Something's missing. Rome is synonymous with the Vatican, Mecca with the Kaaba, and Jerusalem's known for its Western Wall. But why should we stand before the wall, letting it obstruct our vision, when we could be praying in a Temple? Why should Jews continue to bow before an illegitimate Gentile decree that tells them where to pray? (Isaiah 10:1).
The Turks designated the Wall as an alternative "holy" site since Muslims had stolen the Temple Mount! If we rightly refused to accept Uganda as a Jewish "homeland," why should Jews settle for anything less than a Temple for worship?
That basically, is the gist of the message our demonstrations seek to send. The Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement doesn't only protest the ongoing Muslim occupation of our Temple Mount, but proclaims that this unnatural set of circumstances will come to an end. We're confident that Muslim rule on the Temple Mount will soon be history, just as surely as the Berlin Wall fell and Eastern Europe came out from under the Russian heel!
The restoration of Jews from all over the world to their ancient homeland is only the first step towards the redemption of our land and lives. Israel, for the most part, is an empty, secular state. It's about as Jewish as America is Christian! The fact that the Temple Mount is still without a Temple stands as an indictment against Israel! God will hold Israel's political and religious leaders responsible!
Jerusalem's known as the heart of Israel, the crown of the "Jewish" State. The Temple Mount is the crown jewel. This historic Jewish treasure is a "diamond in the rough." It awaits our craftsmen's tender loving care to bring it to the brilliant perfection it deserves (Psalms 50:2).
We protest that this responsibility hasn't been fulfilled yet, but we proclaim that these things could change overnight. The world was caught off guard by the rapid succession of events that shook Europe and the former USSR. The "experts" were exposed as ignorant for not expecting it.
Nobody needs to be surprised when inevitable events rock Jerusalem, and they feel its aftershocks worldwide. They've been foretold. What's presently missing in Israel will be found when we're filled with our historic mission and accomplish our intended purpose: the restoration of the sacrifices and the construction of the Third Temple!
Shamefully, today's leaders reflect a ghetto-mentality and expose the sorry state of Israel and Jewish affairs! They're starved for this world's affection, afraid to be different, and too willing to sacrifice our unique identity! God condemns those kapos of compromise who would rather sell-out than take an unpopular stand!
Even though it's not politically correct, and goes against our democratic grain, and could result in a backlash - Hanukkah represents those who are willing, if and when necessary, to risk the wrath of others to insure the triumph of good over evil, of light over darkness, and right over wrong.
In this particular case, the light of what's good and right was the brilliant example of those faithful few Jews who held their head high (sick and tired of being beaten down) and publicly chose to reject alien ideas and destroy imposed idols.
The Maccabees weren't overly concerned with a suicidal fear of world opinion, but mightily expressed their faith in God. They didn't flirt with "foreign affairs," or engage in self-destructive interfaith orgies. They kept the faith and cleansed the Temple Mount of its spiritual filth.
World Jewry continues to celebrate Hanukkah to this day, but in the spirit of hypocrisy! We're more like the cowering Hellenists who assimilated, rather than the courageous Maccabees who fought to remain true to themselves!
Thank Heavens, there are a growing number in Israel who want to see Jerusalem restored as our spiritual center, and our lives rededicated to biblical ideals, not humanist ideas.
Pray for Jerusalem's peace and the rekindling of Israel's light!
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
The Mountain of the LORD
Micah 4:1-2
Micah 4
1 In the last days
the mountain of the LORD's Temple will be established
as chief among the mountains;
it will be raised above the hills,
and peoples will stream to it.
2 Many nations will come and say,
"Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD (not Esau),
to the house of the God of Jacob (not Ishmael).
He will teach us his ways,
so that we may walk in his paths."
The law will go out from Zion (not Rome),
the word of the LORD from Jerusalem (not Mecca).
Micah 4
1 In the last days
the mountain of the LORD's Temple will be established
as chief among the mountains;
it will be raised above the hills,
and peoples will stream to it.
2 Many nations will come and say,
"Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD (not Esau),
to the house of the God of Jacob (not Ishmael).
He will teach us his ways,
so that we may walk in his paths."
The law will go out from Zion (not Rome),
the word of the LORD from Jerusalem (not Mecca).
The Third Temple
The Third Temple will soon be a reality! Just as some failed to see how there could ever be a Jewish homeland again, others knew it was to be and now indeed it is: Israel!
Sunday, November 27, 2005
Special Announcement from the Temple Institute
Cheshvan 25, 5766/November 27, 2005
To all friends of the Temple Institute, Shalom!
We are pleased to inform you that the Temple Institute's weekly internet radio program, "Temple Talk," presented by Rabbi Chaim Richman and Yitzchak Reuven and hosted by Arutz7/IsraelNationalRadio.com, is changing to a new time and format. Beginning tomorrow, Monday November 28th, the show will now be aired every Monday, live at 5:00 PM Israel time. The show will now be presented in a new, two hour format instead of the previous one hour. Each week's installment of Temple Talk can also be downloaded after broadcast, and an archive of all previous broadcasts is also available at the Institute's website.
The new and expanded format will give us the opportunity to broaden our repertoire of Temple studies, as well as to explore deeper insights into the weekly Torah readings, Hebrew months and dates of significance, and current events in the light of timeless Torah principles and prophecies.
Please join us!
With blessings from Jerusalem,
THE TEMPLE INSTITUTE
PO Box 31876
Jerusalem, Israel 97500
www.templeinstitute.org
To all friends of the Temple Institute, Shalom!
We are pleased to inform you that the Temple Institute's weekly internet radio program, "Temple Talk," presented by Rabbi Chaim Richman and Yitzchak Reuven and hosted by Arutz7/IsraelNationalRadio.com, is changing to a new time and format. Beginning tomorrow, Monday November 28th, the show will now be aired every Monday, live at 5:00 PM Israel time. The show will now be presented in a new, two hour format instead of the previous one hour. Each week's installment of Temple Talk can also be downloaded after broadcast, and an archive of all previous broadcasts is also available at the Institute's website.
The new and expanded format will give us the opportunity to broaden our repertoire of Temple studies, as well as to explore deeper insights into the weekly Torah readings, Hebrew months and dates of significance, and current events in the light of timeless Torah principles and prophecies.
Please join us!
With blessings from Jerusalem,
THE TEMPLE INSTITUTE
PO Box 31876
Jerusalem, Israel 97500
www.templeinstitute.org
Saturday, November 26, 2005
EU Wants Israel to Divide Jerusalem
EU Wants Israel to Divide Jerusalem
15:51 Nov 27, '05 / 25 Cheshvan 5766
By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
The EU has accused Israel of a de facto annexation of eastern Jerusalem. An EU conference in Barcelona is discussing the issue, with the PA calling for dividing Israel's capital.
******************************
Israel will fall for Europe's BIG LIE of "peace and security" and permit them to station "peacekeeping" troops around Jerusalem. Such EU wolves in sheep's clothing will brutally betray both Arabs and Jews, expel Jews from the Jewish Quarter and seize the Temple Mount for their pagan pope and Europe's imminent wannabe divine emperor: believe it or not!
Israel will not be able to say that they weren't warned. The EU jackboot will stomp Israel and occupy Jerusalem!
15:51 Nov 27, '05 / 25 Cheshvan 5766
By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
The EU has accused Israel of a de facto annexation of eastern Jerusalem. An EU conference in Barcelona is discussing the issue, with the PA calling for dividing Israel's capital.
******************************
Israel will fall for Europe's BIG LIE of "peace and security" and permit them to station "peacekeeping" troops around Jerusalem. Such EU wolves in sheep's clothing will brutally betray both Arabs and Jews, expel Jews from the Jewish Quarter and seize the Temple Mount for their pagan pope and Europe's imminent wannabe divine emperor: believe it or not!
Israel will not be able to say that they weren't warned. The EU jackboot will stomp Israel and occupy Jerusalem!
Sunday, November 20, 2005
The Temple Mount Faithful's Sukkot demonstration in Jerusalem, Israel
The Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement Made a Pilgrimage to the Temple Mount During the Festival of Succoth Together With Friends From All Over the World.
The Pilgrims Also Marched to the City of David to Draw the Holy Water from The Pool of Siloam Exactly as was Done in Temple Times.
On the 16th Tishrei 5766 (19th October 2005), during the Feast of Succoth, a Pilgrimage feast to the holy mountain of G–d in Jerusalem, at a very special time in the history of Israel, the Temple Mount Faithful Movement conducted an exciting pilgrimage to the Temple Mount and then marched to the Pool of Siloam to fulfil another exciting tradition from Temple times.
Friends and members of the Faithful Movement from all the world marched together with the Faithful and other Israeli pilgrims were. Their dream was to march to the Temple Mount together with the Faithful Movement in a feast when G–d called on them to make a pilgrimage to His holy hill. The Word of G–d in Zechariah became a reality - “And it shall come to pass, that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Booths.” (Zechariah 14:16) It was also an opening for the fulfilment of the prophetic Word of G–d through Isaiah - “Also the sons of the stranger, who join themselves to the Lord, to serve him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, every one who keeps the sabbath and does not profane it, and all who hold fast to my covenant; Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” (Isaiah 56:6,7)
These events were an important part of the campaign of the Movement relating to its mission to build the Third Temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in our lifetime on the same location of the First and Second Temples. It was another important step in the activities of the Faithful Movement to accomplish G–d’s end-time mission to rebuild His holy house in the end-times in which we are now living when G–d has chosen to bring about all His end-time plans in Israel as an opening for the godly end-time revolution all over the world. When we stood on the holy place we felt that the exciting end-time prophecy of Isaiah began to become a reality in our lifetime.
“The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow to it. And many people shall go and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths; for from Zion shall go forth Torah, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among the nations, and shall decide for many people; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, nor shall they learn war any more. O house of Jacob, come, and let us walk in the light of the Lord.” (Isaiah 2:1-5)
In the morning the Faithful Movement and its friends marched to the Temple Mount accompanied by a large model of the Temple, reconstructed vessels for the Third Temple, the 2 silver trumpets, a shofar and the flags of the Temple and Israel. It was also the morning of the Priestly Blessing when many thousands of Israelis came to be blessed by the priests as in Temple times.
It was an exciting moment when the prayers of the pilgrims to the Temple Mount were heard all over the holy hill of G–d especially the traditional Hallel Psalms which are read on the 3 pilgrimage festivals.
“Open to me the gates of righteousness; I will go into them, and I will praise the Lord; This is the gate of the Lord, into which the righteous shall enter. I will give you thanks; for you have answered me, and you have become my salvation. The stone which the builders rejected has become the head stone of the corner. This is the Lord's doing; it is marvellous in our eyes. This is the day which the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. Save us, we beseech you, O Lord! O Lord, we beseech you, send us prosperity! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord; we have blessed you from the house of the Lord. God is the Lord, who has shown us light; bind the sacrifice with cords, to the horns of the altar. You are my God, and I will praise you; you are my God, I will exalt you. O give thanks to the Lord; for he is good; for his loving kindness endures for ever.” (Psalm 118:19-29)
In his word to the people of Israel and mainly to the leadership, Gershon Salomon called on the Israeli Government to immediately remove the Arab Islamic enemy of the G–d and people of Israel, to remove their pagan shrines, to purify the Temple Mount and to rebuild the Temple exactly as G–d expects of us to do and to open a great and godly time for all mankind. He prayed to the G–d of Israel to encourage the government of Israel to implement full sovereignty on His holy hill and no longer allow the enemies to desecrate His holy place and Name.
“A Psalm of Asaph. O God, nations have come into your inheritance; your holy temple have they defiled; they have laid Jerusalem on heaps. ... Pour out your wrath on the nations that have not known you, and on the kingdoms that have not called upon your name. For they have devoured Jacob, and laid waste his dwelling place. ... And render to our neighbours sevenfold into their bosom their insult, with which they have insulted you, O Lord. So we your people and sheep of your pasture will give you thanks for ever; we will tell your praise to all generations.” (Psalm 79:1,6,7,12,13)
Gershon warned the government and people of Israel that the continuation of the desecration and destruction of the hill of G–d by the Arab Moslems and the fact that the Israeli Government does not stop it and remove them from the Temple Mount and has not started to rebuild the Temple is the reason for all the troubles that Israel is now experiencing. He stated that the destiny of Israel and all the world will be decided on the Temple Mount exactly as Haggai prophesied.
“Thus speaks the Lord of hosts, saying, This people say that the time has not yet come, the time that the Lord's house should be built. Then came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet, saying, ... Thus says the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways. Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, says the Lord. You looked for much, and, behold, it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? says the Lord of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, and everyone of you runs to his own house. Therefore the heaven above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. And I called for a drought upon the land, and upon the mountains, and upon the grain, and upon the new wine, and upon the oil, and upon that which the ground brings forth, and upon men, and upon cattle, and upon all the labour of the hands.” (Haggai 1:2,3,7-11)
Gershon called for the prayers near the Western Wall to stop saying that they express and symbolise exile and destruction when foreign powers which controlled the land of Israel, especially Moslems, did not allow the Jews to go up on the Temple Mount and only allowed them to pray near the Western Wall which they called the Wailing Wall. He called on Israelis to go up and pray their prayers and receive the priestly blessings only on the Temple Mount exactly as G–d is expecting Israel to do and to stop the shameful situation when they are crying and weeping to G–d near the Western Wall outside the Temple Mount to redeem them and the Temple Mount which He already did it in 1967 and called them to return to His holy mountain, to rebuild His Temple and to come there as proud pilgrims and not as tourists as is done in a shameful way today. He stated that the G–d of Israel does not listen to or answer their prayers near the Western Wall but that He will do so when they come to the right place that He gave them - to the Temple Mount and His holy Temple. He stated that only when they do so will the prophetic Word of the G–d of Israel to His people through Ezekiel be fulfilled.
