What Brings About Destruction?

By RABBI DAVID ROSENN

Rav Amram said: Jerusalem was not destroyed until the [residents] ceased to admonish one another, as it says: Her leaders were like stags... (Lamentations 1:6). [How were they like stags?] Just like stags walk with the head of one right next to the tail of another, so did the Jews of that generation hide their heads in the ground and did not admonish one another.

(Lamentations Rabbah - Buber edition) 1:20 - 46b-47a)

Av is the Hebrew month of national despair, containing within it the day on which tradition marks the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem. This teaching claims that the Temple was destroyed because those who worshipped there had lost the moral courage to rebuke one another for wrongdoings.

What is the connection between a place of worship and moral courage? Why do you think Rav Amram suggests that failure to admonish one another was the last straw leading to the destruction of the Temple? Does our society fulfill the responsibility to speak out against wrongdoing?