Each year on Tisha B’Av, we sit low to the ground, dim the lights, and mourn the destruction of the Temples in Jerusalem. The ancient stones are long gone, but the deeper lesson of the day still reverberates: the Second Temple, our sages taught, was destroyed not by external enemies alone, but because of sinat chinam—baseless hatred between Jews.

This powerful teaching is not simply a warning about interpersonal division. It’s a blueprint for spiritual and communal repair. Today, the fractures in our world echo that ancient flaw: divisions between peoples, disregard for the suffering of animals, and estrangement from the Earth that sustains us. Sinat chinam has not vanished. It has simply taken new forms.

Yet in the face of such brokenness, we are called to respond not with blame or despair, but with ahavat chinam—radical, unearned, unconditional love.

A Broader Lens on Baseless Hatred

When we think of sinat chinam, we often imagine interpersonal pettiness: grudges, gossip, small acts of cruelty. But what if the term also invites us to look at the structures that normalize harm—toward other people, animals, and the Earth?

The factory farming system, for example, is built on a deep denial of compassion. Sentient beings are treated as commodities—confined, mutilated, and slaughtered not out of necessity but for convenience and habit. This isn’t a sin rooted in anger; it is a form of invisible, systemic sinat chinam—a cruelty that flows from indifference. Similarly, our treatment of the planet—the forests cleared, the rivers poisoned, the climate destabilized—reveals a spiritual disconnection that mirrors the interpersonal rifts our tradition mourns.

When we elevate human life above all others, or prioritize profit over life itself, we replicate the hierarchy and disunity that unraveled Jerusalem from within.

Ethical Veganism as a Rejection of Hierarchy

What if we could transform our current system and reduce suffering with our food choices? In this context, ethical veganism is not simply a dietary choice; it’s a moral and spiritual stance—a refusal to accept the hierarchy that places one life above another based on power, species, or convenience.

To choose plant-based living is to affirm the tzelem Elohim (divine image) reflected in all creation. It is to say: the pain of others—human or nonhuman—matters. Their lives have worth. Their suffering is not invisible.

This, too, is a response to sinat chinam, because any worldview that fosters indifference to the suffering of others seeds the very hatred that leads to destruction.

From Estrangement to Connection

Our sages taught that the Temple was a microcosm of the entire world, a space where heaven and earth touched. Its destruction symbolized a collapse in sacred connection. Today, we live in an era of profound estrangement—from one another, from animals, from the land, from our capacity for compassion.

And yet, Tisha B’Av is not only a day of mourning, it is also a day of awakening. It invites us to rebuild, beginning not with bricks and mortar, but with empathy. When we replace sinat chinam with ahavat chinam, we plant the seeds of a rebuilt world. And love—especially for the voiceless and unseen—is the foundation of that new world.

Ahavat Chinam in Practice

What does ahavat chinam look like today?

•  – Speaking gently when you could criticize
•  – Sharing food with someone you disagree with
•  – Choosing a meal that does not require the suffering of animals
•  – Building a world where no life is considered expendable

It is easy to love those who love us back. But ahavat chinam is the love that asks nothing in return. It is love that extends itself to the vulnerable, the misunderstood, the inconvenient. It is love that dares to say: I see your suffering, and I will not turn away.

A Path Toward Redemption

According to tradition, the Mashiach will be born on Tisha B’Av. The day of greatest destruction contains the potential for ultimate redemption. But that redemption doesn’t float in on clouds; it is built, action by action, choice by choice.

If sinat chinam destroyed the Temple, ahavat chinam must be what rebuilds it.

This Tisha B’Av, may we not only mourn what was lost, but commit to what can be restored. May we stretch our compassion until it encompasses every being. May we turn from destruction to renewal, from hatred to love, from indifference to care.

And may we merit to see a world rebuilt—one meal, one mitzvah, one act of ahavat chinam at a time.