“And say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will take the people of Israel from among the nations, where they have gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land; And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all; and they shall be no more two nations, nor shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all;... And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd; they shall also follow my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them. And they shall dwell in the land that I have given to Jacob my servant, where your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell in it, they and their children, and their grandchildren for ever; and my servant David shall be their prince for ever. And I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore. My tabernacle also shall be with them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And the nations shall know that I, the Lord, sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore.” (Ezekiel 37:21,22,24-28)
After this part of the event, the pilgrims marched to the City of David, past the historical place where King David brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem in his time and the palace of King David that was recently discovered in the excavations which are being undertaken in the City of David. (A special report on this will be sent later.) They came to the original Pool of Siloam that was also recently discovered. Over the past years the ceremony of the holy water (in Hebrew “nisuch hamai’im”) was done by the Faithful Movement at another small pool which was a part of the complex of Hezekiah’s tunnel that brought the water inside the City of David. The original pool from Biblical times that was discovered is much larger and this is the pool where the ceremony of the holy water was performed. It was also in this pool that the pilgrims used to immerse themselves according to Biblical law before they walked up to the Temple. It was an exciting moment to see for the first time in our lives this Biblical pool which was designed so beautifully. We stood in the same place where our forefathers, the kings and prophets, the priests and Levis and millions of Israelites had stood and immersed themselves to be clean when they came to the holy Temple of G–d which stood at the top of the mountain. It was exciting to perform the same ceremony that our forefathers had performed at a great time in the history of Israel and that G–d promised would again happen in the time in which we are now living. The water was drawn from the pool by a priest with the special vessels that were reconstructed to be used for this purpose when the Temple is rebuilt with the same prayers that our forefathers prayed when they performed this ceremony in the time when the Temple existed. The water was taken to the Temple Mount with the prayer and hope that next year it will be poured on the altar of the rebuilt Temple as our forefathers did together with the prayers for a blessed year with rain in Israel and all over the world.
It was an exciting event which will never be forgotten and an important stage in the campaign of the Faithful Movement to rebuild the Temple and to renew the Biblical days in our lifetime. It will be written in the books of history of the campaign and struggle for the temple that will soon be written. The members and friends from outside Israel who were an important part of this event will never forget it. As they stated, it changed their lives and they will share it with their children and grandchildren.
The Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement is preparing itself for the Hanukkah event and the march to the Temple Mount from the tombs of the Maccabees who, in their time, answered the call of G–d and changed the history of Israel and saved the holy mountain of G–d in Jerusalem, the capital and people and land of Israel from destruction and assimilation in pagan Hellenism. The Temple Mount Faithful Movement continues the godly mission of the Maccabees and King David.
Everyone in the world is called on to stand with the Faithful Movement, to be a part of its holy cause and to help it to bring about this vision in the end-times in which we are now living exactly as G–d is expecting of us to do. Let us not miss this greatest privilege of our lives.
The 2 Cornerstones for the Third Temple were Carried by the Temple Mount Faithful Movement Along the Walls and Downtown Streets of Jerusalem During Succoth
In the early morning of the Succoth pilgrimage, The Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement carried the 2 cornerstones for the Third Temple (each 6½ tonnes) along the walls and through the streets of downtown Jerusalem.
The original goal of the Faithful Movement was to carry them to the Temple Mount and lay them on the same location of the First and Second Temple and to start the process of the rebuilding of the Temple. We could not do so because of the fear of the Israeli Government of the Arab reaction. According to the resolution of the Supreme Court the authorities were ordered to allow us to drive with the cornerstones at least along the walls of Jerusalem and in the main streets of the city. It was not the first time that the cornerstones were taken to the southern gates of the Temple Mount and through the streets of Jerusalem and it will not be the last time. We shall not stop carrying them until the gates of the Temple Mount are opened for them and they will be layed on the right place and the process of the rebuilding of the Temple will start. We know that this godly event will become a reality in our lifetime and that the prophecy from Psalms - “The stone which the builders rejected has become the head stone of the corner. This is the Lord's doing; it is marvellous in our eyes. This is the day which the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalms 118:22-24) will be fulfilled and this fulfilment will be in the times in which we are now living. We know that it will be fulfilled. It is our task to act, to work and to fight for it and G–d will open the door for the cornerstones and the other stones for His Third Temple.
This event had a special significance and it brought to the hearts and attention of Israelis and people all over the world that this event of the rebuilding of the Temple is a major part of the end-times in which we are now living. It was an exciting event and after almost 2000 years cornerstones were again seen on the streets of Jerusalem so close to the Temple Mount and so close to the time when they will be laid on the holy mountain and the rebuilding of the Temple will be started. These 2 large and beautiful cornerstones were welcomed by the city of Jerusalem and the Jerusalemites with great excitement and clapping of hands. Historians will soon record this event as an important and major event done by the Faithful Movement as a major stage on the way to the rebuilding of the Temple. During the upcoming Hanukkah event the cornerstones will again be carried and we shall do everything and pray that this time they will be laid on the Temple Mount and start the rebuilding of the Temple. Everyone is called on to be a part of this event especially those who are in Jerusalem at that time.
In G–d we trust
Temple Mount Faithful
4 Yochanan Horkanos
P.O. Box 18325
91182 Jerusalem
ISRAEL
TEL: +972(2)625-1112
TEL/FAX: +972(2)625-1113
Web Site: www.templemountfaithful.org
The Pilgrims Also Marched to the City of David to Draw the Holy Water from The Pool of Siloam Exactly as was Done in Temple Times.
On the 16th Tishrei 5766 (19th October 2005), during the Feast of Succoth, a Pilgrimage feast to the holy mountain of G–d in Jerusalem, at a very special time in the history of Israel, the Temple Mount Faithful Movement conducted an exciting pilgrimage to the Temple Mount and then marched to the Pool of Siloam to fulfil another exciting tradition from Temple times.
Friends and members of the Faithful Movement from all the world marched together with the Faithful and other Israeli pilgrims were. Their dream was to march to the Temple Mount together with the Faithful Movement in a feast when G–d called on them to make a pilgrimage to His holy hill. The Word of G–d in Zechariah became a reality - “And it shall come to pass, that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Booths.” (Zechariah 14:16) It was also an opening for the fulfilment of the prophetic Word of G–d through Isaiah - “Also the sons of the stranger, who join themselves to the Lord, to serve him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, every one who keeps the sabbath and does not profane it, and all who hold fast to my covenant; Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” (Isaiah 56:6,7)
These events were an important part of the campaign of the Movement relating to its mission to build the Third Temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in our lifetime on the same location of the First and Second Temples. It was another important step in the activities of the Faithful Movement to accomplish G–d’s end-time mission to rebuild His holy house in the end-times in which we are now living when G–d has chosen to bring about all His end-time plans in Israel as an opening for the godly end-time revolution all over the world. When we stood on the holy place we felt that the exciting end-time prophecy of Isaiah began to become a reality in our lifetime.
“The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow to it. And many people shall go and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths; for from Zion shall go forth Torah, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among the nations, and shall decide for many people; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, nor shall they learn war any more. O house of Jacob, come, and let us walk in the light of the Lord.” (Isaiah 2:1-5)
In the morning the Faithful Movement and its friends marched to the Temple Mount accompanied by a large model of the Temple, reconstructed vessels for the Third Temple, the 2 silver trumpets, a shofar and the flags of the Temple and Israel. It was also the morning of the Priestly Blessing when many thousands of Israelis came to be blessed by the priests as in Temple times.
It was an exciting moment when the prayers of the pilgrims to the Temple Mount were heard all over the holy hill of G–d especially the traditional Hallel Psalms which are read on the 3 pilgrimage festivals.
“Open to me the gates of righteousness; I will go into them, and I will praise the Lord; This is the gate of the Lord, into which the righteous shall enter. I will give you thanks; for you have answered me, and you have become my salvation. The stone which the builders rejected has become the head stone of the corner. This is the Lord's doing; it is marvellous in our eyes. This is the day which the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. Save us, we beseech you, O Lord! O Lord, we beseech you, send us prosperity! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord; we have blessed you from the house of the Lord. God is the Lord, who has shown us light; bind the sacrifice with cords, to the horns of the altar. You are my God, and I will praise you; you are my God, I will exalt you. O give thanks to the Lord; for he is good; for his loving kindness endures for ever.” (Psalm 118:19-29)
In his word to the people of Israel and mainly to the leadership, Gershon Salomon called on the Israeli Government to immediately remove the Arab Islamic enemy of the G–d and people of Israel, to remove their pagan shrines, to purify the Temple Mount and to rebuild the Temple exactly as G–d expects of us to do and to open a great and godly time for all mankind. He prayed to the G–d of Israel to encourage the government of Israel to implement full sovereignty on His holy hill and no longer allow the enemies to desecrate His holy place and Name.
“A Psalm of Asaph. O God, nations have come into your inheritance; your holy temple have they defiled; they have laid Jerusalem on heaps. ... Pour out your wrath on the nations that have not known you, and on the kingdoms that have not called upon your name. For they have devoured Jacob, and laid waste his dwelling place. ... And render to our neighbours sevenfold into their bosom their insult, with which they have insulted you, O Lord. So we your people and sheep of your pasture will give you thanks for ever; we will tell your praise to all generations.” (Psalm 79:1,6,7,12,13)
Gershon warned the government and people of Israel that the continuation of the desecration and destruction of the hill of G–d by the Arab Moslems and the fact that the Israeli Government does not stop it and remove them from the Temple Mount and has not started to rebuild the Temple is the reason for all the troubles that Israel is now experiencing. He stated that the destiny of Israel and all the world will be decided on the Temple Mount exactly as Haggai prophesied.
“Thus speaks the Lord of hosts, saying, This people say that the time has not yet come, the time that the Lord's house should be built. Then came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet, saying, ... Thus says the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways. Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, says the Lord. You looked for much, and, behold, it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? says the Lord of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, and everyone of you runs to his own house. Therefore the heaven above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. And I called for a drought upon the land, and upon the mountains, and upon the grain, and upon the new wine, and upon the oil, and upon that which the ground brings forth, and upon men, and upon cattle, and upon all the labour of the hands.” (Haggai 1:2,3,7-11)
Gershon called for the prayers near the Western Wall to stop saying that they express and symbolise exile and destruction when foreign powers which controlled the land of Israel, especially Moslems, did not allow the Jews to go up on the Temple Mount and only allowed them to pray near the Western Wall which they called the Wailing Wall. He called on Israelis to go up and pray their prayers and receive the priestly blessings only on the Temple Mount exactly as G–d is expecting Israel to do and to stop the shameful situation when they are crying and weeping to G–d near the Western Wall outside the Temple Mount to redeem them and the Temple Mount which He already did it in 1967 and called them to return to His holy mountain, to rebuild His Temple and to come there as proud pilgrims and not as tourists as is done in a shameful way today. He stated that the G–d of Israel does not listen to or answer their prayers near the Western Wall but that He will do so when they come to the right place that He gave them - to the Temple Mount and His holy Temple. He stated that only when they do so will the prophetic Word of the G–d of Israel to His people through Ezekiel be fulfilled.
“And say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will take the people of Israel from among the nations, where they have gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land; And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all; and they shall be no more two nations, nor shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all;... And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd; they shall also follow my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them. And they shall dwell in the land that I have given to Jacob my servant, where your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell in it, they and their children, and their grandchildren for ever; and my servant David shall be their prince for ever. And I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore. My tabernacle also shall be with them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And the nations shall know that I, the Lord, sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore.” (Ezekiel 37:21,22,24-28)
After this part of the event, the pilgrims marched to the City of David, past the historical place where King David brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem in his time and the palace of King David that was recently discovered in the excavations which are being undertaken in the City of David. (A special report on this will be sent later.) They came to the original Pool of Siloam that was also recently discovered. Over the past years the ceremony of the holy water (in Hebrew “nisuch hamai’im”) was done by the Faithful Movement at another small pool which was a part of the complex of Hezekiah’s tunnel that brought the water inside the City of David. The original pool from Biblical times that was discovered is much larger and this is the pool where the ceremony of the holy water was performed. It was also in this pool that the pilgrims used to immerse themselves according to Biblical law before they walked up to the Temple. It was an exciting moment to see for the first time in our lives this Biblical pool which was designed so beautifully. We stood in the same place where our forefathers, the kings and prophets, the priests and Levis and millions of Israelites had stood and immersed themselves to be clean when they came to the holy Temple of G–d which stood at the top of the mountain. It was exciting to perform the same ceremony that our forefathers had performed at a great time in the history of Israel and that G–d promised would again happen in the time in which we are now living. The water was drawn from the pool by a priest with the special vessels that were reconstructed to be used for this purpose when the Temple is rebuilt with the same prayers that our forefathers prayed when they performed this ceremony in the time when the Temple existed. The water was taken to the Temple Mount with the prayer and hope that next year it will be poured on the altar of the rebuilt Temple as our forefathers did together with the prayers for a blessed year with rain in Israel and all over the world.
