yin or Y orah they all are the basic combination y means God shall establish you so grammatically that could be expressed in different ways Yin not yakim Yim was his father and the like now he also ruled for three months in fact the last four the the duration of the last four Kings is very simple it's 3 months 11 years years 3 months 11 years meaning King number one 3 months King number two 11 years King three 3 months King four 11 years it's it's a kind of an amazing Symmetry and I don't know the the Sor for it exactly but it's 3 months 11 years 3 months 11 years yah son number two King number one three months deposed by parro yaho yakim 11 years in whose fourth year B conquered and he finished it out yakim uh the Third King is the son of yahu yakim who was installed by the Babylonians who are ruling by baboni are ruling AR Israel and his name is Yin or he only ruled for three months the Babylonians opposed him after 3 months presumably for disloyalty but here a very very important stage event happened and this was not only was y deposed but the first wave of Gus occurred we are told that 11 years before theik because remember we have a total of 22 years we've already when yoin becomes king it's already been 11 years and 3 months so 11 years before theik exiled from ER Israel a category of people who were called Kash masare the Kash and the masare I'll translate in a moment were exiled for marage Israel and the only people who remained in Erich Israel for the next 11 years are called the dalas the poor of the land the first wave of Exile now what is Kash and masier literally Kash means carpenters and masare means locksmiths so if you read the P liter it says exiled from the Carpenters and the locksmiths and he brought them to B what is the problem with carpenters and locksmiths I mean why would NAD netar you know punish them or does he need them does Babylonian need a lot of lockmith what's going so so the simple meaning of the p is this wanted to be is paranoid of course maybe he's not paranoid the truth is uh what do they say remember a cartoon of the New Yorker where the psychologist is telling the person uh I got good news for you you're not paranoid everybody really really hates you you know so you're everything is fine you know you're not paranoid right so I was going to sayet was paranoid but the truth of the matter is everybody was out to get him uh people didn't like him they wanted to fight against him rebel against him that's why he's supposed and Kings so the Kish and the masar are basically skilled professions that can make weapons Carpenters can make sharp Spears locksmiths know how to work with metal so essentially the simple meaning was he wanted to take out of Erich Israel the types of skilled workers who would know how to manufacture weapons that's the p but kazal as you might expect have a draa on that and they actually say and Mas are the great that were taken out of er Isel 11 years before theban so when theban comes and the rest of the Jews come to Babel there will already be a flourishing Torah Community why is where do you how do you see it from the word so it explains that does mean a carpenter but also comes from being mute deaf and mute not able to talk which means these were people who were so great that that would when they would explain something you would have nothing to add you would have nothing to say meaning to say they were so great that when they spoke you became mute meaning you had nothing to add and similarly Mas closing up when they addressed the topic it was closed there was nothing to be mive so the big problem that one might ask is this I understand God's plan here but I don't understand thinking meaning why didem want the to be in buo 11 years before everybody else so that when everybody else came there would be the infrastructure of Torah and MIT now it is true that that does mean for those 11 years the Jews in ER Israel were somewhat abandoned but not totally they had yo hanavi was in arel so it wasn't 100% but the bulk of the were in B so I understand God's hasem was so there would be a flourishing T Community when the rest of the people get there but the thing I don't understand is what's thear thinking in other words why would say I want to Exile the Learned Jews to B like what what is Bish if I learned the other way that it's carpenters and locksmiths so I explained to you that he wanted to get out of the land those people who can work with metal and wood and make weapons like today you know people who know how to make guns you know let's get them out of the country but if it's like what's calculation here unless he thought maybe that the would also have politically astute leadership and they could organize rebellions or revolutions you know it's not clear what he was thinking maybe it's not so important to know that but perhaps his thought was I want to take away their their leadership by the way so you might ask so why did he leave yo in AR Israel remember y was actually a supporter of nadra in the following sense yo constantly told the Jewish people do not rebel