Bar Kamtza deserved it

The guy who threw Bar Kamtza out of his party and ostensibly set off the chain of events that led to the destruction of the Second Temple and our current ongoing galus gets a bad rap.

In fact, the educational taking point most often promulgated—that this incident of public shaming was the paradigm of the sinat chinam [baseless hatred] that was the primary sin for which the Churban was the punishment—is, to my mind, overemphasized, particularly light of the subsequent events in the Churban narrative in TB Gittin 55-58. 

For one thing, Bar Kamtza clearly was a Bad Jew (never mind not a nice guy).  One could surmise that he knew he was going where he was not wanted, and still felt entitled to be there, based on the fact that he was likely rich (hence his offer to pay for everyone at the party—why couldn’t he just leave quietly?  In fact, maybe one should praise the host for sticking to his principles and not taking Bar Kamtza’s bribe); furthermore, he was apparently connected (how else would he have so quickly obtained an audience with a Roman procurator and convinced him that the Jews were rebelling?), and—like some of today’s progressive asajews—he knew enough minimal Jewish law and ethics to use against his own people.

One possible other Biblical parallel gives a hint to Bar Kamtza’s character: while the Talmud hints that G-d destroyed his Temple on account of Bar Kamtza’s humiliation, elsewhere the Talmud notes that Bilaam’s talking donkey was slain by the angel after she had repeatedly humiliated Bilaam in front of Balak’s advisers.  One can draw a parallel between Bilaam and Bar Kamtza especially since the destruction wrought by Bar Kamtza would likely have made Bilaam proud (and might further explain why Bilaam’s spirit, enduring the eternal torment of boiling in a pot of semen, makes a cameo appearance in TB Gittin’s Churban narrative).

In fact—as further evidence of of the tenuousness of the “embarrassed!!!” talking point—the Talmud rather cryptically states “Jerusalem was destroyed on account of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza”, but later in the same narrative it states rather unequivocally “Rabbi Yoḥanan says: the excessive humility of Rabbi Zekharya ben Avkolas destroyed our Temple, burned our Sanctuary, and exiled us from our land.”  Does anyone in chinuch teach that humility was the cause of the Churban?   Why isn’t there as much focus on the humility (vs humiliation) as having destroyed the Temple as the embarrassment resulting from a personal grudge?  

There’s another interesting hint in the narrative: “Bar Kamtza said to himself: Since the Sages were sitting there and did not protest the actions of the host, although they saw how he humiliated me, learn from it that they were content with what he did..”  Some commentators opine that the excessively humble Rabbi Zekharya ben Avkolas was one of said Sages: if in theory the excessive humility was justified [a minority defend him, even saying that Rabbi Yochanan’s ostensible condemnation was actually praise], why isn’t there an equal defense of the humiliation of Bar Kamtza?