The Ninth of Av mourning is an apotheosis of Jewish hypocrisy. Jews, victorious in six wars against the Arabs, keep praying at the Wailing Wall. Actually, not. It is the Arabs who pray nearby while the victorious Jews wail at the wall. Jews even welcome tourists to see how assiduously the Jews wail. Tourists are banned from Mecca and the insides of the Vatican, are severely restricted from Al Aqsa, but the Jews bring busloads of tourists to watch the Jews wailing.
The Western Wall is a Jewish hall of shame. A shame for the last forty years when we failed to tear down that wall. Jerusalem is ours. The Temple Mount is ours. Jews don’t have to wail at the remains anymore. The forty years were enough to build the real thing, the Temple.
We have won. Get used to it. Israeli victories might not usher in the messianic era, but so long as Jews possess Jerusalem, we should rejoice rather than weep.
The Jews keep praying, "Next year – in Jerusalem!" instead of taking the next flight to Israel. We’re the happiest Jews for the last two thousand years because we securely possess our country, but blind Jewish leaders want to share it with our Arab enemies. We conquered the Temple Mount – the place, you choose it, of immeasurable sanctity or immeasurable national importance – and still wail at the remnants below.
The Israeli government bans Jews from praying at the Temple Mount lest the Arabs be offended. The government missed that we have already offended the Arabs by establishing the Jewish state in their midst and by winning every war they started. Arabs fought us over statehood and over borders; okay, let them fight us over the Temple Mount. In fact, they won’t. Muslims worldwide did not riot when the Jews took over Jerusalem. The Muslims expected the victorious Jews to assert their religious and nationalist jurisdiction over the most important place in the world, and shook their heads in disbelief when Moshe Dayan returned to them the Temple Mount.
Assimilated Israeli leaders resent posing as barbaric religious Jews before their Gentile friends. The Third Temple would embarrass the likes of Olmert: it’s hard to talk peace and modernity in Washington when back in your capital a high priest in golden breastplate burns sheep in the sin offering.
Rabbinical leaders, too, don’t want the Temple. For all the superficial rites they observe, they are atheists. They pushed God from real life into a transcendent realm. Their God is concerned with driving on Sabbath rather than the Temple or the Land of Israel. The rabbis fear government, not God – and concur with the political establishment about Arab control of the Temple Mount, disengagement from Judea, and the Arab presence in Israel. The rabbis ban Jews from the Temple Mount for the fear of desecrating the Holy of Holies’ remains while the Arabs build lavatories there. Just like Pompeius, the high priest of the Third Temple will see the Holy of Holies as an empty room.
If you don’t rebuild the Temple when every possibility to do so exists, stop hypocritically mourning its earlier destruction.
Good post Ovadiah.
Some observations: It is really true that rabbis don't want the temple. But is because with the temple, their false authority is gone. The temple was more than a place. It was the centre where discussions ended. The high priest word was the true, and more in times of Urim and Tumim working.
But, a simple question should to be done:
Once the temple is built, who will be the priest?
It is not enough to be Levi or Cohen to be priest, since this rol has to be hereditary and G-d choosen. If simply you put a levi there, nothing will work.
I think the third temple may be built as just a building, as a monument, but, not as a real temple. Because, even if we have today the means to build the greatest temple ever, we have lost the priest line. Not by us, it was lost with the first temple destruction.
Just a beatiful building, maybe the Sahnedrin, and so, but forget the Schina there…
Shalom,
Thats rediculous. Hashem can surely show us the correct cohen for the job. I personally know one who looks like Rabbi Yishmayol and has lit a manorah every night for the last 20 years, atleast in practice to do the real thing. He does otherthings too. He most probobly is a gilgul of R. Yismoyal.
God forbid to even suggest the Shechinah left the people of Yisreal. It was even with us in exile. There are many who know. This is all I can say.
"If you don’t rebuild the Temple when every possibility to do so exists, stop hypocritically mourning its earlier destruction." Ouch.
Except, the Tish B'Av services here (we always "crash" the Conservatives for this) mourn the sin which brings judgement as well as the fullness of the judgement. Who knows, even the Reform might do something similar.
As for the Shechinah, it went into exile with the children.
Yes, the question of who shall serve is a serious one. It is important to be aware that the Sanhedrin moved off of the temple mount forty years before its destruction, and the pharisee movement had been going for quite some time before that.
A serious attempt at building the third temple today might well shatter much of what unity there is in world Jewry today–although the charismatic Christians would be all for it. :& But the attempt must be made. Torah commands it.
No, the line was not lost with the first destruction. There were a few confused cases, but those were resolved. I expect that it is lost now. I also expect that there is a relatively straight-forward way to identify an acceptable man.
You are so right! I have forwarded your essay and hope that more people do the same. Just one question, are you a tzaddick?
Meir Kahana was right. What would Dayan say and/or do? Olmert and his cohorts are traitors. Israel is being destroyed by the Israelis. They will not stop in time. What will the world look like without Israel?
I mean the Schina in the temple. Not with Am Israel. Melach Adam, if you believe in gigul, re-encarnation, I have nothing to discuss with you. For Nathan: Read Josephus. 200 years before the temple destruction, Urim and Tumim cease to work. Does it says something to you? DO you know how the temple works? If jews are idolaters, It does not work at all. Guess what is happening now?
If the right Cohen a Gadol is not there, forget it. Now, to find the right line, well, you have to simply wait for the Exodus-like events to happen. DO you see something so great in our near future? Please, learn and read Torah, not what rabbis say..
chaim,
This generation may have more merit than you think. Alot of people are doing alot of things in the service of Hashem. And Go-d searches the heart. The main thing is His mercy. He has had many chances to get rid of us it that was what he wanted to do. There have also been many supernatural wonders Hashem has perform through his sadeekem. As far as gilgul what you mean mean. You have learned parsha mishpotim and Shar gillgulim, writing from Eliyahu by the Ar'i and you think its lies or what ?
Melach Adam, About gilgul, I cannot even start to discuss. Please refer to tanach only.
Chiam,
One thing I just remembered you should concider. Realize even the Tanach is the product of Rabinic Judiasm. As explained in Gemorah Safer Torah and in Nadarim. In these places the mesorah of how the Torah is written and read is explained. It is from this tradition that we have Tanach today so a rejection of Rabinic judiasm ultimately results in rejecting the Torah itself, As they brought it to us.
Melech Adam:
"in these places the mesorah of how the Torah is written and read is explained" Mesorah, tradittion, is just that, tradition, not always the truth. You have a lot of sources for reading tanach also.So you please choose betwwen Tanach, and the rabbinic explain, Talmud, with Mishnah and Gemurah. But, first choose between Talmud Yerushalmi or Babiloni, since there is differences between them. I stay with Tanach, with preference to Yonathan and Onkelos targum.