against because you're not going to be successful so it's fascinating actually liked yo because Yo's message always was don't fight against Babylonia so yo was given permission to stay and he did stay and he was around at the time of the now so this is called Galos y y right the conquest of Babylonia of erel by Babylonia is called Kush yakim and now with Yin after only three months after the 11 years and then the three months of Y is g y which is the Gus of the and the Mas now if you have a good memory you can now connect this to a p in millas Esther that talks about Mori morai is living in Persia because Persia eventually conquers the Babylonian Empire but that's later and when it describes morai in the PK that we read with the tune of right Milla is normally a happy TR but once in a while we insert some AA song in it a Mori was exiled from IM with the Exiles that were exiled IM is a variation of [Music] B now the PK reads like butter now you know exactly well maybe you knew it before I don't want to say you're learning it now but the PK is so logical Mori was one of the Kash and Mas who was exiled from ER Israel 11 years before theban at the time of Yin or Y that's the same name was the and Mori as you would expect was part of thees and the mus now that does mean that initially he did not go to shushan initially he went to B but later which we're not up to that yet the Babylonian empire fell so he moved to shushan okay so that that's what it means so morai left ER Israel 11 years before thein the Galos of the and the Mas which is called Goos y or Y again these are just different ways of rearranging the the letters uh same person this is the son of the Russia Yahya Kim and the grandson of Yosh now Yak has a very interesting life his Royal career was not very long but he was taken to bille imprisoned and he was not killed he remained in imprisonment for more than years and he survived and mashia he was the the last survivor because all all of the other davidic line were killed Mia comes from yak and the ram in when the rambam discusses again it's based on K when the ram discusses the power of chuva that no matter how evil you are you can do chuva and be forgiven the rambam takes y as an example because y told y or prophesied about Yin not the father Yin that saying you are like a worthless ring that a person takes off his finger and throws away God has discarded you like a piece of garbage and Yin was languishing in prison why didn't kill him it's not clear but he just prison for years and years and years and years and The Story Goes that he was allowed a one conjugal visit now prison cells were not like uh well okay I mean prison is not pleasant necessarily but I know at least federal prisons which have a lot of white color uh crime you know you have cable TV air conditioning you know different different things uh prisons in the ancient world did not have any of the amenities that we have now prison was a pit you were just thrown into a pit and you stayed there so a conjugal visit just meant I mean they're standing vert I mean they're standing up that the wife was lowered to be with the husband and this was something that was important to them and right when they're about to be together the wife says I see a little blood coming out that I've become a Nita yanya who was not a sadic was pores from his wife then and at that moment it was decreed in shmaya that he was a balua that God has forgiven him he will live and he will be the progenitor of mashia so mashia comes from the line of Y from Yos but Yosh was only King for three months he was in prison so who is the last king before theb B mikdash this is the third son of Yoshi whose name is sidah he rules 11 years under Babylonian Rule and then we're going to see there was the mikash and the final wave of Gus okay so um so again in terms of duration it's very very simple three months 11 years 3 months 11 years 3 months Yas 11 years yakim three months the son of yakim is yak or Y or Kayu the last king in tanak of the Jewish people was s who ruled for 11 years yeah um was someone like Ezra among stages that will exile to uh yes Ezra would be would be among the and the Mas that that that is correct yeah is there a reason why all of their names were like so similar well obviously uh all of these names involve the shame Hashem in them right and the idea would be perhaps as they're getting desperate they want to bring Hashem in but the problem is they're bringing Hashem into their names but they're not bringing Hashem into their hearts they're now sidio is a little more complicated because sidio is portrayed in in contradictory ways there are times he's described as a sadic there are times he's described as a Russia he goes back and forth uh he he seems to have been a sadic but similar to yoshio he did not always listen to the N meaning he was self-confident in his own assessment now the P MIM actually says the following story that sido's actual name was Matan mat gift of godar gave him the name Sid which means and and and and the and thear actually the PK explains God's