I just came back from the place you see in the picture below, and it was much less crowded than in past years. In fact, the crowds this year were so small that the buses actually came in the Dung Gate and parked right outside the parking lot. I cannot remember the last time that happened on Tisha b'Av - usually you have to walk outside the walls of the Old City.
Lots of people dump irrelevant links to their own blogs into my comments (which is one of the reasons I moderate comments), but today I got one that was really good and I urge you all to read it. It's called Math v. Anti-Semitic Propaganda and you can find it here.
Here are the 'Palestinians' celebrating the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers on the Temple Mount. The 'three-fingered salute' signifies that they are celebrating.
Let's go to the videotape.
Still waiting for the day that the entire Temple Mount collapses with its Muslim impurities, the defilers of the Temple Mount all die a painful death, and the Third Temple descends from the Heavens and takes its rightful place (see the book of Ezekiel).
In the summer of 1990, before we made aliya, Mrs. Carl and I and the then-three children spent half a day with an organization that was creating the priestly garments and the vessels for the Temple - may it be restored speedily and in our time. The highlight of the day (for us) was when they showed us a model of the wash-basin and asked who knew how the Kohain (priest) stood when washing from the wash basin. Son # 1, child # 2 - then just short of 5-years old - immediately reached down and grabbed his ankles with his hands. We snapped a picture, and it instantly became the talk of the pre-1A class at YKP, where he went to school at the time.
The place we visited that day is known as the Temple Institute. On Sunday morning, the Leftists at Army radio (yes, even IDF radio is dominated by the Left) reported with horror that the Temple Institute is receiving government funding. No, it's not a huge amount, but it's enough to set the chattering classes into a tizzy. Fortunately, the government agencies in question aren't saying 'we didn't know.' Instead, they are defending the funding. For now.
The Education Ministry responded to the Army Radio report, saying:
“The nonprofit meets criteria for receiving subsidies that go toward
instructing students who visit the institute, and this has been the case
for over 10 years now.”
“The Temple Institute deals with
research, and it is supported by the ministry in accordance with
professional criteria that has nothing to do with directly supporting
the individual who heads it,” a Culture and Sport Ministry spokesperson
said in response.
“Thus far we have found nothing that would
raise suspicions of incitement or anything unusual as it relates to the
temple. In light of the Army Radio report, it is the ministry’s
intention to bring this matter to the attention of our legal
department.”
The Temple Institute responded:
“For over 25 years the Temple Institute has stood at
the forefront of research, education and preparation towards the time of
the rebuilding of the Holy Temple,” a spokesperson for the Temple
Institute told The Jerusalem Post. “The Institute's efforts have been
recognized and awarded by Israel's Ministry of Education. Its
trailblazing educational materials and scholarly publications have
revolutionized these difficult areas of Torah knowledge for young and
old alike.”
“Over one million people from all over the world, of
every background and religion, have visited the Institute's exhibition
located in Jerusalem's Old City," the spokesperson said. "The Temple
Institute's website is the most popular and educational web site on the
subject of the Holy Temple in the world."
"The rebuilding of the
Holy Temple, called by the prophet Isaiah a 'house of prayer for all
nations,' is a positive commandment, and the vision of the Temple's
rebuilding, which will usher in an unparalleled era of world peace and
harmony, is the central theme of the entire Torah. The Temple Institute
is proud to represent the concept which has been heartfelt prayer of the
Jewish people for two millennia.”
Any Jew who goes to synagogue prays for the restoration of the Temple. Orthodox Jews pray for it at least three times a day. As far as I know, prayers for the restoration of the Temple continue to appear in prayer books of the Conservative movement as well. While the Reform movement originally removed all references to the Temple, that was part and parcel of their removing the land of Israel (pre-state) from their prayers. But the land of Israel was restored to the Reform prayer book many years ago and I believe that the Temple was restored then too (caveat - I have not seen conservative or reform prayer books in recent years).
Let's be honest with ourselves. When the Temple is rebuilt, it is going to be rebuilt on the very same mountaintop where the dome of the rock and the al-aqsa mosque sit today. By definition, the rebuilding of the Temple, which is something we pray for every day, means no more false religions on the Temple Mount. And while no one is suggesting that we send the IDF to clear the Temple Mount tomorrow morning (maybe we should), we should not fool ourselves that we are praying for something else when we say in our prayers, "And may our eyes see when You return to Zion with mercy."
If the Israeli government cannot support an organization that is educating people about Jewish belief in our future, I have to wonder by what right the Israeli government calls itself a Jewish government.
Twelve and a half years ago, Mrs. Carl and I and the then-baby took a week-long trip to Spain using frequent flier mileage and compensation from Iberia for sending my luggage to Cuba a couple of years before (really!). For the Sabbath we were in Madrid and stayed in a hotel called the Trafalgar, because it was the only hotel that was in walking distance to the Chabad emissary, who was the only Kosher place to eat on the Sabbath.