It was an exciting event which will never be forgotten and an important stage in the campaign of the Faithful Movement to rebuild the Temple and to renew the Biblical days in our lifetime. It will be written in the books of history of the campaign and struggle for the temple that will soon be written. The members and friends from outside Israel who were an important part of this event will never forget it. As they stated, it changed their lives and they will share it with their children and grandchildren.
The Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement is preparing itself for the Hanukkah event and the march to the Temple Mount from the tombs of the Maccabees who, in their time, answered the call of G–d and changed the history of Israel and saved the holy mountain of G–d in Jerusalem, the capital and people and land of Israel from destruction and assimilation in pagan Hellenism. The Temple Mount Faithful Movement continues the godly mission of the Maccabees and King David.
Everyone in the world is called on to stand with the Faithful Movement, to be a part of its holy cause and to help it to bring about this vision in the end-times in which we are now living exactly as G–d is expecting of us to do. Let us not miss this greatest privilege of our lives.
The 2 Cornerstones for the Third Temple were Carried by the Temple Mount Faithful Movement Along the Walls and Downtown Streets of Jerusalem During Succoth
In the early morning of the Succoth pilgrimage, The Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement carried the 2 cornerstones for the Third Temple (each 6½ tonnes) along the walls and through the streets of downtown Jerusalem.
The original goal of the Faithful Movement was to carry them to the Temple Mount and lay them on the same location of the First and Second Temple and to start the process of the rebuilding of the Temple. We could not do so because of the fear of the Israeli Government of the Arab reaction. According to the resolution of the Supreme Court the authorities were ordered to allow us to drive with the cornerstones at least along the walls of Jerusalem and in the main streets of the city. It was not the first time that the cornerstones were taken to the southern gates of the Temple Mount and through the streets of Jerusalem and it will not be the last time. We shall not stop carrying them until the gates of the Temple Mount are opened for them and they will be layed on the right place and the process of the rebuilding of the Temple will start. We know that this godly event will become a reality in our lifetime and that the prophecy from Psalms - “The stone which the builders rejected has become the head stone of the corner. This is the Lord's doing; it is marvellous in our eyes. This is the day which the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalms 118:22-24) will be fulfilled and this fulfilment will be in the times in which we are now living. We know that it will be fulfilled. It is our task to act, to work and to fight for it and G–d will open the door for the cornerstones and the other stones for His Third Temple.
This event had a special significance and it brought to the hearts and attention of Israelis and people all over the world that this event of the rebuilding of the Temple is a major part of the end-times in which we are now living. It was an exciting event and after almost 2000 years cornerstones were again seen on the streets of Jerusalem so close to the Temple Mount and so close to the time when they will be laid on the holy mountain and the rebuilding of the Temple will be started. These 2 large and beautiful cornerstones were welcomed by the city of Jerusalem and the Jerusalemites with great excitement and clapping of hands. Historians will soon record this event as an important and major event done by the Faithful Movement as a major stage on the way to the rebuilding of the Temple. During the upcoming Hanukkah event the cornerstones will again be carried and we shall do everything and pray that this time they will be laid on the Temple Mount and start the rebuilding of the Temple. Everyone is called on to be a part of this event especially those who are in Jerusalem at that time.
In G–d we trust
Temple Mount Faithful
4 Yochanan Horkanos
P.O. Box 18325
91182 Jerusalem
ISRAEL
TEL: +972(2)625-1112
TEL/FAX: +972(2)625-1113
Web Site: www.templemountfaithful.org
Saturday, November 19, 2005
Of Fathers and Sons - from the Temple Institute
MarCheshvan 16, 5766/November 18, 2005
Those who study the weekly Torah readings – the parshiot, as they are known in Hebrew, can testify to the veracity of that timeless adage of our sages of blessed memory, "that which transpired to the forefathers, is a sign for their children." For the sensitive soul can recognize that the events depicted in these Torah portions, as well as the themes they contain, are reflected in our lives – on both an individual and national level – each week. This means much more than the old saying, "history repeats itself;" it means that the cycles of time reverberate with the potential for spiritual rectification in every generation. What our ancestors experienced, and all that occurred in the days of those righteous individuals during the great earlier generations, is an indication of not only the nature of their children's destiny; it is a hint of the spiritual warfare those children – those future generations – will have to endure. That is, if they ever expect to finish that holy work which their fathers had begun.
This is not only true regarding the weekly Torah portions. The very essence of each Hebrew month is a challenge to connect with untold possibilities of spiritual growth that each particular time of the year has to offer. This current month of MarCheshvan that we are now observing is no exception, despite the fact that it features no major holidays or observances. For it was during this very month that the floodwaters covered the earth during the time of Noah. And we know that invariably, when G-d chooses to ultimately test His children's faith in him, or when He chooses to exercise the attribute of justice... it is through the element of water.
Noah was given the task of saving life on earth, which he accomplished. But the Torah does not bear witness to his utterance of as much as even one prayer to beg the Almighty to change His mind and cancel the decree. So too, he saved his own immediate family, but – although occupied with the construction of the ark for a full 120 years – was unable to influence even one single individual to repent.
This is in marked contrast to the patriarch Abraham. In this week's Torah portion of VaYera (Gen.18 – 23) G-d informed him of His plans to destroy the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah: "Shall I conceal from Abraham what I do, now that Abraham is to become a great and mighty nation, and all of the nations of the earth shall bless themselves by him?" (v. 17-19). But Abraham's sense of responsibility to others prevented him from reconciling himself to G-d's decision, and he "stepped forward" with utter humility, begging the Holy One to reconsider His decision in the merit of any righteous men who may perhaps be found there. For our father Abraham, praying for the world meant fighting for the world. And to fight for the world is the duty of every individual who loves G-d.
This month of MarCheshvan, besides being the time of retribution in the days of Noah, is also promised to be a time of great spiritual fulfillment in the future. For according to tradition, G-d promised that this will be the month of the dedication ceremony of the Third Holy Temple. Although it presently appears to contain no holidays, our sages indicate that it is only waiting, "on hold" for the great time to come, the dedication of the Third Temple.
In other words, our sages are conveying the idea that the promise of redemption as expressed by the continuation of the Divine service in the Holy Temple, is inherently locked into the potential of this particular time of year.
For the last few weeks, we have been discussing these concepts, and many more, as we attempt to unlock some of the secrets of the month of Cheshvan as well as the current Torah readings on the Temple Institute's weekly internet radio program, Temple Talk, hosted by Arutz Sheva – Israel National Radio at www.israelnationalradio.com This week's program, which can be accessed here, features an in-depth lesson on the mysteries contained "between the lines" of the very first verse in our weekly portion of VaYera. You can tune in every week and hear the show live here on each Tuesday, or download it later. An archive of past shows can also be accessed from our Multimedia page...
With G-d's help, several major new features will be coming to the Temple Institute's website at www.templeinstitute.org over the next few weeks. We will keep you informed as they happen.
We take this opportunity to thank all of those whose dedication, support and commitment enable the Temple Institute to continue with its important progress, bringing us all closer to the rebuilding of the Holy Temple.
May we merit to finish that which our fathers have started.
Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem,
Rabbi Chaim Richman
THE TEMPLE INSTITUTE
PO Box 31876
Jerusalem, Israel 97500
www.templeinstitute.org
Those who study the weekly Torah readings – the parshiot, as they are known in Hebrew, can testify to the veracity of that timeless adage of our sages of blessed memory, "that which transpired to the forefathers, is a sign for their children." For the sensitive soul can recognize that the events depicted in these Torah portions, as well as the themes they contain, are reflected in our lives – on both an individual and national level – each week. This means much more than the old saying, "history repeats itself;" it means that the cycles of time reverberate with the potential for spiritual rectification in every generation. What our ancestors experienced, and all that occurred in the days of those righteous individuals during the great earlier generations, is an indication of not only the nature of their children's destiny; it is a hint of the spiritual warfare those children – those future generations – will have to endure. That is, if they ever expect to finish that holy work which their fathers had begun.
This is not only true regarding the weekly Torah portions. The very essence of each Hebrew month is a challenge to connect with untold possibilities of spiritual growth that each particular time of the year has to offer. This current month of MarCheshvan that we are now observing is no exception, despite the fact that it features no major holidays or observances. For it was during this very month that the floodwaters covered the earth during the time of Noah. And we know that invariably, when G-d chooses to ultimately test His children's faith in him, or when He chooses to exercise the attribute of justice... it is through the element of water.
Noah was given the task of saving life on earth, which he accomplished. But the Torah does not bear witness to his utterance of as much as even one prayer to beg the Almighty to change His mind and cancel the decree. So too, he saved his own immediate family, but – although occupied with the construction of the ark for a full 120 years – was unable to influence even one single individual to repent.
This is in marked contrast to the patriarch Abraham. In this week's Torah portion of VaYera (Gen.18 – 23) G-d informed him of His plans to destroy the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah: "Shall I conceal from Abraham what I do, now that Abraham is to become a great and mighty nation, and all of the nations of the earth shall bless themselves by him?" (v. 17-19). But Abraham's sense of responsibility to others prevented him from reconciling himself to G-d's decision, and he "stepped forward" with utter humility, begging the Holy One to reconsider His decision in the merit of any righteous men who may perhaps be found there. For our father Abraham, praying for the world meant fighting for the world. And to fight for the world is the duty of every individual who loves G-d.
This month of MarCheshvan, besides being the time of retribution in the days of Noah, is also promised to be a time of great spiritual fulfillment in the future. For according to tradition, G-d promised that this will be the month of the dedication ceremony of the Third Holy Temple. Although it presently appears to contain no holidays, our sages indicate that it is only waiting, "on hold" for the great time to come, the dedication of the Third Temple.
In other words, our sages are conveying the idea that the promise of redemption as expressed by the continuation of the Divine service in the Holy Temple, is inherently locked into the potential of this particular time of year.
For the last few weeks, we have been discussing these concepts, and many more, as we attempt to unlock some of the secrets of the month of Cheshvan as well as the current Torah readings on the Temple Institute's weekly internet radio program, Temple Talk, hosted by Arutz Sheva – Israel National Radio at www.israelnationalradio.com This week's program, which can be accessed here, features an in-depth lesson on the mysteries contained "between the lines" of the very first verse in our weekly portion of VaYera. You can tune in every week and hear the show live here on each Tuesday, or download it later. An archive of past shows can also be accessed from our Multimedia page...
With G-d's help, several major new features will be coming to the Temple Institute's website at www.templeinstitute.org over the next few weeks. We will keep you informed as they happen.
We take this opportunity to thank all of those whose dedication, support and commitment enable the Temple Institute to continue with its important progress, bringing us all closer to the rebuilding of the Holy Temple.
May we merit to finish that which our fathers have started.
Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem,
Rabbi Chaim Richman
THE TEMPLE INSTITUTE
PO Box 31876
Jerusalem, Israel 97500
www.templeinstitute.org
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Islamic Radicals Plan World Revolution from Temple Mount
09:27 Nov 14, '05 / 12 Cheshvan 5766
By Scott Shiloh
Islamic radicals have been using the Temple Mount as a focal point for planning and preaching the establishment of a world Islamic state with Jerusalem as its capital.
One of the radical groups operating on the Temple Mount is Hizab Altahrir (The Islamic Liberation Party), which espouses an ideology similar to Al Qaeda. Hizab Altahrir’s network spans most Western European countries. The party puts Islamic revolution and an uncompromising form of Jihad (holly war) at the top of its political agenda.
Suporters of Hizab Altahrir on the Temple Mount
The group advocates subjecting the entire world to Islamic law (Shariya), and destroying non-believing nations and religions.
The party has targeted Europe, specifically Denmark, for spreading its ideology, and providing a springboard for renewing Islamic conquests in Europe. A senior party activist in Jerusalem, Sheikh Issam Amira, expressed this philosophy in a recent speech which he made on the Temple Mount:
“Listeners! The Moslems in Denmark make up three percent [of the population], yet constitute a threat to the future of the Danish kingdom. It’s no surprise that in Bitrab (the ancient name of Medina, a city in Arabia to which Mohammed immigrated) they were fewer than three percent of the general population, but succeeded changing the regime in Bitrab.
“It’s no surprise that our brothers in Denmark have succeeded in bringing Islam to every home in that country. Allah will grant us victory in their land to establish the [Islamic] revolution in Denmark.”
After Denmark, the Sheikh said, the party will carry the revolution to Oslo and change its name to Medina. “They will fight against their Scandinavian neighbors in order to bring the country into the territory of the revolution,” he said. “In the next stage, they will fight a holy jihad to spread Islam to the rest of Europe, until it spreads to the original city of Medina where the two cities will unite under the Islamic flag.”
Sheikh Riyad Salah, head of the Islamic movement in Israel has also been active teaching the tenets of “Islamic revolution.”