judgment against you will be justified if you dare rebel against me he made sidio wear an oath of Allegiance not to Rebel now the p goes on and the gamar elaborates on this story Sido ruled for 11 years but towards the end of his Reign there were two things happened number one he wanted to organize a Revolt to overthrow not the Babylonian Empire but to overthrow NAD netzer's reign in B who is like warns over and over again you don't have Theos to fight against if you live in peace under Babylonian domain maybe Hashem will allow the B to remain if you Rebel the B mikdash will be destroyed so sido's first issue a little similar to to um Yoshi is he didn't listen to the navi about not Waging War against baa but there's a second aspect of the story that's much more personal that is thear inorm says that one time Sido had to meet netar for a meeting and he caught Nadar eating a live rabbit apparently that was well besides it's besides the is but not just n that was a very disgusting thing that evener was embarrassed being caught at it he made Sido swear by God's name that he would never reveal that information to anybody what happened waso did reveal itet found out so there's both this issue of crushing a rebellion and this issue of the personal humiliation Nader felt so Nader decided to besiege the city of yusim to well I mean conquer it really was not relevant it already was conquered but to destroy the city and destroy the Bas of Mikes now here it says Sido wanted to Escape From the City to kind of hide get away soad wouldn't catch him there was a Subterranean tunnel under yam is still called the cave of sidu where Sid's idea was to go through the cave and to emerge around uro active origin was a very very long cave and kind of find safety go into hiding but Hashem made a miracle that that day a deer appeared out of nowhere and theer soldiers were pursuing the deer to be able to hunt it and they were riding a long long time and they reached uro exactly when sidio and his children emerged from the cave he was caught net was not in I mean butet was in a Riva Riva which is in Syria that's where he was sitting and his army would report to him so sahu and his children were brought to NAD netar in Riva kind of a town in Syria that was nadar's military headquarters the first thing that nzar did was he slaughtered he ordered that all of sido's sons be murdered in front of Sido so the last memory s would have is seeing the deaths of his children he then blinded his eyes gouged his eyes out and Sido was taken to Babylon and died that's why m is only from y not from Sido and sidio said he now understands the ones that yo hanavi had communicated to him you will be taken to B and you will die in B but your eyes shall never see B and Sido says that's exactly what happened he was taken to B from Riva he died in bubble he was killed himself and he never saw bubble because he was blinded before he was taken and then we're kind of anticlimactic almost the whole Corbin bikes is described in like five verses the City was destroyed the house of Hashem was destroyed people were exiled people were killed people were taken as slaves and it says Hashem sent Prophet after Prophet na'vi after na'vi to give to to give people a chance to give people warning and Hashem did it over and over and over again but they turned their backs they rejected they made fun of the n and therefore the anger Hashem finally could no longer be contained and there was thean bikash on the nth of aan that 490 years later occurred on the same day with the second basa mikdash which is not what T tanak does not cover that second basa mikdash and to this very day this is the ninth of that we mourn now I do have to add that throughout tanak one of the greatest enemies the Jewish people had were the phenomena of false prophets there were many many many prophets or people who call themselves prophets who kept on giving us opposite messages they said in fact they even sounded like from they said God loves you God will never destroy the Bas of mikash what do you worried about now was like a downer he was always fact even in English we talk about a Jer miad if you've heard the word Jeremiah means someone who's always Doom and Gloom and always pessimistic you know Jeremiah it comes from of course Jeremiah yo yo was a downer he's always telling us the bad things that are going to happen but you know that was for our good if we would have listened to the message we could have prevented all of that but what were the false NVM the false NM were always giving you beautiful messages you know God loves you he's not going to allow the Jewish people to be destroyed he's not going to allow the temple to be destroyed he's not going to allow Russia to be and people gravitated to the good news so the truth of the matter is uh a major major kind of co-conspirator of evil was not just the sinfulness of the nation but the fact that the false Nan were giving him these messages in the name name of God I'm not talking about prophets in the name of idolatry we had those also I'm talking about false