The emissary had 20-30 people at his table, some of whom were Brits, and I can recall that when I mentioned the name of the hotel where we were staying, one of the Brits remarked that it was odd that the Spaniards chose to remember their defeats. Well, it's not so odd. We Jews do the same thing. It's called Tisha b'Av.
On that date the following awful events occurred:
586 BCE – The First Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians
70 AD – The Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans and the Jews
fled into the Diaspora – mostly areas surrounding the Mediterranean
including Spain.
133 CE – Simon bar Kochba Revolt with remaining Jews warring against the Romans brutally butchered in the final battle at Betar.
1290 – July 18 King Edward I expelled the Jews of England
1492 – August 2 – Expulsion of Jews from Spain as a result of the
Inquisition. Among them a likely Jew, Christopher Columbus, who, with
his Jewish navigators, took his 3 ships to look for riches in the New
World.
1941 – August 2 – The German Nazi SS murdered 600 Jews in Targivica,
Ukraine with the Ukrainians participating joyously as “Willing
Executioners.” (Hitler’s Willing Executioners by Daniel Jonah Goldhaggen 1996 No. 1 bestseller)
So why do we remember our tragedies? Watch the video here to find out.
I will be offline for parts of today and tomorrow, because synagogue services are longer, because I need to contemplate the destruction, and because blogging while sitting on the floor is not easy. When I return from the afternoon prayers at the Kotel tomorrow, I will blog more regularly.
A reminder that the Kotel (Western Wall) is the outside wall of the Temple Mount on which the Temple actually stood, and visiting it on Tisha b'Av can be particularly moving.
May we be privileged to see the Third Temple on the Temple Mount, speedily and in our time.
Speaking at an archaeological conference next
to the West Bank settlement of Shilo and quoted by Maariv, Ariel called
for a third Temple to be built on the site, which today is home to the
Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque and is considered Judaism’s
holiest site and Islam’s third holiest.
“We’ve built many little, little temples,”
Ariel said, referring to synagogues, “but we need to build a real Temple
on the Temple Mount.”
The Jerusalem site was home to Judaism’s first
and second Temples, both of which were destroyed, the second one in 70
CE. The idea of building a third Temple, while popular among some
religious and right-wing Jews, is considered outside mainstream Israeli
discourse by most.
Last year, Jewish Home MK Zevulun Orlev also
called for the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple, saying that removing the
Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque would mean that the
“billion-strong Muslim world would surely launch a world war.” However,
he added, “everything political is temporary and there is no stability.”
I'll tell you all a secret: I call for the Third Temple to be built three times a day. It's part of our daily prayers. But according to the Prophet Ezekiel, it's going to descend from Heaven all built when God decides that we're ready for it. And there are a lot of things we need to fix before then....
As I am sure most of you are aware, today is the first day of Chanuka, which celebrates the Jewish people retaking the Second Temple from the Greeks more than 2000 years ago. If you'd like to wish me a Happy Chanuka by sending some Chanuka gelt, please click the PayPal link on the right.
The story of Hanukah is the archetypal story of the fight for
religious freedom. It has been adopted and celebrated by American
presidents at the White House for more than a decade, as an American
tribute to the biblical roots of the country’s national dedication to
freedom. For 2,000 years religious Jews, Christians and Muslims, and
later secular scholars, have all believed that the temple ruins lie
beneath the two Muslim mosques that were later built upon the Temple
Mount by conquering Arabs after the death of Muhammad — and that the
surviving pre-Islamic “Wailing Wall” is the outer wall of the Temple
courtyard that existed in Roman times during the ministry of Jesus.
However, 13 years ago, the late Yasser Arafat (and since then his
political heirs have taken up the cause) abruptly decided that there is
no evidence that there ever was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem and,
therefore, that Jews — and ipso facto Israelis — have no right to claim
Jerusalem as their religious, historical and political capital. A wave
of Temple denial is now sweeping the Arab and Islamic world and many
fellow intellectual travellers in the journalistic and archaeological
world are joining the bandwagon.
The historical, archaeological and literary evidence for the
existence of the sacred Jewish temple underneath and beside the two
Mosques that now bestride the Temple Mount is overwhelming. It includes
thousands of scholarly articles and books supported by scores of
archaeological digs and studies of historical documents. The best
introduction to the topic is Cambridge Professor Simon Goldhill’s most
readable book, The Temple of Jerusalem.
