Rashi quotes the Sifrei (61), which offers a homiletic rendering of this pasuk: “Would it enter one’s mind that the Jews (Israel) would shatter their Altars?” What, then, does the Torah mean when it writes, “You shall not do this to Hashem, your G-d?” We would never do to our holy places what we are being commanded to do to the shrines of the idol worshipers. “Rabbi Yishmael taught that Israel (Jews) should [be careful] not to do [deeds] like their deeds (i.e., commit sins that will cause them to be exiled) and [thus] your sins would cause the Bais HaMikdash of your fathers to be destroyed.” What are these sins? Why would anyone sin in the bais ha’medrash? This admonition is not directed to the lowest of the low, but to the “crème de crème,” the individuals who attend the bais ha’medrash.
Horav Matis Blum, Shlita, cites the Sefer Chassidim which teaches us a frightening lesson. Rabbeinu Yehudah HaChassid writes, “If you see the house that once belonged to a tzaddik, righteous person, or a shul, which is now destroyed or inhabited by wicked people, you should know that (it is because) Jewish people had previously lived there in a disgraceful manner.” In his commentary to Sefer Chassidim, the Mekor Chesed cites Chazal in the Talmud Megillah 28b, who state that, “A shul in which mundane calculations (business) is conducted, in the end, will one day serve as a morgue for a meis mitzvah, corpse who has no family to bury him.” “Likewise, a shul or bais ha’medrash in which ka’lus rosh, levity, is commonplace, in the end, will fall into the hands of gentiles.” “Indeed, the ‘uncircumcised ones’ (gentiles) never practiced degradation and disgrace in the House of G-d, unless they were first preceded by Jews who did the same. Last, the gentiles do nothing evil to the Jewish people unless the Jews have acted in such a manner among themselves.”
We derive a powerful lesson from the Pietist’s homily. Whatever befalls us is a direct consequence of our own doing. When we mistreat a fellow Jew; when our shuls become nothing more than an extension of Starbucks; when our davening is, at best, an endeavor which we must endure; when the shul politics are as underhanded and evil as in the secular political arena, then we are guilty of destroying Hashem’s Altar. We set the stage for the gentile demolition crew to enter our Sanctuary to do what they want with it. After all, we have already denuded it of its sanctity. The goyim will just finish the job.
