The Redhead of Auschwitz. A True Story

by Nechama Birnbaum

Do you know why our Temple was destroyed? We destroyed it by destroying ourselves. We are all one, but we didn’t know that, and we ripped each other apart and by doing so we ripped ourselves apart. We may seem different, but I am you and you are me and we are all part of each other. We are all part of God, living within Him. We have to know that!” “What does Tisha B’Av have to do with that?” “All destruction comes from thinking about others as different than you. To be cruel to someone, you cannot think of them as yourself. So, we make them a stranger in our eyes. As if we don’t all have the same blood in our veins, as if we don’t breathe the same air. No one can be cruel unless they really view someone as different but that rips the world apart. We cannot be different. We are all part of the same God. We are never alone.” “And that is why the temple was destroyed?” “On Tisha B’Av, not only was the Temple destroyed. On Tisha B’Av it is the day that all evil came into this world. And yes, in the time of the Temple, we were destroying ourselves from the inside.