“We are at the gates of the Islamic revolution,” he proclaims in his sermons to Arab citizens of Israel. “The global forces of evil will be eliminated from the world and the Islamic nation will remain in place in order to bring about the world Islamic revolution, with its capital, Jerusalem.”
Salah, who until a few months ago was under arrest for allegedly assisting an organization connected to the Hamas terror group, has for a number of years been attempting to organize Israel’s Arab citizens into an “independent Palestinian society,” disconnected from the State of Israel and its institutions.
Salah’s organization contributed to efforts to repair Arab mosques on the Temple Mount, and also attempts to erase the remains of Jewish antiquities on the Mount.
In Israel, the Hizab Altahrir party is sending out charismatic Islamic preachers to spread its ideology to mosques in villages near Jerusalem, Hevron, Kalkilya, and Tulkarem.
When large numbers of Moslems visited mosques last October during the holy month of Ramadan, the party expanded its efforts to recruit new members and activists in the Palestinian Authority (PA).
Thousands of young Arabs living in the PA have been participating in the party’s youth movement under the slogan, “Campaigning to Preach Revolution.”
On the Temple Mount near the Dome of the Rock, Altahrir’s youth recently put up a giant banner declaring “Revolution is a Divine Command.” The party’s flag appears on the right and left hand side of the banner (See top photo). The youth were greeted by party members who shouted, “Next year in Jerusalem, under the rule of the Islamic revolution.”
******************************************************
The Jews again show how unworthy they are by permitting the sworn enemies of Israel and Judah to further pollute Judaism's alleged most holy site - the Temple Mount - with their Nazi-Musim provocations. Nevertheless, let us hope and trust in the tender mercies of our Faithful God, and may we be rekindled with the holy spirit of the Maccabees and let right be done! Jews didn't pray for 2,000 years to return to Zion to pray at the Western Wall!
By Scott Shiloh
Islamic radicals have been using the Temple Mount as a focal point for planning and preaching the establishment of a world Islamic state with Jerusalem as its capital.
One of the radical groups operating on the Temple Mount is Hizab Altahrir (The Islamic Liberation Party), which espouses an ideology similar to Al Qaeda. Hizab Altahrir’s network spans most Western European countries. The party puts Islamic revolution and an uncompromising form of Jihad (holly war) at the top of its political agenda.
Suporters of Hizab Altahrir on the Temple Mount
The group advocates subjecting the entire world to Islamic law (Shariya), and destroying non-believing nations and religions.
The party has targeted Europe, specifically Denmark, for spreading its ideology, and providing a springboard for renewing Islamic conquests in Europe. A senior party activist in Jerusalem, Sheikh Issam Amira, expressed this philosophy in a recent speech which he made on the Temple Mount:
“Listeners! The Moslems in Denmark make up three percent [of the population], yet constitute a threat to the future of the Danish kingdom. It’s no surprise that in Bitrab (the ancient name of Medina, a city in Arabia to which Mohammed immigrated) they were fewer than three percent of the general population, but succeeded changing the regime in Bitrab.
“It’s no surprise that our brothers in Denmark have succeeded in bringing Islam to every home in that country. Allah will grant us victory in their land to establish the [Islamic] revolution in Denmark.”
After Denmark, the Sheikh said, the party will carry the revolution to Oslo and change its name to Medina. “They will fight against their Scandinavian neighbors in order to bring the country into the territory of the revolution,” he said. “In the next stage, they will fight a holy jihad to spread Islam to the rest of Europe, until it spreads to the original city of Medina where the two cities will unite under the Islamic flag.”
Sheikh Riyad Salah, head of the Islamic movement in Israel has also been active teaching the tenets of “Islamic revolution.”
“We are at the gates of the Islamic revolution,” he proclaims in his sermons to Arab citizens of Israel. “The global forces of evil will be eliminated from the world and the Islamic nation will remain in place in order to bring about the world Islamic revolution, with its capital, Jerusalem.”
Salah, who until a few months ago was under arrest for allegedly assisting an organization connected to the Hamas terror group, has for a number of years been attempting to organize Israel’s Arab citizens into an “independent Palestinian society,” disconnected from the State of Israel and its institutions.
Salah’s organization contributed to efforts to repair Arab mosques on the Temple Mount, and also attempts to erase the remains of Jewish antiquities on the Mount.
In Israel, the Hizab Altahrir party is sending out charismatic Islamic preachers to spread its ideology to mosques in villages near Jerusalem, Hevron, Kalkilya, and Tulkarem.
When large numbers of Moslems visited mosques last October during the holy month of Ramadan, the party expanded its efforts to recruit new members and activists in the Palestinian Authority (PA).
Thousands of young Arabs living in the PA have been participating in the party’s youth movement under the slogan, “Campaigning to Preach Revolution.”
On the Temple Mount near the Dome of the Rock, Altahrir’s youth recently put up a giant banner declaring “Revolution is a Divine Command.” The party’s flag appears on the right and left hand side of the banner (See top photo). The youth were greeted by party members who shouted, “Next year in Jerusalem, under the rule of the Islamic revolution.”
******************************************************
The Jews again show how unworthy they are by permitting the sworn enemies of Israel and Judah to further pollute Judaism's alleged most holy site - the Temple Mount - with their Nazi-Musim provocations. Nevertheless, let us hope and trust in the tender mercies of our Faithful God, and may we be rekindled with the holy spirit of the Maccabees and let right be done! Jews didn't pray for 2,000 years to return to Zion to pray at the Western Wall!
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Reclaiming Biblical Jerusalem
Reclaiming Biblical Jerusalem
by Rachel Ginsberg
The world of archeology is rocked by evidence of King David's palace unearthed in Jerusalem.
How Jewish is Jerusalem?
You might think that's a silly question, but in the world of academia, revisionist history and even biblical archaeology, scholars have cast the shadow of doubt over Judaism's intrinsic connection to Jerusalem. The Moslem Waqf, the religious authority that administers the Temple Mount -- the site of Judaism's First and Second Temples -- has been claiming for years that there was never a temple there. But the idea that Israel is the historic homeland of the Jewish people and Jerusalem its holy capital has been under attack from far more reputable sources in recent decades as well.
For a growing number of academics and intellectuals, King David and his united kingdom of Judah and Israel, which has served for 3,000 years as an integral symbol of the Jewish nation, is simply a piece of fiction. The biblical account of history has been dismissed as unreliable by a cadre of scholars, some of whom have an overtly political agenda, arguing that the traditional account was resurrected by the Zionists to justify dispossessing Palestinian Arabs. The most outspoken of these is Keith Whitelam of the Copenhagen School which promotes an agenda of "biblical minimalism," whose best-known work is The Invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History.
Even in Israel, this new school has found its voice. Israel Finkelstein, chairman of Tel Aviv University's Department of Archaeology, began championing a theory several years ago that the biblical accounts of Jerusalem as the seat of a powerful, unified monarchy under the rule of David and Solomon are essentially false. The scientific methods for his assumptions, called a "lower dating" which essentially pushes archaeological evidence into a later century and thus erases all evidence of a Davidic monarchy, were laughed off by traditional archaeologists. But his book, The Bible Unearthed, wound up on the New York Times' best-seller list and he became the darling of a sympathetic media. He concluded that David and Solomon, if they existed at all, were merely "hill-country chieftains" and Jerusalem a poor, small tribal village. He claims that the myth of King David was the creation of a cult of priests trying to create for themselves a glorious history.
Looking in the Wrong Place
But the debunkers of Jewish biblical history got some bad news recently, when a spunky, dedicated archaeologist began her latest dig. Dr. Eilat Mazar, world authority on Jerusalem's past, has taken King David out of the pages of the Bible and put him back into living history. Mazar's latest excavation in the City of David, in the southern shadow of the Temple Mount, has shaken up the archaeological world. For lying undisturbed for over 3,000 years is a massive building which Mazar believes is King David's palace.
For Mazar, 48, one of the world's leading authorities on the archaeology of ancient Jerusalem and head archaeologist of the Shalem Center Institute of Archaeology, the discovery was the culmination of years of effort and solid speculation. From the time she was a teenager, she had her nose in archaeology literature, and worked closely with her grandfather, renowned archaeologist Benjamin Mazar, who conducted the southern wall excavations next to the Western Wall. She holds a doctorate in archaeology from Hebrew University, is author of The Complete Guide to the Temple Mount Excavations, and in the 1970s and '80s worked on the digs supervised by Yigal Shilo in the City of David. The significant discoveries made then, including a huge wall called the "stepped-stone structure" -- which Shilo believed was a retaining wall for David's royal palace or part of the Jebusite fortress he conquered -- ignited Mazar to continue to look for the prize: David's palace itself.
Some biblical scholars gave up looking for the palace because, according to Mazar, they were looking in the wrong place. Scholars searched for remains of the palace within the walls of the ancient Jebusite city that David conquered and called Ir David (City of David). This city, while heavily fortified with both natural and man-made boundaries, was also very small, just nine acres in size. When no evidence of such a majestic palace as the Bible describes was found there, the next step was to claim that David's monarchy never really existed.
But Mazar always suspected that the palace was outside the original city, and cites the Bible to prove it. When the Philistines heard that David had been anointed, they went on the attack to apprehend him. This occurred after he conquered the Fortress of Zion, which was the actual nucleus of the city, and built his palace. The Bible says that David heard about it and "descended to the fortress," (2-Samuel 5:17), implying that he went down from his palace, which was higher up on the mountain than the citadel/city.
Mazar told Aish.com: "I always asked myself: Down from where? It must have been from his palace on top of the hill, outside the original Jebusite city."
Mazar says she was confident in her assessment of where the palace would be. What she discovered was a section of massive wall running about 100 feet from west to east along the length of the excavation (underneath what until this summer was the Ir David Visitors Center), and ending with a right-angle corner that turns south and implies a very large building.
Scientist, Not Philosopher
Within the dirt fill between the stones were found pottery shards dating to the 11th century BCE, the time when David established his monarchy. Based on biblical text and historic evidence, Mazar assumed that David would have built his palace outside the walls of the fortified but cramped Jebusite city which existed up to 2,000 years before; and in fact, the structure is built on the summit of the mountain, directly on bedrock along the city's northern edge, with no archaeological layers beneath it -- a sign that the structure constituted a new, northward expansion of the city's northern limit.
"I was shocked at how easy it was to uncover it, and how well-preserved it was, as if it were just waiting 3,000 years for us to find it."
What most amazed Mazar was how close the building is to the surface -- just one to two meters underground. "The cynics kept saying, 'there will be so many layers, so many remnants of other cultures, it's not worth digging, it's too far down.' I was shocked at how easy it was to uncover it, and how well-preserved it was, as if it were just waiting 3,000 years for us to find it," Mazar said.
Mazar snickers at the idea that she is some sort of divine emissary revealing the eternity of David's kingdom. "I am a scientist, not a philosopher. My focus is on how magnificent and enduring these complex structures are, that they were preserved and protected for so many generations. In truth, when I began to excavate, I had to be prepared for any result. I even had to be prepared to accept Finkelstein's hypothesis if that's what the facts indicated. Still, I am a Jew and an Israeli, and I feel great joy when the details on the ground match the descriptions in the Bible. Today it's become fashionable to say there was no David, no Solomon, no Temple, no prophets. But suddenly the facts on the ground are speaking, and those outspoken voices are stammering."
Biblical References
The City of David is essentially the ancient nucleus of Jerusalem, located just south of the mountain on which the Holy Temples stood. From here the rest of the city as we know it grew and developed over the course of history. According to tradition, the first significant event that occurred there was the meeting between Abraham and Malki-tzedek, King of Shalem. King David, divinely directed, chose this city as the capital of his united kingdom. And the more archaeologists uncover and identify, the easier it is becoming to form a complete picture of the people who lived there -- with the pivotal Jewish history of the First Temple period, described in the Prophets, played out in its structures and installations.
The Bible says that King David brought God's Tabernacle to its final home in this original Jerusalem, expanded the city, and made it the spiritual and economic capital of the world at that time. According to Jewish tradition, he fulfilled God's master plan for a spiritual monarchy that would endure until the final Redemption.
"The construction that we found was a complicated and intricate engineering operation that must have required immense resources, and the dating matches," says Mazar. "This is the kind of step one would expect of a new ruler who wants to turn the city he conquered into his permanent residence, and who has an exceptional vision of the future development of the city."
According to the Bible, David's palace was constructed by Hiram, King of Tyre, the contemporary Phoenician ruler and his ally against the Philistines. Mazar, an expert in Phoenician construction from her excavations at Achziv on Israel's northern coast, attests that this building bears the mark of Phoenician construction, not likely to be found otherwise in the Judean hills.
In fact, quite a bit about David's palace is known from the Bible itself. It was a "house of cedars" built by Phoenician builders (2-Samuel 5:11 and 1-Chronicles 14:1) who used the cedars of Lebanon and developed a distinct style of stone masonry. Remains of pillars and decorative stone capitals in this particular style were discovered at the site years before, which was one clue Mazar used to look for the palace.
