When Hadrian Blasphemed in the Holy of Holies and David's Plea

Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Pekudei 3:1

Curated by Arthur·Translated by Maggid (Beta)·

Another interpretation of (Exodus 38:21) "These are the records of the Tabernacle." At the time when Hadrian entered the House of the Holy of Holies, he exalted himself there and reviled before the Holy One, blessed be He. Rabbi Hiyya bar Abba said: David said before the Holy One, blessed be He, "Master of the Universe, may it thus arise before You: if they had been able to make ladders and ascend upon them on high, they would have ascended," as it is said, "It is known as one who brings axes upward into a thicket of trees" (Psalms 74:5). "But since they are not able, they leave You and turn back against us," as it is said, "O God, nations have entered into Your inheritance" (Psalms 79:1).

Themes

Temple DestructionDivine Justice

Biblical References

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4 EzraEzra Demands to Know Why God Let Babylon Destroy IsraelThirty years after Babylon burned Jerusalem to the ground, a man named Ezra lay on his bed in the city of his captors and could not sleep. His thoughts boiled. Pesikta de-Rav KahanaThe Blood of Zechariah That Would Not RestIsaiah's cry, "How has the faithful city become a harlot" (Isaiah 1:21), opens onto a memory of Jerusalem at its height. The sages recall four hundred and eightApocalypse of AbrahamAbraham Watches the Temple Burn in a VisionThe picture in the vision swayed. From its left side, a heathen people emerged. They fell upon those on the right side, the people of Abraham's seed, and pillag2 BaruchGod Warns Baruch That Jerusalem Will Be DestroyedThe city was already dead. It just hadn't fallen yet. In the twenty-fifth year of King Jeconiah's reign over Judah, the word of God came to Baruch son of Neriah2 BaruchAngels Hide the Temple Vessels Before the Chaldeans EnterThe Chaldean army surrounded Jerusalem. But the real destruction, the kind that shatters heaven, had already begun inside the walls. On the evening before the s2 BaruchBaruch Mourns Over the Ruins of JerusalemTwo men stood in the ashes of the world. Baruch and Jeremiah, the scribe and the prophet, whose hearts had been found pure from sin, who had not been captured w