The summer the Temple burned, I was just thirteen.
You won’t find my name in any scroll. I wasn’t important—just the son of a weaver in Yerushalayim, the holy city. But I was there when the walls crumbled and the smoke covered the sky like a shroud.
My father always said the Beit HaMikdash—the Holy Temple—would stand forever. “This is God’s house,” he’d remind me, “and God never abandons His people.” I believed him. How could the Lord allow His own house to fall?
That year, everything we believed in started to crack, like the stones in the walls after King Nevuchadnetzar’s army broke through.
King Nevuchadnetzar, the king of Bavel—Babylon—had surrounded our city for months. We were starving. People whispered that Tzidkiyahu (Zedekiah), the king of Yehudah (Judah), had rebelled when he should have obeyed. Some said we should trust armies, others said we should trust only Hashem—God.
But I hadn’t learned how to trust when everything seemed to be falling apart.
The night they breached the wall, I was in the upper room with my little sisters. My mother had gone to fetch water—though it was dangerous, we had none left. I remember first hearing the rumble of voices, then seeing torchlight glow like angry stars on the rooftops. Then the screams.
My father kicked open the door. “Out! Now!” he shouted.
We ran. Through alleys where soot already rained from the outer courtyards of the Temple. Soldiers stomped past us, their armor clinking like monsters in the dark. I looked toward the Beit HaMikdash. Flames were leaping from the roof. Flames. On the house of Hashem.
It felt like the end of the world.
We found refuge outside the city, crowded in tents with other survivors. Some wept, some hummed old songs they barely remembered. I didn’t know which to do.
That night, lying beside my sisters under ripped cloth, I asked my father what had happened.
He stared at the smoky horizon. “We lost the Temple,” he said. “But not the Covenant.”
I didn’t understand. “How can you be sure?” I asked. “Didn't Hashem abandon us?”
He turned to me—his eyes fierce, not broken. “No. We broke first. We forgot the mitzvot—the commandments. We forgot kindness. We made the Temple a place of pride, not prayer. But Hashem never forgets His brit—His promise to Avraham and his children.”
His words didn’t erase the fear inside me, but they gave me something stronger than fear. Hope.
Later, I heard the elders say Yirmiyahu (Jeremiah)—the prophet—had warned our kings this would happen. That we would go into exile, not because God hated us, but because we stopped listening.
Years passed. We were taken to Bavel. I learned to weave like my father. I lit Shabbat candles beside riverbanks and sang psalms with strangers who became family. We had no Temple, but we still had Torah. We still had God.
The flames took the Temple, but not the Covenant.
I was there. I saw it fall.
And still—I believe.
The summer the Temple burned, I was just thirteen.
You won’t find my name in any scroll. I wasn’t important—just the son of a weaver in Yerushalayim, the holy city. But I was there when the walls crumbled and the smoke covered the sky like a shroud.
My father always said the Beit HaMikdash—the Holy Temple—would stand forever. “This is God’s house,” he’d remind me, “and God never abandons His people.” I believed him. How could the Lord allow His own house to fall?
That year, everything we believed in started to crack, like the stones in the walls after King Nevuchadnetzar’s army broke through.
King Nevuchadnetzar, the king of Bavel—Babylon—had surrounded our city for months. We were starving. People whispered that Tzidkiyahu (Zedekiah), the king of Yehudah (Judah), had rebelled when he should have obeyed. Some said we should trust armies, others said we should trust only Hashem—God.
But I hadn’t learned how to trust when everything seemed to be falling apart.
The night they breached the wall, I was in the upper room with my little sisters. My mother had gone to fetch water—though it was dangerous, we had none left. I remember first hearing the rumble of voices, then seeing torchlight glow like angry stars on the rooftops. Then the screams.
My father kicked open the door. “Out! Now!” he shouted.
We ran. Through alleys where soot already rained from the outer courtyards of the Temple. Soldiers stomped past us, their armor clinking like monsters in the dark. I looked toward the Beit HaMikdash. Flames were leaping from the roof. Flames. On the house of Hashem.
It felt like the end of the world.
We found refuge outside the city, crowded in tents with other survivors. Some wept, some hummed old songs they barely remembered. I didn’t know which to do.
That night, lying beside my sisters under ripped cloth, I asked my father what had happened.
He stared at the smoky horizon. “We lost the Temple,” he said. “But not the Covenant.”
I didn’t understand. “How can you be sure?” I asked. “Didn't Hashem abandon us?”
He turned to me—his eyes fierce, not broken. “No. We broke first. We forgot the mitzvot—the commandments. We forgot kindness. We made the Temple a place of pride, not prayer. But Hashem never forgets His brit—His promise to Avraham and his children.”
His words didn’t erase the fear inside me, but they gave me something stronger than fear. Hope.
Later, I heard the elders say Yirmiyahu (Jeremiah)—the prophet—had warned our kings this would happen. That we would go into exile, not because God hated us, but because we stopped listening.
Years passed. We were taken to Bavel. I learned to weave like my father. I lit Shabbat candles beside riverbanks and sang psalms with strangers who became family. We had no Temple, but we still had Torah. We still had God.
The flames took the Temple, but not the Covenant.
I was there. I saw it fall.
And still—I believe.