THE CLAY DISC
Mazar believes that the palace was used for Jewish monarchs until the destruction of the First Temple 450 years later. To indicate this, she speaks excitedly about a tiny clay item she found at the site (found on the 17th of Tammuz, the fast day commemorating the siege of Jerusalem before its destruction). It is called a "bulla," a clay disc, inscribed in ancient Hebrew script with the name of the sender as a "return address," used to seal papyrus scroll "mail." The bulla bears the name of Yehuchal Ben Shelemiah,* who is mentioned in Chapters 37 and 38 of the Book of Jeremiah. Yehuchal was one of two emissaries dispatched by King Tzidkiyahu to Jeremiah, asking him to pray for the people during the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon. In an about-face, Chapter 38 tells that Yehuchal was one of four ministers who asked the king to kill Jeremiah, claiming that he was demoralizing the besieged nation with his prophecies of doom and destruction.
The bulla found on the site of the palace indicates that the building was used by the king, or at least by his ministers, until the destruction of Jerusalem soon afterwards. (In fact, a nearby cistern uncovered in what might have been a king's courtyard is speculated to perhaps be the pit Jeremiah was lowered into, as recorded in Jeremiah 38:6).
"For me, finding the bulla was tremendous," says Mazar. "Yehuchal was no longer just some name in a biblical account that I might not even have been sure was true. He was a real person. We now have his business card. The account is a real account. It is very rare to find such precise evidence for a narrative in the Bible."
Mazar is heady, not with personal glory or the fame, but with what she considers validation of the Bible she so loves and respects.
Mazar took the bulla home to examine and decipher. With the help of a needle and magnifying glass, she cleaned off the grains of dust until the ancient inscription was revealed. Together with her boys, aged 14, 13, and 11, they managed to decipher the ancient Hebrew script. Mazar's late husband, also an archaeologist, had published material on bullas, and the boys made use of their father's articles which explained how to properly examine and decipher the clay.
Mazar is heady, not with personal glory or the fame that has followed her since the discovery, but with what she considers validation of the Bible she so loves and respects. "Today the scholarly approach to Tanach [the Bible] is that it's not true unless you can prove it true. Maybe we should do a little reverse. Why don't we say it's true unless we can prove otherwise?"
Too Biblical?
More than ten years ago, Mazar proposed a solid thesis as to the location of the palace, and argued her position in a piece published in Biblical Archaeological Review. After years of digging in the City of David under her professional mentor Yigal Shilo before he passed away, and based on finds several decades ago by British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon, she knew she was in the right place. David's palace was the topic of her last conversation with her famous grandfather, biblical archaeology Professor Binyamin Mazar, before he died ten years ago. He told her, "Kenyon found the protoaeolic capitals (of the decorative Phoenician stone-work), so go and find where she found them, and start there."
Despite her sound hypothesis and impeccable credentials, she couldn't find any financial backers, as if no one in the academic world really wanted to find David's palace. It would just be too politically complicated. It's no wonder, when even mainstream archaeologists are inclined to play down finds which might be considered too highly charged with biblical or historical accuracy.
An example is Adam Zertal, who in 1983 discovered an enormous sacrificial altar on Mount Eval, on the very mountain where Joshua was described in the Bible as having built an altar after the Jews crossed the Jordan River. The altar he found contained tools dating to the 12th century BCE, the time the Jewish people entered the Land, and its construction matched the descriptions of Joshua's altar in both biblical and rabbinic texts. But instead of the expected excitement accompanying such a monumental find, Zertal's academic colleagues ignored him and his discovery. The more vocal accused Zertal, a secular Jew raised on a kibbutz, of being politically motivated to support Jewish settlements in the area around Shechem (Nablus), where Mount Eval is located.
Despite the seeming indifference from the academic world, Mazar's proposal finally found a sponsor in the Shalem Center, an academic center in Jerusalem that recently established an institute for archaeological studies, and was funded by Roger Hertog, an American Jewish investment banker who told the New York Times that he fronted the dig because he wants to encourage scientific support for the Bible as a reflection of Jewish history.
David Hazony, editor-in-chief of Azure, a journal published by the Center, is excited about Mazar's results. "We don't want to see this shunted to the side like Zertal's discovery," he told Aish.com. "The message he got from his colleagues was, 'It's bad for business to find things from the Bible these days. It makes us look like unsophisticated messianic fanatics.' Unfortunately, academia has done much to undermine the Jews' capacity to say where they come from and what their past is all about. We want to create an environment where serious scholars can pursue their research without feeling intimidated."
Bulldozer on the Mount
But as fast as new Jewish artifacts are being unearthed, Mazar is concerned that a great number are being destroyed.
As spokesperson for the Committee Against the Desecration of Antiquities on the Temple Mount, Mazar has for the past six years tried to alert the world to the vandalism being perpetrated by the Muslim Waqf, who have their own agenda of destroying remnants of proof of Jewish sovereignty in Jerusalem, and who consistently deny that there ever was a First or Second Temple.
According to agreements made between the Israeli government and the Waqf, to whom the Israelis handed control of the Temple Mount in 1967, the Arabs are not permitted to carry out independent works on the Mount without permission from the Israel Antiquities Authority. Over the years, however, there have been indications of the Waqf breaking this status quo, such as when they sealed up the ancient Hulda Gates entrance to the Temple Mount on the southern wall and buried the adjoining steps and ancient tiling, and the sealing of an underground water cistern that some rabbis thought would lead to the Temple foundations.
The greatest breech was discovered in 1999, when the Waqf bulldozed and then paved over close to 6,000 square meters of the ancient Temple Mount surface. Temple Mount artifacts were ripped from the Mount and secretly dumped in several places throughout Jerusalem, mostly in the Kidron Valley east of the Old City and also in the city dump. Over 100 truckloads of Temple Mount rubble, soil and artifacts were clandestinely removed.
Tzachi Zweig, then an archaeology master's student at Bar Ilan University, blew the whistle on the Waqf when he discovered Temple artifacts in junk heaps around Jerusalem, and then presented some of the artifacts he unearthed at an archaeology conference at the university.
Under the supervision of his mentor, Professor Gabriel Barkay, dozens of truckloads of the "garbage" were moved to a special site near Mount Scopus, where until today teams of archaeologists and volunteers continue to find massive amounts of valuable, significant artifacts from the First and Second Temple periods.
Is this absolute proof? No. But it is enough to shift the burden of proof.
Antiquities in Israel has long been a politically contentious topic, with all its religious and nationalistic overtones. The jury is still out on where all this activity will lead. But one thing is certain: Mazar's discovery has rocked the archeological world.
As Hazony wrote in Azure: "Is this absolute proof? No. But it is enough to shift the burden of proof... The normally reserved Amihai Mazar of Hebrew University, one of the most esteemed scholars in the field of biblical archaeology and author of the standard textbook, Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, 10,000-586 BCE, has described the discovery as 'something of a miracle'."
"In the end," says Mazar, "the integrity of the land and its history will prevail. And I'm grateful to have a small part in it."
Saturday, November 12, 2005
Why should Jews bow before the Turkish decree?
"Something's missing. Rome is synonymous with the Vatican, Mecca with the Kaaba, and Jerusalem's known for its Western Wall. But WHY should we stand before the wall, letting it obstruct our vision, when we could be praying in a Temple? Why should Jews continue to bow before an illegitimate Gentile decree that tells them where to pray? (Isa. 10:1). The Turks designated the Wall as an alternative "holy" site since Muslims had stolen the Temple Mount! If we rightly refused to accept Uganda as a Jewish "homeland," why should Jews settle for anything less than a Temple for worship?
That basically, is the gist of the message our demonstrations seek to send. The Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement doesn't only protest the ongoing Muslim occupation of our Temple Mount, but proclaims that this unnatural set of circumstances will come to an end. We’re confident that Muslim rule on the Temple Mount will soon be history, just as surely as the Berlin Wall fell and Eastern Europe came out from under the Russian heel!"
excerpt from Beyond Babylon: Europe's Rise and Fall
Western (Wailing) Wall for Jews by Turkish Decree
In 1515 C.E. Ottoman Sultan Selim 1 conquered Jerusalem and in 1535 C.E. Selim's son Suleiman 1, the Magnificent, rebuilt the city walls of Jerusalem. He designated at that time the Western "Wailing" Wall as the official place of worship for the Jews at the site of the Holy Temple.
That basically, is the gist of the message our demonstrations seek to send. The Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement doesn't only protest the ongoing Muslim occupation of our Temple Mount, but proclaims that this unnatural set of circumstances will come to an end. We’re confident that Muslim rule on the Temple Mount will soon be history, just as surely as the Berlin Wall fell and Eastern Europe came out from under the Russian heel!"
excerpt from Beyond Babylon: Europe's Rise and Fall
Western (Wailing) Wall for Jews by Turkish Decree
In 1515 C.E. Ottoman Sultan Selim 1 conquered Jerusalem and in 1535 C.E. Selim's son Suleiman 1, the Magnificent, rebuilt the city walls of Jerusalem. He designated at that time the Western "Wailing" Wall as the official place of worship for the Jews at the site of the Holy Temple.
The Issue of the Temple Mount
The Issue of the Temple Mount
by Rabbi Levi Zipperstein
Introduction
The common knowledge of our time is that the vast majority of Rabbis of this generation have prohibited the Jewish people from entering the Temple Mount (Har HaBayit), the holiest site in Judaism. The Temple Mount is the site of where the Beit HaMikdash (the Jewish Temple) once stood and the place where the Moslems have erected one mosque, the al-Aqsa and a site of pilgrimage, the Dome of the Rock. The supposed restriction of Jewish entrance imposed by the rabbis has been proclaimed because under usual circumstances, when the Temple is standing, a level of holiness must be attained before permission is granted to a Jew to enter the area. There are greater and lesser restrictions according to the place one seeks to go on the Temple Mount. The Rabbis state that since the actual location of the Temple structure is not known for certain, it is unclear where a Jew may go without first attaining the most extreme level of purification (mandated by Jewish Law when entering the confines of certain areas of the Mount and when the areas are either under the sovereignty of the Jewish people or the Temple is standing). Therefore, Rabbis have pronounced the prohibition that a Jew must not walk on the entire area of the Temple Mount. The assumed conclusion regarding the Temple Mount is that no Jew should shoulder the risk of incurring the punishment of Kareit. Kareit is the divine punishment of cutting off of one's soul from the World to come and is imposed upon a Jew entering the confines of certain areas of the Temple Mount in an impure state. These laws apply during normal circumstances. Let it be clear that normal circumstances in Jewish law assumes the existence of the Temple and the practices that accompany it.
It is the purpose of this article to analyze the issues and sources concerning entering the Temple Mount. Upon reading the following pages the reader will, with God's help, understand the position of the Rabbis of our generation and compare them to the positions of the Rabbis of previous generations. The issues are not complicated for the halakha (Jewish law) is clear regarding the entrance of a Jew on the Temple Mount. The intellectually honest reader will discover that the issue of the Temple Mount plays a central role in the modern Jewish problem in relation to traditional Jewish thought. Additionally, it is hoped that the conclusions reached in this most important analysis will foster the needed courage required to make that which is wrong, right and that which is a desecration, a sanctification.
The Rabbis of Silence
The impression that world Jewry now maintains concerning the issue of entering and maintaining control over the Temple Mount is a false one. It is additionally false to assume that there is but a single voice on this matter. In contradiction to the prevailing idea that all contemporary Rabbis have forbidden entrance to the Temple Mount, we find the following modern Rabbinical opinions:
Mordechai Eliyahu, former Chief Rabbi of Israel, after reading about Jews going up to the Temple Mount wrote, "I am happy to hear about your yearning for Zion, however we must protect that the Children of Israel will enter the permitted places in purity and holiness. Hashem should strengthen you and He should be with you. Amen, it should be His will."
Shlomo Goren, z"l, former Chief Rabbi of Israel, wrote: "I hereby, notify that because of the danger of a takeover of the Temple Mount by the Moslems and despite the halakhic rules that would apply for the purpose of protecting the Jewish sovereignty it is not only permitted, but it is a holy commandment (mitzvah) to go up to the Temple Mount. We learn that to protect the Temple it is permitted to enter even the Holy of Holies. So much more so to enter the Temple Mount in order to stop an Arab takeover and protect our sovereignty, it is permitted and a commandment. Concerning us, when the purpose is to free the Temple Mount from a takeover by the goyim, the more Knesset members and other Jews that go up will bring a greater result. The suggestion is not to enter with leather shoes and to go to the Mikvah the same day."
Menachem Mendel Schneerson, z"l, the Lubavitch Rebbe, during Sukkot speech of 5751 (1990), told the Jewish people to go to the "Place of the Temple," in the permitted areas, and celebrate the Simchat Beit Hashoeva (celebration of the water drawing) in the greatest and highest level of happiness. The Rebbe continued, insisting that by doing so, the rebuilding of the Temple and coming of the Mashiach will be hastened.
Chaim David Halevi, Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv & Jaffa, wrote: "The law pertaining to entering the Temple Mount is one of the simplest and clearest. It is known that we aren't allowed to make a decree by ourselves, to forbid the permitted. It is incumbent upon the people in charge to devote their time and energies and make every effort possible to allow and encourage B'nai Yisrael to enter the permitted areas."
David Chaim Shlush, the Chief Rabbi of Netanya, wrote: "It is good to be accustomed to going up to the Temple Mount in our times to the permitted places."
