Shabbat Chazon: Why the Beit Hamikdash Was Destroyed

מִֽי־הָאִ֤ישׁ הֶֽחָכָם֙ וְיָבֵ֣ן אֶת־זֹ֔את וַאֲשֶׁ֨ר דִּבֶּ֧ר פִּֽי־יְהוָ֛ה אֵלָ֖יו וְיַגִּדָ֑הּ עַל־מָה֙ אָבְדָ֣ה הָאָ֔רֶץ נִצְּתָ֥ה כַמִּדְבָּ֖ר מִבְּלִ֖י עֹבֵֽר׃ וַיֹּ֣אמֶר יְהוָ֔ה עַל־עָזְבָם֙ אֶת־תּ֣וֹרָתִ֔י אֲשֶׁ֥ר נָתַ֖תִּי לִפְנֵיהֶ֑ם וְלֹא־שָׁמְע֥וּ בְקוֹלִ֖י וְלֹא־הָ֥לְכוּ בָֽהּ׃ (ירמיהו ט:יא-יב)

What man is so wise That he understands this? To whom has Hashem’s mouth spoken, So that he can explain it: Why is the land in ruins, Laid waste like a wilderness, With none passing through? Hashem replied: Because they forsook the Teaching I had set before them. They did not obey Me and they did not follow it.

The Gemara (Nedarim 81a) asks why the Beit Hamikdash was destroyed and the land left desolate? None of the sages or prophets could explain it until Hashem Himself revealed through the pesukim above in Yermiyahu that it was because the Jewish people forsook the Torah, which means that they failed to properly recite the Birchot HaTorah.

Let’s consider a few questions:

1. Rabbeinu Yonah wonders why this was not known to the sages and prophets? 
2. Furthermore, we know that the Gemara in Yoma says that the first Beit Hamikdash was destroyed because of immorality, murder and idolatry. So why does Yirmiyahu say it was destroyed only because of the failure to recite bircas HaTorah? 
3. Moreover, the pasuk says they “didn’t listen to the me and follow the Torah,” how did Yirmiyahu know that meant they didn’t recite bircas HaTorah?

Rabbeinu Yonah has a deep insight where he explains that the generation did learn a lot of Torah and kept the mitzvot. That is why the sages did not recognize that they had forsaken the Torah. But then how did they end up violating the three cardinal sins? Didn’t their learning protect them? To this Hashem says that they neglected to say the brachot on the Torah.

Rav Zev Leff in his book Outlooks and Insights explains that Hashem wants us to have a constant awareness of His presence and to emulate His ways. All 613 mitzvot are intended to be expressions of our belief in Him. But we cannot relate to Him without His words being broken down into segments we can deal with individually. Each mitzvah is like a separate window that allows us to get a glimpse of Hashem. So there is more to mitzvot than the physical actions they each contain. The goal of mitzvot is to help us understand Hashem and to shape our personality, outlook and actions. This was the problem with the generation of the churban habayit - they learned Torah and did mitzvot, but they did so in a superficial way, not understanding or appreciating how it was to impact them. They performed them by rote, but did not allow the messages to pierce their hearts.

With this Rabbi Leff suggests that the pasuk above says, “They forsook My Torah” - not the Torah, but My Torah. They did the mitzvot, but they did not hear Hashem’s deeper messages expressed in the Torah - ולא שמעו בקולי. There are three birchot HaTorah: 1. אשר קדשנו במצותיו - the generation failed to appreciate that mitzvot are meant to make us holy. 2. The second bracha says the purpose of the Torah is to make us יודעי שמך, those who emulate Hashem. 3. אשר בחר בנו מכל העמים - Hashem chose us to be the holy nation and model to the other nations of the world. In other words, the birchot HaTorah teach us the implications of what it means to learn Torah and fulfill the mitzvot properly. 

The message seems clear for us. If we want to rebuild the Beit Hamikdash in our days, we need to observe the mitzvot properly and completely. We need to accept all of them sincerely and recognize how they will bring us closer to Hashem and to become better people.