by Doron Nir Tzvi, translated by Hillel Fendel
The People of Israel are thick in the midst of the process of Redemption. What is the next step?
Jewish history over the past 150 years has absolutely no parallel in the annals of any other people on the face of the earth. No other nation has ever merited a redemption and renewal like we have. No other people has ever returned to its homeland after an exile of 1,800 years like we have.
Following the beginning of the glorious and still ongoing Ingathering of the Exiles, the resurgence from the ashes of the Holocaust, the establishment of the State of Israel, the victories over the Arab armies, the liberation of parts of our homeland both west and east of the Jordan River, the settling of the Land in place of foreigners – the time has come to rise up one more level, and "prepare the hearts" for the construction of the Beit HaMikdash, the Holy Temple.
The Beit HaMikdash will advance us, with G-d's help, yet another step towards the dwelling once again of the Shechinah, the Divine Presence, in our midst. As the Torah states regarding the Tabernacle in the desert, which was the precursor to the Holy Temple: "They shall build me a Sanctuary, and I will dwell amongst them."
The Holy Temple is a foundational pillar of Judaism, and its location is the holiest place in Judaism. The destructions of both the First Temple and the Second Temple, respectively, marked the beginning of the end of Israel's independence and of national Jewish settlement and presence in the Land. But in addition, we must remember that the absence of the Beit HaMikdash renders irrelevant dozens of Torah commandments. These include the mitzvot of sacrifices, the special Yom Kippur service, certain tithes, and many more.
Back in 1966, Naomi Shemer, one of Israel's most popular songwriters (Jerusalem of Gold, for instance) and who grew up in the secular Kibbutz Kineret, wrote what became a very well-known song expressing the desire to build the Holy Temple:
If you hewed stone from the mountain for a new building /
Not for naught did you hew the stone, my brother /
For from these stones, the Temple will be built…
The last words – a declaration, a hope, or possibly a prayer – became a popular refrain among all strata of Israeli society: Yibaneh haMikdash, yibaneh haMikdash.
Since then, however, the general-secular public's ambition to build the Holy Temple has seen a significant regression, and is in fact practically non-existent at the current time. On the other hand, the numbers of people who wish to promote everything having to do with the Beit HaMikdash are growing, as are those who physically ascend "in purity" to visit the holy site atop the Temple Mount. ("In purity" means after having immersed in a ritual bath before ascending, in accordance with Biblical law.) Increasing numbers of yeshiva students and others are engaged in both the spiritual and physical aspects of the rebuilding of the Temple. Leading the charge, for nearly four decades now, is the Temple Institute in Jerusalem, headed by Rabbi Yisrael Ariel. The Institute has already prepared some of the holy utensils and Priestly garments that can be used, in their current form, in the actual Temple service.
However, we are well aware from previous campaigns, on "simpler" issues, that if we want to succeed, public opinion must be better prepared for the Mikdash than it currently is. We cannot deny that the current construction status of the Temple does not particularly concern most of Israel's right-wing leaders.
Nor can we overlook the fact that the hareidi leadership prefers to shunt the matter aside. The latter apparently assumes that at the right time, the Temple will descend in fire from the Heavens – even though when it comes to building their own homes, they actively and eagerly take the necessary action to accomplish this... The hareidi leadership has apparently not learned the lesson of the early days of modern Zionism, when they chose not to encourage mass Aliyah, preferring instead to believe that the Talmud's Three Oaths - not to rebel against the gentiles and the like - were still in effect. [One of the oaths required the gentiles not to subjugate the Jews too strongly, and the Sages ruled that since this oath was not fulfilled, the entire package of oaths became nullified. See also below.]
After the Balfour Declaration of 1917, when the gates of the Land of Israel were opened wide to all Jews, future Israeli president and then-Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann cried out, "Nation of Israel, where are you?" But the religious leadership did not arouse myriads of Jews to make Aliyah to the Holy Land, and the chance to provide a religious majority to the Jewish presence in the Land was lost until this very day. Only individual rabbis – though more than is often thought – made public calls for religious Aliyah.
Rabbi Meir Simcha of Dvinsk, for instance, who was known as the Ohr Same'ach, wrote that the oath referring to a "rebellion" against the gentiles was no longer applicable – given the 1921 San Remo Conference resolution in favor of the Balfour Declaration's recognition of the Holy Land as the site of a Jewish national home.
However, the call of Rav Meir Simcha, as well as of others, was too little and too late, as written up sadly in the scholarly Torah work Eim HaBanim Smeicha by one of the leading rabbis in Hungary, Holocaust victim Rabbi Yisachar Teichtal.
Today's nationalist camp also lacks courageous leadership that will enunciate the vision of building the Holy Temple on the Temple Mount without fear of the Gentiles. We are similarly in need of leadership that will champion the fact that our historic homeland stretches from the Nile to the Euphrates; neither of these causes are particularly politically correct. This, despite the call by nationalist leaders of previous generations: "The Jordan River has two banks – this one is ours, and so is the other;" today they seem to suffice with the two banks of the Yarkon River…
But every marathon begins with one stride, and every flood begins with the first raindrop. And so too, we must take initial steps and distinctly declare our vision for the establishment of the Holy Temple on the Temple Mount. The nations will condemn and the Arabs will yelp – but the truth must be stated strongly and clearly.
It must be the vanguard of the nation - the religious-nationalist public and its leaders - that will issue this call with confidence, strength, and persistence. The message will then trickle slowly down to the rest of the public, as occurred with the magnificent settlement enterprise in Judea and Samaria.
Incidentally, tens of millions of Evangelicals in the United States and around the world will support such a declaration and its sacred objective. This is because even according to their beliefs, the construction of the Mikdash is part of the Redemptive process. In addition, the Prophets foresee that the Holy Temple "will be called a house of prayer for all the nations." Perhaps too this will be a realization of the prophetic call that "the nations will say that G-d has done great things with [the Jews]" (Psalms 126), followed immediately by the words of the House of Israel, "G-d has done great things with us."
It should be remembered that in the past, great kings and leaders supported the construction of the Mikdash, such as King Cyrus of Persia, who allowed the reconstruction of the Second Temple. There was also Emperor Julian, known by the Christians as Julian the Apostate, who initiated the building of what would have been the Third Temple in the year 362; the project did not succeed.
It is very possible that 18 months from now, a Republican-Evangelical administration will be voted into office in the United States. And just like a recent similar government in Washington moved its embassy to Jerusalem, recognized the Jewish presence in its homeland of Judea and Samaria as legal, and declared that the Golan is an intrinsic part of the State of Israel – so too we can anticipate that the new government will declare that the Temple Mount is the holiest location in the Jewish world and that it is the Jews' right to rebuild the Holy Temple there.
It is incumbent upon us to prepare for this, to be people of vision, faith, and action – possibly regarding the Beit HaMikdash even more than in others. And in honor of this undertaking and the just-passed Jerusalem Day holiday, let us pray: "May the Temple be rebuilt and the city of Zion be filled, and there we will sing a new song and ascend in joy."