Since I began studying the history of the Christian faith, and the relation between Judaism and Christianity, I have been struck by the idea of the Second Temple's destruction. I simply can't imagine how traumatic this experience must have been for the Jewish people.
The failure of the revolt, the horrific loss of life, the destruction of the City of G-d - these events alone would have been horrendous, but the desecration of the Temple must have had a tremendous psychological impact on the survivors.
Granted, it had happened once before, but I don't think that the knowledge of the First Temple's fate would have significantly reduced the emotional pain of such a catastrophic loss. The fact that the holy relics had been taken away as spoils of war, by pagans no less, must have been devastating.
I have been led to believe that the Talmud was assembled in part as a response to the destruction of the Temple, and the experience eventually led to the understanding that G-d lives in the Torah. But this happened later, after people had a chance to absorb what had happened.
I am curious as to how people came to terms with the devastating loss of the Temple immediately after it was destroyed. How did the Jewish people deal with this horrible sequence of events in the immediate aftermath of the war? Before enough time had passed for people to accept the defeat and the terrible consequences, how did they handle it?