For over a decade the Muslim authorities (the Waqf) who now control
the Temple Mount have been despoiling its archaeology through illegal
excavations and site destruction. Nevertheless, the physical evidence
that they have discarded, and which Israeli archaeologists pore over
like forensic scientists at a crime scene, shows signs of the temple’s
existence, the most recent being coins minted by the Hasmonean rulers of
Judea who were the royal and priestly heirs of the Maccabees, as well
as coins minted during the first Jewish revolt against the Romans in 70
AD. It was these pagan conquerors who burnt the temple and brought its
sacred treasure back to Rome, and whose golden menorah was beautifully
reproduced on the Arch of Titus. A three-dimensional copy of this
menorah now stands in front of the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem,
walking distance from where the original once stood, 2,000 years
earlier.
As the Bible is rarely taught in our schools and universities, and as
it has, at the same time, become popular to argue that only the winners
write history (that it is to say there are no historical facts), let us
see how some of the biggest winners in Middle Eastern history have
written about the Temple in Jerusalem. I mean the religious and secular
scholars of the conquering Muslims who made the land of Israel part of
their Islamic empire until the Turks lost it to the British during the
First World War.
Newest 'Palestinian' libel: Israel using chemicals to erode al-Aqsa mosque foundations
The 'Palestinians' latest libelous attempt to incite the world into a frenzy claims that the Joooz are using chemicals to erode the foundations of the al-Aqsa mosque.
This is from official 'Palestinian' television on August 3. Let's go to the videotape.
The 'Palestinians' are just projecting what they regard as acceptable behavior onto us. This is from the official 'Palestinian' daily newspaper, al-Hayat al-Jadida from the same day.
"The expert on Al-Aqsa mosque structure and Jerusalem Affairs, Engineer Jammal Amr, has warned that traces of dangerous chemicals have been found in the foundations of the Al-Aqsa mosque. He also emphasized that Israeli occupation forces use substances that induce dissolving in their excavations under Al-Aqsa, in order to fracture the [mosque's] foundations and bring about its collapse... There are [Israeli] specialists spreading the chemicals at night, and removing the traces during the day. In addition, he emphasized that this [Israeli] attack on the Al-Aqsa mosque is the most audacious of the last three years, and that ever since Jerusalem was declared a capital of Arab culture in 2009, the occupation authorities have embarked on a dramatic offensive to Judaize the city and utterly erase its original [Arab] landmarks.
Ammar emphasized that the recurring incursions by settlers (i.e., Jews visiting the Temple Mount) are carried out under the auspices of the occupation government and with its blessing, and that the sanctity of the Al-Aqsa mosque is grievously defiled by functionaries implementing the schemes of the occupation."
We don't need to destroy the mosques. When the time comes, God will do it for us.
The video, which the Temple Institute says is designed to “change the way people think about the Temple and the commandment to rebuild it,” has garnered almost 200,000 hits in five days. It depicts two children building a sand-castle model of the Temple on a beach, and fleetingly features a copy of The Jerusalem Post open to an article about new Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi.
...
According to the Temple Institute, Egyptian activists flooded the YouTube page of the video with anti-Semitic and anti-Israel slogans – which were subsequently removed – protesting what they interpreted as a subversive suggestion that Mursi would not hinder the rebuilding of the Temple on the Temple Mount, where the Dome of the Rock shrine and Al-Aksa Mosque stand.
Several Egyptian and Palestinian news websites also picked up on the video.
Let's go to the videotape. Music warning for those who don't listen to music during the nine days (again, music not the key here) and yes, I showed this video earlier in the week.
More below the fold.
According to its website, the Temple Institute’s “long-term goal is to do all in our limited power to bring about the building of the Holy Temple in our time,” while in the short term seeking to “rekindle the flame of the Holy Temple in the hearts of mankind through education.”
The organization has reproduced the Temple vessels in strict accordance with Jewish law, including a golden Menora costing $2 million, and also strongly advocates Jewish prayer rights on the Temple Mount.
In response to the backlash over the video, it said that the paper having fallen open to a page featuring Mursi was entirely coincidental, and that the film was meant as “an educational tool for Jews during the nine days [of mourning from the first to the ninth of Av], to enrich their understanding of the Holy Temple as a house of peace and prayer which is truly missed.”
According to the institute, people have become “entrenched in mourning for the sake of mourning, instead of contemplating the true meaning of the Tisha Be’av: the loss of the Beit Hamikdash [Temple], a universal house of prayer and peace for all nations.” The video seeks to redress this, it said.
The Egyptians can seethe all they want, but when God decides it's time, it's time, and not a moment will be wasted.
The mourning for the Holy Temples shifts up a gear tonight with the onset of the Jewish month of Av and the '9 days' (which last ten days this year thanks to the 9th being a Sabbath). For those of you who are wondering what it's all about, this might help.
Here's a remix of Yossi Green's Anovim (Modest Ones) sung by Mordechai Ben David with pictures of how the battle of Gog and Magog and the Third Temple may look (many of the pictures will be familiar to you).
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
