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A New Vision for the Temple Mount

Posted by Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld on March 2, 2010 | Tags: Tetzaveh

I have been to Jerusalem many times. So many times that I have lost count. But on my recent trip to Israel, I found myself in a new part of Jerusalem which I had never been to before.

I drove from my hotel in the center of Jerusalem (with Danielle Frum a member of our synagogue), a short ten minute drive, to what was for me a new part of Jerusalem: an Arab neighborhood of Jerusalem located on Mount Olives overlooking the Temple Mount. I had driven past this village many times, but I had never turned in to it

I will admit that as I waited in the car for my Arab escort to walk me to where we were going I was a little uneasy. I had never done anything like this before in my life. But I felt that what I was doing was right.

I was preparing to meet with Sheikh Gassan Manasra, a leader of the Sufi movement in Israel so that we could pray together overlooking the Temple Mount.

Walking into his small home, he greeted me with a huge smile and a warm embrace; he offered me some food and I met his charming family. During our pre-prayer conversation he explained to me that his own son was recently beaten by other Muslims because of his radical positions. In that context our small group then walked together with his family and friends to a beautiful, majestic spot overlooking the Temple Mount and we prayed together.

Why did I go to pray with Sheikh Manasra? How did I come to pray with a Sheikh in an Arab village overlooking the Temple Mount?

A year ago, for the first time in my life I ascended the holy Temple Mount, the Har Habayit, the place where we direct our prayers three times a day, the holiest place in the Jewish tradition. I had visited the Western Wall many times, but I had never ascended the Mountain.

When I ascended the Temple Mount, I had a mixed experience.

On the one hand, it was an incredible, spiritual experience. I felt closeness to Hashem that I have never before known. It was a closeness that one can know only by physically being in a place of unique sacredness.

But on the other hand it was also a humiliating experience. I tried to recite the Shema softly to myself. It is the prayer that Jews over the years have recited while they were being martyred. On the Temple Mount itself I was told that I could not recite the prayer as it would be antagonistic. For the first time in my life, I was stopped and berated and prevented from praying, and most hurtful of all was that it was done by a Jewish soldier wearing a Kippah! Here in the land of Israel I was being told by an Israeli soldier that I could not recite the Shema. And so I wondered: If I can’t even recite the Shema softly to myself….

There are some fanatical Jews who believe so strongly in wanting to pray on the Temple Mount that they want to--God Forbid!—destroy the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aksa mosque. This is absolutely forbidden by Jewish law.

But more than that, I felt that this was not what Hashem had in mind for all of us. The goal of Judaism cannot be to bring about the Third Temple by destroying the Dome of the Rock. We can not achieve the Messiah by destroying a religion that at its core has been recognized by Rambam and great Jewish thinkers throughout our centuries as a monotheistic religion. Such a theology must be rejected.

But still I yearn with all my heart to pray on the Mountain; not through violence, but through peace. And so I felt that the only way was to reach out to Muslim Imams and Sheikhs who would be willing to pray with me.

Ok, this is admittedly a long shot. But it is not as long a shot as we might think.

A year ago I spoke publicly about a dream I had where one day Jews could pray on the Temple Mount alongside Muslims and Christians. The Dome of the Rock and Al Aksa Mosque would remain where they are and we Jews would find our own place on the Mountain. The Mountain is big enough for all of us.

I posted this idea on my website. A few months ago I was contacted by an organization called Har Kodshi or God’s Holy Mountain. They had read my dvar torah and wanted to see if I was interested in getting involved with their organization.

I was shocked. I had never heard of them. But they sounded like people I wanted to meet.

Their website said: “This is a vision about transforming the Temple Mount from a place of contention to a place that is truly God’s Holy Mountain, a house of prayer for all people (Isaiah 56:7). “On that day God will be One and his Name One.” It is based upon five years of research into the requirements for the precise location of a rebuilt Temple, as published in the leading journal of Jewish religious law in Israel.”

After I prayed with Sheikh Manasra, I met at ten o’clock that night with Ohr Margalit who works for God’s Holy Mountain.

He told me that a few months ago there was a conference of prominent religious leaders about this very idea. It was attending by great religious thinkers in Israel from Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. And he shared with me a picture of Jews, Christians, and Muslims, all worshipping on the Temple Mount.

Traditional Jewish sources show that although we believe that the Dome of the Rock now occupies the spot where the First and Second Temple stood once stood (and the Sheikh confirmed for me that he believes that as well), there are significant authorities who believe that the Third Temple can be built on the Temple Mount but not in the exact location of the First Two Temples. In other words there will be room for all of us on the Mountain if we just move the Third Temple over a little bit.

How can that be? How can we move the location of the Temple? Isn’t the location of the Temple an essential element of the Temple?

When you think about it, we have always changed in major ways essential elements of the Temple.

If you look at the text of the Torah you will see that very clearly the essential aspect of the mishkan was the aron kodesh, the Holy Ark. This was the place from which God addressed the Jewish people. But this Holy Ark was not even around for the Second Temple.

