The Nine Days - The Story Kamtza and Bar-Kamtza Part Two

So, look at the story. There's the debacle with the host of the party. He's not a good guy. There's Chazal who were there. Didn't do anything to improve the situation. There's Bar-Kamtza, who decides to take revenge. There's Zecharia ben Avkilos, who seems to, quite frankly, have gone nuts. And R' Yochanan pretty much supports me here with his statement about Zecharia ben Avkilos basically causing the destruction of the Bais Hamikdash.

But there's another part of the story, and I'm going to use some of the actual language of the Gemara, because that's part of the code: Nero (possibly a general by the same name as the emperor of the time, Nero) the general was sent to Jerusalem. As he approached Jerusalem, "Shada Gira (hard G)" - he fired an arrow (Gira here is a key word, so keep it in mind...) to the east and it fell in Jerusalem. [He fired one] to the west, and it fell in Jerusalem. [He fired to] all four winds and [they] fell in Jerusalem. He said to some children, "tell me what you are learning." They said, "I will take my revenge against Edom (commonly referred to as Rome) through the agency of My people Israel..." Said the general: "Hmm. God wants to destroy the [Bais Hamikdash] and wipe his hands clean of that man (in other words, destroy that person)." So, he ran away and, IGA-YER.

Now, don't jump yet and say, "Hey! That means converted!!" Yes, yes it does. But it also mean, oh, so much more than that. You see, first, he fired a "GIRA" into the air (Hebrew letters: Gimmel, Yud, Reish, Alef), and when he figured out this couldn't possibly end well for him, IGA-YER (Alef, Yud, Gimmel, Yud, Yud, Reish).

See, these two words have are essentially the same! It's a code! Shada Gira, Iga-Yer. WHEN HE REALIZED WHAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN, WHEN HE HAD THE PRESENCE OF MIND TO FIGURE OUT THE NOLAD, THE OUTCOME OF HIS ACTIONS, HE DID TESHUVA, AND MUCH MORE THAN THAT, HE WAS IGA-YER BECAUSE THE GIRA DIDN'T BODE WELL FOR HIM!!

This man, this Roman Goy, out of all the people in this story, was THE ONLY ONE who could figure out what was going to happen here. NO ONE ELSE COULD BECAUSE THEY DID NOT SEE THE NOLAD AS THE ROMAN DID!!

The Jews of this time period, even the best of them, ESPECIALLY the best of them, did not see it coming because their hatred for each other, their Chanufa, and their political maneuverings blinded them to the Nolad.

The outcome? A golus that still, nearly two thousand years later, has not ended. And it won't until we open our eyes to see the Nolad to which our nation has been blind for so very long.

The Rav who taught me to read this Gemara this way continued: This whole Gemara is a code, and it's a difficult code to decipher. How Chazal could have missed all this is a question to which we simply don't know the answer. All we do know is the only one perceptive enough to figure it out and come away clean was a Roman general who did not want to screw around with God. THE ONLY ONE...

Take this as you will. It doesn't make the Gemara any easier, but it does give a little more clarity into one small part of it.