Our enemies' efforts to deny the Jewish connection to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount should inspire us to invest much more in deepening our awareness of the Temple and understanding its centrality in our lives. • Article by Rabbi Menachem Brod
The sages of Israel taught us a great rule, according to the verse (Psalms 113:3): "Make me wiser than my enemies." That is, sometimes it is the enemy’s behavior that makes me wiser and makes me understand how I should conduct myself and what are the things that I need to fight for with all my might.
In recent decades, our enemies have been investing great efforts in trying to deny the existence of the Temples on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, in complete contradiction to Muslim tradition itself. Ancient Islam saw the Stone of the Temple as the location of Solomon's Temple, and the construction of the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount was intended to glorify Jerusalem and present Islam as the successor to Judaism. Today, Muslims are trying to rewrite history and erase any Jewish connection to the Temple Mount and Jerusalem.
It all starts with consciousness.
This activity of our enemies should inspire us to take the opposite action. The attempts to deny the connection of the people of Israel to the Temple Mount should serve as a warning bell for us, if we have not fallen asleep a little in cultivating the connection to our holiest place.
In recent years, there are groups that have attempted to deepen the connection to the Temple Mount by visiting the site. Most Torah and mitzvot observant Jews do not support this approach, given the absolute prohibition of the great men of Israel to ascend the Temple Mount. But this does not mean, God forbid, that the Temple Mount should be left out of the consciousness.
It all begins with consciousness. Why was such a strong outburst of emotion aroused during the Six-Day War, at the sound of Mota Gur's cry, "The Temple Mount is in our hands!"? Why did this cry spread like lightning throughout the Jewish world and cause Jews from diverse backgrounds to shed tears of excitement? Because the people of Israel lived for thousands of years with the consciousness that "the Temple Mount will soon be built in our time." The thought that the site of the Temple was now back in Jewish hands sent a tremor through hearts.
The attempts of our enemies to deny this are a signal from heaven that we must engage in deepening the awareness of the Temple and instilling it in the younger generation. We must know every detail of the Temple structure and be well-versed in the procedures for working in it. The very act of engaging in these issues will make us feel more strongly about the rebuilding of the Third Temple soon in our day.
A house of prayer for all nations
Increasing engagement with Temple issues is also important to those within us who try to portray those who wish to build the Temple as 'crazy' and 'sleepwalkers.' The more Jews engage with Temple issues and establish awareness of its centrality in Jewish life as a whole, the clearer it will be that this is the original Jewish view, which sees the future vision in the building of the Third Temple, which will be "a house of prayer... for all peoples" (Isaiah 50:7).
The Third Temple, which will be built by our righteous Messiah, will bring the good news of peace to all of humanity. This is the answer to all the 'worried' ones who are troubled by the question of how it will be possible to build the Third Temple on the site where a mosque stands. Well, the Muslims themselves will vacate the mosque...
Thus, Maimonides states at the end of his book that all differences between religions exist only in the time before the coming of the Messiah, but "when the King Messiah stands in truth, and succeeds, and is exalted and exalted, immediately they will all return and know that their fathers inherited a lie, and that their prophets and ancestors tasted the truth." Soon in our days!
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