Avraham Shalom David, the Rabbi of Kiryat Moshe, Jerusalem, wrote: "I read the material on the Temple Mount and I, hereby, join the recommendation of the Chief Rabbi to go up to the Temple Mount to the permitted places and Hashem will be with you. Amen, it should be his will."
Yichya Alsheich, the Kabbalist, wrote: "The Rabbis permitted the sacrificing of the Passover offering and the daily Tamid offering on the spot of the altar. We are allowed to go up to the Temple Mount to search for the spot of the altar and to make the preparations that are required for such. Hashem should give you favor, kindness, and grant success so we should merit through the rebuilding of the Temple, speedily in our times, Amen."
Levi Nachmani, Rosh Yeshiva of Pnaecha Ya'acov, wrote: "Since the conquest of Jerusalem, the requirement to build the Temple and to bring sacrifices has been renewed. There is a special requirement of the Bet-din (Rabbinate) of the generation and the Kohanim. Negligence in building the Temple will bring punishment. The commandment of conquering the Land of Israel cancels Shabbat and therefore cancels the prohibition of impurity. It is therefore worthy of every man and woman to go up to the Mount and show a constant Jewish presence and thus to prove the ownership of Am Yisrael over the Temple Mount can be even without going to the Mikvah. The one who goes up to the Temple Mount after going to the Mikvah is even better. Hashem should allow us to witness speedily the full sovereignty of the People of Israel over the Temple Mount, the Temple built in its place and the sacrifices renewed speedily in our times, Amen."
Eliyahu Shlomo Ra'anan, grandson of Rav Kook, z"l, wrote: "I, hereby, join the call from the Rabbis recommending to go up to the Temple Mount, into permitted areas, because it is clear without any shadow of a doubt. My grandfather, Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook, z"l, and his son, Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda HaKohen Kook, z"l, never said that the Aliyah to the permitted spots if forbidden. It is surely a great mitzvah to free the holiest site from the goyim, but done in the proper way."
Permitted Places
Most of the previously mentioned Rabbis talk about the "permitted places." This phrase is taken directly from the Rambam (Maimonides), Beit HaBechirah, Laws of the Temple (7,7). The Rambam rules, "even though the Temple is destroyed...a Jew is obligated to revere the Temple as if it were built. Only enter the permitted places and do not sit in the Azara (the Temple courtyard)...as it says, guard My Sabbath and revere My Temple, just as the Sabbath is forever, so too is the reverence for the Temple eternal, even though it has been destroyed."
Given the opinion of the Rambam, there yet remains the question the Rabbis pose, "How do we know where the permitted areas are?"
Today the Temple Mount is three times its original size. Most of what is deemed the Temple Mount in our time is, in fact, no different from any other part of Jerusalem. The extreme northern and southern parts of the Temple Mount are, according to all opinions, not part of the actual Mount. Nearly all opinions maintain that the extreme western side is not part of the Mount (which means that the western wall is not the wall of the Temple nor is it part of the Mount). All opinions state that the Temple stood in or near the center of the Temple Mount.
Should one desire to take all of the Rabbinical opinions into account (although some contradict one another) the majority of the land mass which constitutes the Temple Mount today, would remain as "permitted places." Of the actual Temple Mount, only a small section of it housed the Temple and the Temple courtyards.
The following is a quotation from the Rambam, Laws of the Temple, Chapter 7, Law 15: "the Temple Mount is holier than it (Jerusalem) as zavim, zavot nidot, and yoledet (impure people who require a clean week and ritual immersion to become pure) do not enter. You are permitted to bring a dead body onto the Temple Mount and there is no need to even mention that a person impure from contact with a dead body can enter." Tractate Sota 20b.
If a person purifies himself by immersion in a mikvah (ritual bath) or natural spring, he may enter without any reservations into the area of the Temple known as the women's courtyard. By studying the diagrams of the location of the Temple according to the different opinions it can be seen that the majority of the Temple Mount is accessible to every Jew. In the diagrams, the actual Temple is the rectangular figure in the center. Almost half of that rectangle representing the Temple structure is the permitted area of the women's courtyard. The Temple Mount is in the dotted square area. Outside the dotted area is not part of the Temple Mount and therefore poses no question of "permitted" or "not permitted" within the halakhic framework.
CONQUEST
Perhaps the most important aspect of the Temple Mount issue deals with the concept of "conquest." That is to say, gaining and maintaining control over the Temple Mount. The Rabbis maintain that the law on entering only the permitted places applies during normal circumstances. However, the Rabbis rule that there are times when this law is nullified by more important considerations. There are situations mandating that a person enter the holiest of places in the Temple despite the fact that he is neither Kohen (priest) nor spiritually pure. As an example of this idea our Sages tell us: "to build the Temple, to make repairs and continued maintenance, or to remove something impure all constitute positive reasons for entering the forbidden areas of the Temple. (Tractate Eruvim 105a, Torat Kohanim Emor 3,11 and the Rambam, Laws of the Temple 7,23, etc.). The rationale behind permitting impure people the entrance to the holiest areas of the Temple Mount is quite simple. A person entering these areas in order to fulfill one of the above-mentioned tasks is doing so for the sake of the entire people, not for his own self-aggrandizement. Therefore, service in the Temple for the sake of the nation nullifies any impurity that the person may have. This rule also applies to other commandments connected to serving the people of Israel.
There remains little question that the law of conquest applies as one of the reasons for entering the holy areas while impure. In order to conquer the Temple Mount from the hands of the enemy, the impurity is nullified. This idea was mentioned in the decree by Rabbi Levi Nahmani concerning the verse, My Sabbath you shall guard and My Temple you shall revere...(Leviticus, 16,30).
Both the guarding of the Sabbath and the revering of the holiness of the Temple appear in the same verse; we therefore draw a connection between the two. As we know from the book of Joshua 5:15, the Jews conquered Jericho on the Sabbath (to teach us that conquest takes precedence over the Sabbath). The same rule, therefore, applies to the Temple Mount. The act of conquering that which Hashem has instructed supersedes that which can be attained or adhered to at another time. There is not act of impurity as long as the Temple Mount remains out of our hands. Conquering the Mount takes precedence over impurity.
The reader may pose the following: "Since the Temple Mount has already been conquered from the hands of the enemy, there is no longer a commandment to conquer the area." In other words, the impurity of the soldiers who conquered the Mount during the Six-Day War was nullified as is the impurity of the soldiers and police who continue to guard it, but an ordinary Jew, not in uniform, will not be fulfilling the commandment of conquest simply by entering the Mount.
To answer this question properly we must first fully understand the concept behind the commandment of conquering the Land of Israel. The Ramban (Nachmanides) in the Sefer Mitzvot states that the conquest of the Land of Israel is the fulfillment of the commandment to settle the land. It is not enough, according to the Ramban, for a Jew to merely live in the land; he must remove the enemies from within it. Rashi, in his commentary on the verses, Numbers 33:52-53, writes, that to live in the Land of Israel you must first conquer and expel your enemy.
Thus, we find in the book of Joshua 3:10, as the Jews stand poised to enter the waters of the Jordan River, the words of Joshua to the Jewish nation: "Hereby you shall know that the living God is among you, and that He will without fail drive out from before you the Canaani, and the Hitti, and the Hivvi, and the Perizzi, and Girgashi, and the Emori and the Yevusi [all inhabitants of the Land]."
In the Tractate Gittin, 8b, the Rabbis permitted a Jew to tell a gentile to write a deed of sale on Shabbat in order for the Jew to buy the land of the gentile in Israel. The Rabbis justified this undoing of Rabbinic prohibition because of the performance of the great mitzvah of "settling the Land of Israel." Rashi adds: "for the sake of settling the Land of Israel, to expel the gentiles and to settle Jews in place of them." The Ribash (a contemporary of the Ba'al Turim) wrote in a responsum on this gemara: "the Jew who buys a field from a gentile is better than the one who goes to live in the Land, because the aliyah is only for himself and for the here and now...but settling the Land (buying the field) is a deed that holds merit forever and serves the purposes of the entire People of Israel in order that the Holy Land not remain in the hands of the impure."
Finally, Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook was once asked why we do not make a blessing on Aliyah to Israel. His answer was: "the fundamental purpose of the commandment to settle Israel is to redeem the land from the strangers and the gentiles...for this reason there was not enacted a blessing for Aliyah as is only the first step and not completion of the commandment." (Shulchan Aruch of Rabbi Maimon, 5734, page 427).
As our Rabbis have demonstrated, the Jewish people have failed in the performance of the obligation of settling the Land as long as Arabs control any part of Eretz Yisrael, let alone the Temple Mount. When dealing with the Temple Mount, the place where God reveals his majesty to his people and the entire world, how is it possible that the Jewish people allow a continued foreign occupation? Indeed, we find that the commandment of conquest is incumbent on every Jew, whether a soldier, a policeman, or a concerned Jew. Every act of removing foreign ownership, possession, and, sovereignty over any part of Israel, especially the Temple Mount, is an act of conquest.
All those who venture up to the Mount will soon realize that it is the Arabs, under the auspices of the Moslem religious trust, that are in virtually complete control of our Holiest Site. Jews are forbidden to pray on the Temple Mount. Jews are forbidden to perform any Jewish rituals on the Temple Mount. Jews are forbidden to walk freely on the Temple Mount. Jews are not permitted the same freedoms that tourists are given while on the Temple Mount. Is the very act of ascending the Mount, wearing a skullcap or hat and tzitzit, in themselves, acts leading to conquering the Mount and redeeming it from the hands of the enemy?
There are two ways of answering this question. First, this question should be approached from an aspect of Jewish Law. The question arises in the Tractate Baba Batra, 100a. In this gemara the Rabbis debate the issue of demonstrating ownership. Can a person show ownership by walking over the area in question or are other acts required? It is apparent from the Shulchan Aruch (Chosen Mishpat 192) that the law is similar to that where the Rabbis hold to show ownership an individual must do more than merely walk on a piece of land. However, the Rabbis do concur with Rabbi Eliezer concerning the path of the grape-pickers (i.e., a public path). The Meiri points out that the public shows possession over a path by simply walking. Since any Jew ascending the Temple Mount is not trying to attain personal ownership of land, but, is reclaiming the ownership for the entire Jewish people, the actual walking on the Mount is an act of conquest. Second, mere common sense dictates that if masses of Jews were to simply go up to the Mount we would express our desire for Jewish sovereignty.
HISTORICALLY
For almost 1,500 years after the destruction of the Second Temple there are historical accounts of a Jewish presence on the Temple Mount. The following are citations from the Sefer Har HaBayit by Shaul Shefer, pages 341-345:
363 C.E. Julian Caesar, the Byzantine, returns Jerusalem to the Jews in the days of Hillel the third and allows them to build a Temple. An earthquake destroyed the building materials stored in Solomon's Stables.
640 C.E. Kalif Omar Ibn-Chatub cleans and repairs the Temple Mount allows 70 Jews to settle there and build a Yeshiva.
940 C.E. The Karaite writer, Solomon Ben-Yerucham, writes about a synagogue on the southern side of the Temple Mount and the arguments between the Rabbis and Karaites caused the Jews to lose their foothold on the Mount.
1000 C.E. Rabbi Avraham Berachia wrote about a synagogue and yeshiva built by Jews on the Temple Mount.
1165 C.E. The Rambam visits Jerusalem and prays on the Temple Mount.
1287 C.E. The Meiri writes of the custom is to enter the Temple Mount.
1476 C.E. Jews enter al-Aqsa for a hearing about the Ramban synagogue.
These accounts disprove the contention of the popularly held views of the masses and their rabbis. The reason Jews have refrained from entering the Mount for the past several hundred years is that of the prohibition of the Turks and Arabs. It is disgraceful that an anti-semitic decree has been turned into a self-imposed rabbinic prohibition.
THE PUNISHMENT (Kareit)
The Chief Rabbinate of Israel, as well as the rabbis of the Eda Charedit, have stressed their fear of Jews entering the Mount while impure and risking the punishment of Kareit (cutting off of the soul). As has been stated above, if a Jew ascends the Mount to fulfill the commandment of conquest or other public duties concerning the Temple or sacrifices, the impurity is nullified. For this reason, there is no punishment of Kareit. Moreover, there remains a doubt as to whether an impure person who enters the Mount not for the sake of the public or of conquest will be punished with Kareit. The Rambam does not state anywhere that entering the forbidden areas while the Temple is destroyed will be punished with Kareit. The Meiri, also, makes this point as does the Migdal David.
It is ironic, that these rabbis are not concerned with the risk of Kareit resulting from not sacrificing the Passover offering. It is clearly stated in the Torah that a ritually pure person who knowingly does not bring the Passover lamb on the 14th day of Nissan is punishable by kareit. The Passover offering can be brought when the entire nation is impure from contact with the dead, as is the case with every public offering.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE RABBIS?
How can one explain the inaction of those rabbis who agree that we can enter the Temple Mount? How can one explain those who distort the truth and prohibit the entrance of Jews to the Temple Mount? After 2,000 years of prayers asking that God return us to Zion and speedily rebuild the Temple, what excuse could there be for preferring the Wall of Tears over the House of God?
