Home > Olives & Thorns > Archives > 2008 > October > 15 > Entry
The third temple
It’s the point from which the world expanded to its present form. It’s where God gathered earth to create the first man, Adam. Later, two temples were built there. The second was destroyed nearly 2,000 years ago, but the holiness of the temples sanctified the site for eternity.
During temple times, entry was limited by purity laws, so Israel’s leading rabbis warn Jews against entering the so-called Temple Mount — a 35-acre complex that comprises one-sixth of Jerusalem’s walled city — or face divine punishment by untimely death or eternal excommunication.
That didn’t stop a group of about 20 Orthodox Jews this morning. Despite the prohibition, religious Jews are visiting the Temple Mount in growing numbers.
“We know for sure where the temple should not be,” explained Hillel Weiss, who lives in the West Bank settlement of Elkana. Still, they tread softly, some in bare feet, as prescribed by the Torah.
“Our presence with kippot is a demand to rebuild the temple,” Weiss said, referring to the skull caps worn by observant Jews.
The obstacles in the way of a third temple are two Muslim mosques, which have been sitting atop the presumed temple ruins for roughly 1,300 years. The Temple Mount is known by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and is considered the third holiest site in Islam. It is from here that the prophet Mohammad ascended to heaven.
The group circumnavigated the temple, which meant they circumnavigated the gilded Dome of the Rock, a Muslim shrine that is Jerusalem’s most recognized building. But they didn’t see it. They never mentioned it.
“Now, I think we’re closest to the holiest place,” said the leader of the group, Yehuda Etzion, who was jailed for five years in the 1980s in a plot to blow up the two mosques.
After performing a version of the Hakel ceremony, prescribed after the seventh Sabbath year for the harvest, an Israeli police officer kicked them out. Jews are allowed to enter the Temple Mount, but not to pray.
Just through one of the gates exiting the area, the men held hands in a circle and danced. “May the temple be rebuilt in Zion,” they sang loudly and joyously, referring to Jerusalem. “May the temple be rebuilt in Zion.” Over and over again.
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