In this week’s portion we are taught the Kohen will place an Urim Vetumim on his breast plate. The Urim Vetumin was perhaps the most important of all the priestly garments.

The Urim Vetumim was the manner in which God communicated His thoughts to the High Priest. If the Jewish people had a question of Hashem, they took the question to the Urim Vetumim. Before going into battle the Jewish people inquired of the Urim Vetumim. Rashi explains that Urim Vetumim contained a fold in it and in that fold the name of Hashem was placed. And even though it is not permitted for the Kohen Gadol to be lacking in any part of his priestly garments, she-ei efshar lekohen gadol lehiyot mechusar begadim, aval oto hashem lo hayah betocho, in the Second Temple the name of Hashem was no longer placed on the Kohen’s chest.

In other words there was a major change. In the time of the Mishkan and the First Temple, if the Jewish people had a question from Hashem, they just asked directly to the Urim Vetumim. But this ability diminished as prophecy disappeared.

Isn’t this what the holiday of Purim is all about? On Purim we recognize that we no longer have a clear and direct understanding of all of Hashem’s ways. His ways are hidden from us and we need to struggle to understand them. The transparent became shrouded in mystery.

So too, when it comes to the Third Temple, we can only speculate about the future. We can not be certain where exactly the Temple will be or how it will look. The overwhelming majority of sources indicate that the Temple will stand on the Temple Mount, but one major rabbi—the Rashash—even suggests that the Temple might be built on a different mountain. There is a lot of uncertainty. But one thing we can be certain about is that the Third Temple won’t look exactly like the Mishkan, or the First Temple, or even the Second Temple.

One of the most influential rabbis of the modern period is Rabbi Moshe Sofer, also known as the Chasam Sofer (d. 1839, Pressburg). He is famous for his Talmudic brilliance as well as the hard line stance he took against the spread of Reform Judaism. He is known as one of the staunchest supporters of fundamentalist Orthodoxy or ultra-Orthodoxy. This is illustrated by one of his most well known quips which is also a biblical pun: “Chadash assur min haTorah, the Torah prohibits innovations.”

Ironically, here is what the Chasam Sofer says about the Third Temple:

“I wonder how come none of the Temples, not the First, Second, or Third (May it come soon!), are similar to each other. This is difficult. For we know that a prophet is not permitted to innovate at all and they should have built the Temples just like the Tabernacle in the desert!

When God commanded us to build a sanctuary for Him in the desert, it was on the condition that in the future He will also show us through a prophet how to build the future sanctuaries.”

In other words, we do not yet have the blue print for the Third Temple. We don’t know exactly where on the Mount it will be and we don’t know how it will look.

This gives us tremendous flexibility and should cause us to shift our focus. Instead of looking at the Temple Mount as an exclusively Jewish place we should remember that its primary purpose was as a place of prayer where all of the nations come and call out to Hashem.

This is the true Messianic dream and vision. And after praying together with Sheikh Manasrah I believe that it is not as far away from us as we might think.

It is especially important to emphasize this message this Shabbat as it is Shabbat Zachor. In the passage of Zachor we are commanded to destroy and wipe away the memory of Amalek. This message has been twisted in the modern era and misapplied to Palestinians and Arabs in general. In fact, the rabbis clearly rule that we can no longer know who Amalek is and thus the reading of Zachor is meant in a symbolic manner today. And we must be so careful not to misinterpret and misapply this passage.

Another place I prayed on my recent trip to Israel was in Maarat Hamachpela, the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Chevron. It was a beautiful place to pray. And I want to return to Chevron with our congregation for an entire Shabbat. In Chevron, I felt connected like never before to our ancestors, Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leah.

But it is hard to pray there and not think of the Yeshiva students of the Chevron yeshiva murdered there in 1929. And it is also hard to pray there and not think of Baruch Goldstein who heard the passage of Amalek on Shabbat Zachor and then on Purim Day went out and desecrated God’s name by killing Muslims while they were praying peacefully in a Mosque that is located at Maharat Hamachpela.

Such an approach will never bring us a Third Temple. It will just us push us farther and farther away from our ultimate goal.

Last week the Third Temple arrived in the mail at my house.

When I was in Israel I bought a model of the Third Temple, based upon the prophecy of Ezekiel and shipped it home. One night this week my wife and I stayed up till 2 in the morning putting together this model. It took us around 6 hours to complete.

A model of the third Temple is relatively easy to build.

But to bring the Messiah, we must build a real model Temple; a model of prayer and sacred gathering for the future and for the world as a whole. And it will be a model of prayer that is perhaps something we have never seen before.

	Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld Joined: August 8, 2007 Shmuel is Rabbi of Ohev Sholom -- The National Synagogue, the oldest Orthodox synagogue in Washington, DC. His communal responsibilities include teaching classes, coordinating adult education, creating programs for the elderly,the youth, and the sick, and ministering to the pastoral needs of the... Divrei Torah (30)

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