It is no accident that July 4, 1776 fell on the 17th of Tamuz that year. It shows that the unity of purpose and the unity of the people in instituting a workable government was what saved the Americans, while the division and destruction of Jewish society caused the destruction of the 1st & 2nd Temples.
Now for a quick Devar Torah.
One thing I couldn’t help noticing is an interesting coincidence. July 4, 1776, the day the Declaration of Independence was adopted, fell on the 17th of Tammuz that year—the very day that begins the Three Weeks leading to Tisha B’Av.
The juxtaposition is striking.
Why were the Temples destroyed? The First Temple fell because of grave sins such as idolatry, immorality, and bloodshed. The Second Temple, our sages teach, was destroyed because of sinat chinam—baseless hatred.
In both cases, the underlying issue was the same: society had broken down. The moral fabric of the nation had unraveled.
That is really what we mourn on Tisha B’Av. The Babylonians and the Romans were only the instruments. The prophets and the rabbis make it clear that God allowed those empires to succeed because Jewish society had become spiritually and morally unhealthy. Significantly, the criticism is not primarily about ritual observance. The people were still bringing sacrifices and observing the Temple service. The problem was how they treated one another.
Now compare that with the founding of the United States.
The Declaration of Independence asserted the right of a people to govern themselves, but the Founders understood that freedom alone was not enough. They spent years creating the Constitution, establishing institutions that could preserve justice, order, and liberty. Before independence was complete, they were already thinking about how to sustain a functioning society.
Contrast that with July 14, 1789—the storming of the Bastille and the beginning of the French Revolution. The old regime was overthrown, but there was no agreed-upon plan for what would replace it. The result was chaos, the Reign of Terror, and eventually the dictatorship of Napoleon.
History teaches an important lesson: it is not enough to tear something down. A society must know what it is building in its place.
The same tragedy occurred during the destruction of the Second Temple. While the Romans surrounded Jerusalem, the Jewish factions inside the city fought one another in a bitter civil war. According to our sages, the Romans could simply wait while the Jews weakened themselves from within.
Internal division accomplished what the enemy could not.
That is why the Three Weeks remain so relevant today. Every society will have disagreements. The question is whether those disagreements are handled with respect, responsibility, and a commitment to the common good—or whether they descend into hatred and destruction.
President John Adams expressed a remarkably similar idea in a 1798 letter to the Massachusetts Militia:
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
The lesson of the Three Weeks is timeless. A free society depends on moral people who care about one another. We will disagree, and sometimes disagree passionately, but we must learn to disagree without destroying each other.
When society holds together, it can overcome enormous challenges.
When society falls apart from within, history shows that nothing good follows.
Something to think about.
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