prophets in the name of Hashem and they were actually using the argument of Hashem loves the Jewish people so he'll never do this well Hashem does love the Jewish people that that that that happens to be true but it's a tough love it's a love of accountability it's a love in which there are standards Hashem loves us the way a parent loves a child in which you don't let a child will do whatever they want to do okay so this was the bikes now what happened was just to update it a tiny bit maybe I'll continue after tishu is the idea that 52 years later Persia had conquered the Babylonian Empire and Cyrus kores allowed the Jews to return most Jews did not return but the second bikash was built right after the porm story uh 70 years from the Corban of the first so you're actually measuring Corban to the beginning of the bias and the truth is the second temple took four years to construct but when we say the second base of mikash stood for 420 years we are actually counting it from the beginning of its construction so in reality as they finished building it only stood for 46 years and that's when you get Ezra neia the return to AR Israel which is really the end of the biblical period is kind of the dedication of the second Bas on M um so the prophets like and Prophets yeah yeah so so here's the one thing you have to know yeso died uh shortly after the 10 tribes were exiled so yes actually although he gave many prophecies about kban and mashia he died over 100 years before the now and are contemporaries they lived exactly the same time but here's the difference was of thees and the Maser who was exiled to Babylon 11 years before theban socal's prophecies are in B yo because theet are like yo yo was the spiritual leader in ER Israel so of the three big prophets big in the sense of the largest books yesah yoes yo andco are contemporaries at the time of theban itself yeso is hundred years earlier around the time of the Exile of the 10 tribes now in terms of the 12 prophets each one is different meaning some of the prophets are around the time of yes other prophets are closer to theban so normally if you look at the just the beginning uh like a book like Yona you don't really know but a lot of the of the 12 it'll tell you which Kings during which Jewish Kings did they prophesy and that will tell you when they should be located where located but got killed during no yo did not get yo survived theb B mikdash uh and Y of course experienced the death of Galia benik Galia was killed seven three months after theban in Tish right theban is Galia got killed Tish and at that point uh the Jews fled to Egypt to seek Refuge because Egypt had not yet been captured by Babylonia Babylonia then conquered misraim and Y died in misim so he never met with so y never met withes was in Babylonia y was inel he fled to MIT with the other Jews after theban they tried to escape many Jews were killed but a group of Jews fled to MIM to escape and eventually Babylonia followed them Babylonia followed them to mitam conquered mitzraim and uh killed the remaining Jews that that that we there okay so that's kind of in brief the tanak story of of of the Corban now obviously uh the return to ER Isel is very significant you know we'll get to that eventually then of course we have the whole tou of the bayen but once we talk about the bay sheni except for the very beginning of the bay sheni we're no longer talking about tanak we're already talking about the period of kazal right so the bayen is already in the gor in the and the like now when you learn on Tish Tish of course we have we don't learn regular stuff we learn sad things so probably the most popular there are a lot of goras you can learn lot of things you can learn but the most popular gamorra is m in the fifth per Bara and the like and sometimes if you don't have a historical awareness uh you're not always going to be aware of the fact that when the gar gives you story after story after story after Story it is actually interweaving it's moving back and forth between the Bas sheni and the Bas rean meaning not all of the stories are referring to the same historical time so kamsa barsa is the story of theban bias sheney but then you'll have stories about nuu zerin who Nader's General killing hundreds of thousands of people that's the bias Reon so in the gamar itself you just have the stories but they are referring to different historical times in fact some stories are after theb bay they're referring to the bar rev so so history is helpful a little bit because even to understand the Kaz because you then put the statements of kazal in a perspective so you know what they're talking talking about okay beem this should just be a memory this should just be academic uh even this very week this very uh time it is possible that there will not be a fast on the nth of a we hope and pray for the coming of mashia the this will we'll still have a fast of the nth of may this be the last tius that have thank you for listening to this awesome production to find out more and to partner in our mission please visit o.edu [Music]