Study Gittin folio 56A with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
The host said to him: No, you must leave. Bar Kamtza said to him: I will give you money for half of the feast; just do not send me away. The host said to him: No, you must leave. Bar Kamtza then said to him: I will give you money for the entire feast; just let me stay. The host said to him: No,
After having been cast out from the feast, bar Kamtza said to himself: Since the rabbis 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. I will therefore go and inform [eikhul kurtza] agains
The emperor went and sent with him a choice 3-year-old calf. While bar Kamtza was coming with the calf to the Temple, he made a blemish on the calf’s upper lip. And some say he made the blemish on its eyelids, a place where according to us, i.e., halakha, it is a blemish, but according to them, no
The blemish notwithstanding, the rabbis thought to sacrifice the animal as an offering due to the imperative to maintain peace with the government. R' Zekharya ben Avkolas said to them: If the priests do that, people will say that blemished animals may be sacrificed as offerings on the altar. The
R' Yoḥanan says: The excessive humility of R' Zekharya ben Avkolas destroyed our Temple, burned our Sanctuary, and exiled us from our land.