MIcha:<br><div style="margin-left: 40px;">In 130 CE Hadrian had Turnus Rufus plow over Har haBayis. This makes<br>it onto the list of 5 tragedies of 9 beAv. Why? I mean it's bad, but<br>is it in the same league as the meraglim, the two churbanos, and the
<br>fall of Beitar (which one roman source claimed was the murder of<br>580,000 people, aside from the concomitant hopes of immediate<br>ge'ulah)?<br><br>One theory is that the plowing refers to making a pomerium, the furrow
<br>that marks the border of a Roman city -- a symbolic act of turning Y-m<br>into Aelona Capitolina.<br><br>But Chazal refer to Har haBayis.<br></div>==============================================================<br><br>
I think the tragedy is self-explanatory. At one time - for a period of 65 years - the ruins of the Temple still stood. It was STILL a common focal point for all Jews - and one could view the dimensions etc [a limited masechss Middos of sort.] Plus it functioned asa matzeiva or a Tziyyun for the former Mikdsah that stood there
<br><br>Ploughing under the Mikdash meant that all the tangible remains were destroyed. Kind of like ploughing a Beis haKevoros and destroying the collective matzeivos.<br><br>But, Hazal may have been even more prescient. Todays' Islamo-Fascists deny the very existence of our Holy Temple! L'havdil no vsisitor to Rome denies the FORMER glory of the Colliseum etc. even though it is no obviously in ruins! The ruins ARE their eidah/matziva to what WAS a glorious Roman structure. [I mean to say "glorious in THEIR terms not ours!"]. Same for the Mikdash. The ruins were a surviving testimony to what WAS glorious to us and to HKBH The removal of this souvenir took awy even that last bit of nostalgic solace
<br><br>-- <br>Kol Tuv- Best Regards,<br>Rabbi Richard Wolpoe
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