The best answer can be found in the book, Ame Banim Smecha, written by Rabbi Yisachar Teichtel. Rabbi Teichtel was a Chasid who lived in Hungary and perished in the holocaust. While on the run from the Nazis, he wrote a powerful book quoting his sources from memory. He confronts the question that haunts many Jews: "why were so many religious Jews and Torah scholars killed during the holocaust?" His answer is unequivocal, the religious Jews and the Torah scholars watched the secular Zionists return to Zion; and they did not learn from their actions. Jews who prayed thrice daily for the return to Zion should have immediately realized that if secular Jews are leaving the exile, how much more so should they. By turning their backs on the Land of Israel, Rabbi Teichtel writes, their fate was sealed. God hates hypocrisy and punishes those who invoke his name in vain. And so they stayed in exile to be consumed by the fires of the Holocaust.
Many religious Jews yet maintain the false interpretation of Jewish texts that the Temple will fall from heaven when God deems it proper. This belief is akin to those who maintained that while sitting in exile there would appear the wings of an eagle, which would scoop them up and whirl them off to the Land of Israel. Obviously, the latter never happened and the former is even less likely to occur. The literal interpretation of parabolic literature is forbidden by Jewish thought. However, it is not the purpose of this work to delve into the intricacies and the failings of contemporary religious and Torah thought. It is enough that we realize that this thought has caused the Torah world to miss the opportunity to define the meaning of the return to the Land as it ought to be defined, in Torah terms. They turned their back on the building of a nation while leaving it in the hands of those whose socialist visions clouded their thoughts and blurred their vision. Added to this disgrace, the Torah world has now left the Temple Mount in the hands of those that would not recognize a Jewish concept even if it were placed in red dressing gowns. It is those self-hating Jews who have now turned over the holiest place in Judaism to the enemies of the Jewish people. The Temple remains in ruins while alien buildings of other nations sit in its place.
CONCLUSION
There is but one way to redeem the Temple Mount and but one way to renew the sacrifices and build the Temple. We must act in an authentically Jewish manner. Remaining in a state of atrophy will not only allow the status quo to continue, it will cause needless and unimaginable suffering to the Jewish people. Just as we witnessed the destruction of six million Jews because of inaction concerning the return to Zion, so will we endure terrible tragedy should we opt for the same inaction concerning the Temple Mount.
This is not an argument between Jew and Arab, nor between Judaism and Islam, but rather it is a question of religious fulfillment. If the Mount is redeemed and the Temple replaces the desecrations that now stand in its place, then the Jewish obligation to the God of Israel is attained, but should we leave the mosques in place and the Mount in the hand of the stranger, then we will be desecrating God's name by declaring that the Jewish people are unable and unwilling to do that which God has commanded. The fate and destiny of the Jewish people are in the hands of each and every Jew. All that is required is will and faith of Jews to enter the Temple Mount in large numbers until the day, with God's help, that we are able to demand its return to its rightful owners. If every one would make the commitment needed to redeem the Mount it will surely and speedily be in our hands.
Comment by David Ben-Ariel: This excellent article appeared in the Winter 1996, edition of B'tzedek, The Journal of Responsible Jewish Commentary, which I picked up in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem and widely distributed before my unjust deportation.
by Rabbi Levi Zipperstein
Introduction
The common knowledge of our time is that the vast majority of Rabbis of this generation have prohibited the Jewish people from entering the Temple Mount (Har HaBayit), the holiest site in Judaism. The Temple Mount is the site of where the Beit HaMikdash (the Jewish Temple) once stood and the place where the Moslems have erected one mosque, the al-Aqsa and a site of pilgrimage, the Dome of the Rock. The supposed restriction of Jewish entrance imposed by the rabbis has been proclaimed because under usual circumstances, when the Temple is standing, a level of holiness must be attained before permission is granted to a Jew to enter the area. There are greater and lesser restrictions according to the place one seeks to go on the Temple Mount. The Rabbis state that since the actual location of the Temple structure is not known for certain, it is unclear where a Jew may go without first attaining the most extreme level of purification (mandated by Jewish Law when entering the confines of certain areas of the Mount and when the areas are either under the sovereignty of the Jewish people or the Temple is standing). Therefore, Rabbis have pronounced the prohibition that a Jew must not walk on the entire area of the Temple Mount. The assumed conclusion regarding the Temple Mount is that no Jew should shoulder the risk of incurring the punishment of Kareit. Kareit is the divine punishment of cutting off of one's soul from the World to come and is imposed upon a Jew entering the confines of certain areas of the Temple Mount in an impure state. These laws apply during normal circumstances. Let it be clear that normal circumstances in Jewish law assumes the existence of the Temple and the practices that accompany it.
It is the purpose of this article to analyze the issues and sources concerning entering the Temple Mount. Upon reading the following pages the reader will, with God's help, understand the position of the Rabbis of our generation and compare them to the positions of the Rabbis of previous generations. The issues are not complicated for the halakha (Jewish law) is clear regarding the entrance of a Jew on the Temple Mount. The intellectually honest reader will discover that the issue of the Temple Mount plays a central role in the modern Jewish problem in relation to traditional Jewish thought. Additionally, it is hoped that the conclusions reached in this most important analysis will foster the needed courage required to make that which is wrong, right and that which is a desecration, a sanctification.
The Rabbis of Silence
The impression that world Jewry now maintains concerning the issue of entering and maintaining control over the Temple Mount is a false one. It is additionally false to assume that there is but a single voice on this matter. In contradiction to the prevailing idea that all contemporary Rabbis have forbidden entrance to the Temple Mount, we find the following modern Rabbinical opinions:
Mordechai Eliyahu, former Chief Rabbi of Israel, after reading about Jews going up to the Temple Mount wrote, "I am happy to hear about your yearning for Zion, however we must protect that the Children of Israel will enter the permitted places in purity and holiness. Hashem should strengthen you and He should be with you. Amen, it should be His will."
Shlomo Goren, z"l, former Chief Rabbi of Israel, wrote: "I hereby, notify that because of the danger of a takeover of the Temple Mount by the Moslems and despite the halakhic rules that would apply for the purpose of protecting the Jewish sovereignty it is not only permitted, but it is a holy commandment (mitzvah) to go up to the Temple Mount. We learn that to protect the Temple it is permitted to enter even the Holy of Holies. So much more so to enter the Temple Mount in order to stop an Arab takeover and protect our sovereignty, it is permitted and a commandment. Concerning us, when the purpose is to free the Temple Mount from a takeover by the goyim, the more Knesset members and other Jews that go up will bring a greater result. The suggestion is not to enter with leather shoes and to go to the Mikvah the same day."
Menachem Mendel Schneerson, z"l, the Lubavitch Rebbe, during Sukkot speech of 5751 (1990), told the Jewish people to go to the "Place of the Temple," in the permitted areas, and celebrate the Simchat Beit Hashoeva (celebration of the water drawing) in the greatest and highest level of happiness. The Rebbe continued, insisting that by doing so, the rebuilding of the Temple and coming of the Mashiach will be hastened.
Chaim David Halevi, Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv & Jaffa, wrote: "The law pertaining to entering the Temple Mount is one of the simplest and clearest. It is known that we aren't allowed to make a decree by ourselves, to forbid the permitted. It is incumbent upon the people in charge to devote their time and energies and make every effort possible to allow and encourage B'nai Yisrael to enter the permitted areas."
David Chaim Shlush, the Chief Rabbi of Netanya, wrote: "It is good to be accustomed to going up to the Temple Mount in our times to the permitted places."
Avraham Shalom David, the Rabbi of Kiryat Moshe, Jerusalem, wrote: "I read the material on the Temple Mount and I, hereby, join the recommendation of the Chief Rabbi to go up to the Temple Mount to the permitted places and Hashem will be with you. Amen, it should be his will."
Yichya Alsheich, the Kabbalist, wrote: "The Rabbis permitted the sacrificing of the Passover offering and the daily Tamid offering on the spot of the altar. We are allowed to go up to the Temple Mount to search for the spot of the altar and to make the preparations that are required for such. Hashem should give you favor, kindness, and grant success so we should merit through the rebuilding of the Temple, speedily in our times, Amen."
Levi Nachmani, Rosh Yeshiva of Pnaecha Ya'acov, wrote: "Since the conquest of Jerusalem, the requirement to build the Temple and to bring sacrifices has been renewed. There is a special requirement of the Bet-din (Rabbinate) of the generation and the Kohanim. Negligence in building the Temple will bring punishment. The commandment of conquering the Land of Israel cancels Shabbat and therefore cancels the prohibition of impurity. It is therefore worthy of every man and woman to go up to the Mount and show a constant Jewish presence and thus to prove the ownership of Am Yisrael over the Temple Mount can be even without going to the Mikvah. The one who goes up to the Temple Mount after going to the Mikvah is even better. Hashem should allow us to witness speedily the full sovereignty of the People of Israel over the Temple Mount, the Temple built in its place and the sacrifices renewed speedily in our times, Amen."
Eliyahu Shlomo Ra'anan, grandson of Rav Kook, z"l, wrote: "I, hereby, join the call from the Rabbis recommending to go up to the Temple Mount, into permitted areas, because it is clear without any shadow of a doubt. My grandfather, Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook, z"l, and his son, Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda HaKohen Kook, z"l, never said that the Aliyah to the permitted spots if forbidden. It is surely a great mitzvah to free the holiest site from the goyim, but done in the proper way."
Permitted Places
Most of the previously mentioned Rabbis talk about the "permitted places." This phrase is taken directly from the Rambam (Maimonides), Beit HaBechirah, Laws of the Temple (7,7). The Rambam rules, "even though the Temple is destroyed...a Jew is obligated to revere the Temple as if it were built. Only enter the permitted places and do not sit in the Azara (the Temple courtyard)...as it says, guard My Sabbath and revere My Temple, just as the Sabbath is forever, so too is the reverence for the Temple eternal, even though it has been destroyed."
Given the opinion of the Rambam, there yet remains the question the Rabbis pose, "How do we know where the permitted areas are?"
Today the Temple Mount is three times its original size. Most of what is deemed the Temple Mount in our time is, in fact, no different from any other part of Jerusalem. The extreme northern and southern parts of the Temple Mount are, according to all opinions, not part of the actual Mount. Nearly all opinions maintain that the extreme western side is not part of the Mount (which means that the western wall is not the wall of the Temple nor is it part of the Mount). All opinions state that the Temple stood in or near the center of the Temple Mount.
Should one desire to take all of the Rabbinical opinions into account (although some contradict one another) the majority of the land mass which constitutes the Temple Mount today, would remain as "permitted places." Of the actual Temple Mount, only a small section of it housed the Temple and the Temple courtyards.
The following is a quotation from the Rambam, Laws of the Temple, Chapter 7, Law 15: "the Temple Mount is holier than it (Jerusalem) as zavim, zavot nidot, and yoledet (impure people who require a clean week and ritual immersion to become pure) do not enter. You are permitted to bring a dead body onto the Temple Mount and there is no need to even mention that a person impure from contact with a dead body can enter." Tractate Sota 20b.
If a person purifies himself by immersion in a mikvah (ritual bath) or natural spring, he may enter without any reservations into the area of the Temple known as the women's courtyard. By studying the diagrams of the location of the Temple according to the different opinions it can be seen that the majority of the Temple Mount is accessible to every Jew. In the diagrams, the actual Temple is the rectangular figure in the center. Almost half of that rectangle representing the Temple structure is the permitted area of the women's courtyard. The Temple Mount is in the dotted square area. Outside the dotted area is not part of the Temple Mount and therefore poses no question of "permitted" or "not permitted" within the halakhic framework.
CONQUEST
Perhaps the most important aspect of the Temple Mount issue deals with the concept of "conquest." That is to say, gaining and maintaining control over the Temple Mount. The Rabbis maintain that the law on entering only the permitted places applies during normal circumstances. However, the Rabbis rule that there are times when this law is nullified by more important considerations. There are situations mandating that a person enter the holiest of places in the Temple despite the fact that he is neither Kohen (priest) nor spiritually pure. As an example of this idea our Sages tell us: "to build the Temple, to make repairs and continued maintenance, or to remove something impure all constitute positive reasons for entering the forbidden areas of the Temple. (Tractate Eruvim 105a, Torat Kohanim Emor 3,11 and the Rambam, Laws of the Temple 7,23, etc.). The rationale behind permitting impure people the entrance to the holiest areas of the Temple Mount is quite simple. A person entering these areas in order to fulfill one of the above-mentioned tasks is doing so for the sake of the entire people, not for his own self-aggrandizement. Therefore, service in the Temple for the sake of the nation nullifies any impurity that the person may have. This rule also applies to other commandments connected to serving the people of Israel.
There remains little question that the law of conquest applies as one of the reasons for entering the holy areas while impure. In order to conquer the Temple Mount from the hands of the enemy, the impurity is nullified. This idea was mentioned in the decree by Rabbi Levi Nahmani concerning the verse, My Sabbath you shall guard and My Temple you shall revere...(Leviticus, 16,30).
Both the guarding of the Sabbath and the revering of the holiness of the Temple appear in the same verse; we therefore draw a connection between the two. As we know from the book of Joshua 5:15, the Jews conquered Jericho on the Sabbath (to teach us that conquest takes precedence over the Sabbath). The same rule, therefore, applies to the Temple Mount. The act of conquering that which Hashem has instructed supersedes that which can be attained or adhered to at another time. There is not act of impurity as long as the Temple Mount remains out of our hands. Conquering the Mount takes precedence over impurity.
The reader may pose the following: "Since the Temple Mount has already been conquered from the hands of the enemy, there is no longer a commandment to conquer the area." In other words, the impurity of the soldiers who conquered the Mount during the Six-Day War was nullified as is the impurity of the soldiers and police who continue to guard it, but an ordinary Jew, not in uniform, will not be fulfilling the commandment of conquest simply by entering the Mount.
To answer this question properly we must first fully understand the concept behind the commandment of conquering the Land of Israel. The Ramban (Nachmanides) in the Sefer Mitzvot states that the conquest of the Land of Israel is the fulfillment of the commandment to settle the land. It is not enough, according to the Ramban, for a Jew to merely live in the land; he must remove the enemies from within it. Rashi, in his commentary on the verses, Numbers 33:52-53, writes, that to live in the Land of Israel you must first conquer and expel your enemy.
Thus, we find in the book of Joshua 3:10, as the Jews stand poised to enter the waters of the Jordan River, the words of Joshua to the Jewish nation: "Hereby you shall know that the living God is among you, and that He will without fail drive out from before you the Canaani, and the Hitti, and the Hivvi, and the Perizzi, and Girgashi, and the Emori and the Yevusi [all inhabitants of the Land]."
In the Tractate Gittin, 8b, the Rabbis permitted a Jew to tell a gentile to write a deed of sale on Shabbat in order for the Jew to buy the land of the gentile in Israel. The Rabbis justified this undoing of Rabbinic prohibition because of the performance of the great mitzvah of "settling the Land of Israel." Rashi adds: "for the sake of settling the Land of Israel, to expel the gentiles and to settle Jews in place of them." The Ribash (a contemporary of the Ba'al Turim) wrote in a responsum on this gemara: "the Jew who buys a field from a gentile is better than the one who goes to live in the Land, because the aliyah is only for himself and for the here and now...but settling the Land (buying the field) is a deed that holds merit forever and serves the purposes of the entire People of Israel in order that the Holy Land not remain in the hands of the impure."
Finally, Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook was once asked why we do not make a blessing on Aliyah to Israel. His answer was: "the fundamental purpose of the commandment to settle Israel is to redeem the land from the strangers and the gentiles...for this reason there was not enacted a blessing for Aliyah as is only the first step and not completion of the commandment." (Shulchan Aruch of Rabbi Maimon, 5734, page 427).
As our Rabbis have demonstrated, the Jewish people have failed in the performance of the obligation of settling the Land as long as Arabs control any part of Eretz Yisrael, let alone the Temple Mount. When dealing with the Temple Mount, the place where God reveals his majesty to his people and the entire world, how is it possible that the Jewish people allow a continued foreign occupation? Indeed, we find that the commandment of conquest is incumbent on every Jew, whether a soldier, a policeman, or a concerned Jew. Every act of removing foreign ownership, possession, and, sovereignty over any part of Israel, especially the Temple Mount, is an act of conquest.
All those who venture up to the Mount will soon realize that it is the Arabs, under the auspices of the Moslem religious trust, that are in virtually complete control of our Holiest Site. Jews are forbidden to pray on the Temple Mount. Jews are forbidden to perform any Jewish rituals on the Temple Mount. Jews are forbidden to walk freely on the Temple Mount. Jews are not permitted the same freedoms that tourists are given while on the Temple Mount. Is the very act of ascending the Mount, wearing a skullcap or hat and tzitzit, in themselves, acts leading to conquering the Mount and redeeming it from the hands of the enemy?
There are two ways of answering this question. First, this question should be approached from an aspect of Jewish Law. The question arises in the Tractate Baba Batra, 100a. In this gemara the Rabbis debate the issue of demonstrating ownership. Can a person show ownership by walking over the area in question or are other acts required? It is apparent from the Shulchan Aruch (Chosen Mishpat 192) that the law is similar to that where the Rabbis hold to show ownership an individual must do more than merely walk on a piece of land. However, the Rabbis do concur with Rabbi Eliezer concerning the path of the grape-pickers (i.e., a public path). The Meiri points out that the public shows possession over a path by simply walking. Since any Jew ascending the Temple Mount is not trying to attain personal ownership of land, but, is reclaiming the ownership for the entire Jewish people, the actual walking on the Mount is an act of conquest. Second, mere common sense dictates that if masses of Jews were to simply go up to the Mount we would express our desire for Jewish sovereignty.
HISTORICALLY
For almost 1,500 years after the destruction of the Second Temple there are historical accounts of a Jewish presence on the Temple Mount. The following are citations from the Sefer Har HaBayit by Shaul Shefer, pages 341-345:
363 C.E. Julian Caesar, the Byzantine, returns Jerusalem to the Jews in the days of Hillel the third and allows them to build a Temple. An earthquake destroyed the building materials stored in Solomon's Stables.
640 C.E. Kalif Omar Ibn-Chatub cleans and repairs the Temple Mount allows 70 Jews to settle there and build a Yeshiva.
940 C.E. The Karaite writer, Solomon Ben-Yerucham, writes about a synagogue on the southern side of the Temple Mount and the arguments between the Rabbis and Karaites caused the Jews to lose their foothold on the Mount.
1000 C.E. Rabbi Avraham Berachia wrote about a synagogue and yeshiva built by Jews on the Temple Mount.
1165 C.E. The Rambam visits Jerusalem and prays on the Temple Mount.
1287 C.E. The Meiri writes of the custom is to enter the Temple Mount.
1476 C.E. Jews enter al-Aqsa for a hearing about the Ramban synagogue.
These accounts disprove the contention of the popularly held views of the masses and their rabbis. The reason Jews have refrained from entering the Mount for the past several hundred years is that of the prohibition of the Turks and Arabs. It is disgraceful that an anti-semitic decree has been turned into a self-imposed rabbinic prohibition.
THE PUNISHMENT (Kareit)
The Chief Rabbinate of Israel, as well as the rabbis of the Eda Charedit, have stressed their fear of Jews entering the Mount while impure and risking the punishment of Kareit (cutting off of the soul). As has been stated above, if a Jew ascends the Mount to fulfill the commandment of conquest or other public duties concerning the Temple or sacrifices, the impurity is nullified. For this reason, there is no punishment of Kareit. Moreover, there remains a doubt as to whether an impure person who enters the Mount not for the sake of the public or of conquest will be punished with Kareit. The Rambam does not state anywhere that entering the forbidden areas while the Temple is destroyed will be punished with Kareit. The Meiri, also, makes this point as does the Migdal David.
It is ironic, that these rabbis are not concerned with the risk of Kareit resulting from not sacrificing the Passover offering. It is clearly stated in the Torah that a ritually pure person who knowingly does not bring the Passover lamb on the 14th day of Nissan is punishable by kareit. The Passover offering can be brought when the entire nation is impure from contact with the dead, as is the case with every public offering.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE RABBIS?
How can one explain the inaction of those rabbis who agree that we can enter the Temple Mount? How can one explain those who distort the truth and prohibit the entrance of Jews to the Temple Mount? After 2,000 years of prayers asking that God return us to Zion and speedily rebuild the Temple, what excuse could there be for preferring the Wall of Tears over the House of God?
The best answer can be found in the book, Ame Banim Smecha, written by Rabbi Yisachar Teichtel. Rabbi Teichtel was a Chasid who lived in Hungary and perished in the holocaust. While on the run from the Nazis, he wrote a powerful book quoting his sources from memory. He confronts the question that haunts many Jews: "why were so many religious Jews and Torah scholars killed during the holocaust?" His answer is unequivocal, the religious Jews and the Torah scholars watched the secular Zionists return to Zion; and they did not learn from their actions. Jews who prayed thrice daily for the return to Zion should have immediately realized that if secular Jews are leaving the exile, how much more so should they. By turning their backs on the Land of Israel, Rabbi Teichtel writes, their fate was sealed. God hates hypocrisy and punishes those who invoke his name in vain. And so they stayed in exile to be consumed by the fires of the Holocaust.
Many religious Jews yet maintain the false interpretation of Jewish texts that the Temple will fall from heaven when God deems it proper. This belief is akin to those who maintained that while sitting in exile there would appear the wings of an eagle, which would scoop them up and whirl them off to the Land of Israel. Obviously, the latter never happened and the former is even less likely to occur. The literal interpretation of parabolic literature is forbidden by Jewish thought. However, it is not the purpose of this work to delve into the intricacies and the failings of contemporary religious and Torah thought. It is enough that we realize that this thought has caused the Torah world to miss the opportunity to define the meaning of the return to the Land as it ought to be defined, in Torah terms. They turned their back on the building of a nation while leaving it in the hands of those whose socialist visions clouded their thoughts and blurred their vision. Added to this disgrace, the Torah world has now left the Temple Mount in the hands of those that would not recognize a Jewish concept even if it were placed in red dressing gowns. It is those self-hating Jews who have now turned over the holiest place in Judaism to the enemies of the Jewish people. The Temple remains in ruins while alien buildings of other nations sit in its place.
CONCLUSION
There is but one way to redeem the Temple Mount and but one way to renew the sacrifices and build the Temple. We must act in an authentically Jewish manner. Remaining in a state of atrophy will not only allow the status quo to continue, it will cause needless and unimaginable suffering to the Jewish people. Just as we witnessed the destruction of six million Jews because of inaction concerning the return to Zion, so will we endure terrible tragedy should we opt for the same inaction concerning the Temple Mount.
This is not an argument between Jew and Arab, nor between Judaism and Islam, but rather it is a question of religious fulfillment. If the Mount is redeemed and the Temple replaces the desecrations that now stand in its place, then the Jewish obligation to the God of Israel is attained, but should we leave the mosques in place and the Mount in the hand of the stranger, then we will be desecrating God's name by declaring that the Jewish people are unable and unwilling to do that which God has commanded. The fate and destiny of the Jewish people are in the hands of each and every Jew. All that is required is will and faith of Jews to enter the Temple Mount in large numbers until the day, with God's help, that we are able to demand its return to its rightful owners. If every one would make the commitment needed to redeem the Mount it will surely and speedily be in our hands.
Comment by David Ben-Ariel: This excellent article appeared in the Winter 1996, edition of B'tzedek, The Journal of Responsible Jewish Commentary, which I picked up in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem and widely distributed before my unjust deportation.
Friday, November 11, 2005
More Moslem Destruction of Temple Mount Feared
More Moslem Destruction of Temple Mount Feared
18:14 Nov 09, '05 / 7 Cheshvan 5766
By Hillel Fendel
The Committee to Prevent Temple Mount Artifacts Desecration warns that Muslim Waqf construction works are once again underway - this time at the Temple entrance path taken by Jews 2,000 years ago.
more
"Remember O Lord what is come upon us. Behold, see our reproach. Our inheritance is turned unto strangers, our houses unto aliens.... Men said among the nations: They shall no more sojourn here." How long before we realize that as long as GOD'S inheritance is trampled by Nazi-Muslims, the holy site of HIS House lies in ruins and militant foreign mosques pollute and pervert its holy purpose, nobody's home in Israel is safe from harm? Why shouldn't Israeli homes be surrendered to aliens when the Temple Mount remains under foreign occupation? Instead of crying, why not do something constructive? Remove the mosques, BUILD THE TEMPLE!
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Anniversary of Rambam's Temple Mount Ascent
Anniversary of Rambam's Temple Mount Ascent Tuesday
11:33 Nov 08, '05 / 6 Cheshvan 5766
By Ezra HaLevi
Holy Temple enthusiasts observe Tuesday, the 6th of Heshvan as a minor holiday – a tradition observed by the Rambam (Maimonides) - to commemorate his ascent of the Temple Mount.
more
Saturday, November 05, 2005
Friday, November 04, 2005
Thursday, November 03, 2005
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Israeli Embassy responds to Senators DeWine and Voinovich about visa
From: "Kinker, Ellen (DeWine)"
To: "David Ben-Ariel"
Cc:
Subject: RE: 2005 set date
Date: Tue, 01 Nov 2005 14:24:02 -0500
Dear Mr. Ben-Ariel:
I just got off the phone with the Israeli Embassy. They said that you
must contact their consulate in Philadelphia to apply for a visa. They
said that a deportation from the past does not prevent the issuance of a
visa.
Thank you,
Ellen Kinker, Caseworker
U.S. Senators Mike DeWine and George Voinovich
37 W. Broad St., Room 300
Columbus, Ohio 43215
To: "David Ben-Ariel"
Cc:
Subject: RE: 2005 set date
Date: Tue, 01 Nov 2005 14:24:02 -0500
Dear Mr. Ben-Ariel:
I just got off the phone with the Israeli Embassy. They said that you
must contact their consulate in Philadelphia to apply for a visa. They
said that a deportation from the past does not prevent the issuance of a
visa.
Thank you,
Ellen Kinker, Caseworker
U.S. Senators Mike DeWine and George Voinovich
37 W. Broad St., Room 300
Columbus, Ohio 43215
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
