Posted on 12/21/2004 7:09:06 AM PST by ZGuy
Former chief Sephardi Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu wrote a few days ago in the journal Mayanei Hayeshua that the foundation stone of the Temple Mount gives strength and ability to whoever possesses it. He offered no elaboration of this remark. But among the Temple Mount movements, a similar understanding has taken hold.
For years, many members of these movements have believed that Israel's enemies draw their strength and their ability to threaten and hurt the Jewish people directly from their control over Judaism's holiest site - from their hold on the Temple Mount.
According to this theory, the very existence of mosques on the ruins of the Temple and the fact that the Temple Mount has been controlled for decades by Muslim religious authorities permanently weakens Israel's ability to cope with threats and pressure, whether domestic or foreign, and at the same time, gives strength to the enemy.
Even Uri Elitzur, the editor of Nekuda, who is not associated with any of the Temple Mount movements, once commented in this vein that religious feeling is a powerful political force, both for Jews and for Muslims, and anyone who ignores it demonstrates not that he does not understand religion, but that he does not understand politics. "To hold the Land of Israel without ownership of the Temple Mount is rather like platonic love," he said.
But despite Muslim control over the mount, which was allowed by Moshe Dayan in 1967, both Elitzur and Rabbi Eliyahu are far from thinking of blowing up the mosques. Even Rabbi Shlomo Goren, who died about 10 years ago, rejected this idea, although in June 1967 he proposed it to GOC Central Command Uzi Narkiss and Air Force Commander Moti Hod. Rabbi Goren eventually concluded that if the mosques were blown up, the Israeli government would just have to solicit donations from world Jewry to rebuild them, and there could be no greater desecration of God's name than this.
But among the extremists in the Temple Mount movements, a different wind is blowing these days. As the evacuation of the Gush Katif settlements draws near, a return to the old beliefs - the ones that Rabbi Yeshua Ben Shushan tried to put into practice 25 years ago, in the framework of the Jewish underground - has become evident. On the eve of the evacuation of the Yamit settlement in Sinai, Ben Shushan, basing himself on kabbalistic sources, concluded that "Muslim control of the Temple Mount is the root of the corruption of the Jewish nation, and this control gives Islam a spiritual wellspring from which its believers draw the strength of their presence in Israel." Ben Shushan and some of his comrades therefore reasoned that removing this "abomination" from the mount by blowing up the mosques would halt the withdrawal from Sinai.
In recent years, this simplistic outlook has penetrated the extreme margins of religious society, particularly the group known as the "Hilltop Youth" and small groups of the newly religious. The worldview of some of these groups is characterized by uncompromising messianism, alongside an anachronism that almost blatanly disconnects them from Israeli society and the state. Some of these young men "dropped out" of mainstream ultra-Orthodox or religious Zionist society because of crime or drug problems.
Another segment of the Hilltop Youth stresses a connection to the land and nature, but its worldview is ultra-Kahanist. In the past, hookups between these two groups have given rise to attempts to attack the Temple Mount. The Lifta Gang, "nature lovers" who lived near the spring at the entrance to Jerusalem, teamed up with a "newly religious" criminal of the Shimon Barda type (January 1984) and almost succeeded in blowing up the mosques on the mount. Uzi Mahsiya Ha'elyon and Yehuda Limai, members of the Lifta Gang who were later acquitted in court, used to compare the two domes of the Temple Mount mosques to two foreskins that had to be removed.
The only people capable of reaching such groups - or groups that are not "kabbalistic," but view blowing up the Temple Mount as an effective means of torpedoing the evacuation of Gush Katif - in order to prevent an attack on the mount and the disaster that the Muslim world would wreak on us in retaliation, are the rabbis of the Temple Mount movements.
Most of these rabbis understand that blowing up the mosques would not only fail to hasten the redemption or prevent territorial withdrawals and settlement evacuations, but would in fact accelerate the withdrawals and evacuations. Most also understand that even though it might have been possible to act differently 37 years ago and establish a significant Jewish presence on the mount, the wall that separates the people of Israel from the mount would only be reinforced by such a mad act, while the state of Israel and its government would pay a much higher price, first and foremost on the Temple Mount, if the mosques were damaged.
There is no point in talking to them about the risks inherent in such an act. But about the guaranteed collapse of their dream, of which a small portion might still be obtainable via a final-status agreement, there is most certainly a point in talking to them.
No theologian here, but I suspect God is not so easily swayed.
Sure, he might be angry that there is a pagan shrine on the Temple Mount, but the idea that God is giving the Paleo-Stinians power merely because they possess the territory is a bit totemistic to me.
I strongly believe that God is not "controlled" (bit strong of a word, can't think of another, perhaps "swayed" again or "influenced") by use of what is effectively a magic charm.
He looks through to the purpose, faith, and subservience to His will.
Let them be relocated outside the Temple Proper then, as a demonstration of Islam's peaceful nature. Yes, I am of course, being sarcastic.
The Mosques and their builders should be removed from the Temple Mount. Its a Sacred and Holy Place for Jews, just as Hagia Sophia is a Holy and Sacred Place for Christians.
The Muslims must be forced to vacate the many religious sites of other faiths which they have captured, desacrated and profaned.
Somehow flying airplanes into mosques come to mind........
Meanwhile, "the stone which the builders rejected" is become the chief foundation stone of the true, new abode of God on earth, His people. Christians.
Merry Christmas, all!
Or dropping nukes on Mecca.
Bad things can happen all around when one declares a holy war.
I don't disagre at all.
Yup...completely correct IMO.
Why blow it up? A fire truck full of pig pee would render that place as desolate as the souls of those who worship in those mosques.
Israel to Renovate Crumbling Entrance to Disputed Holy Site in Jerusalem's Old City
Eastern Temple Mount wall may collapse
Temple Mount Collapse? Southern Wall of Temple Mount
Jordanians to replace Temple Mount southern wall stones; western wall also bulging
Why aren't there any Messianic types digging tunnels under the mosques to fill with explosives which would be detonated around Friday afternoon sometime......?....
http://www.neveh.org/winston/parsha63/matosm.html
The Midrash relates how Eisav wanted to murder Ya'akov [after the latter secretly took the blessings meant for his brother. However, he worried that killing him outright would bring him capital punishment from the court of Shaim and Eiver. Therefore, he schemed to involve a third party in the assassination, which he did by marrying Machlas, daughter of Yishmael (Bereishis Rabbah 67:8)
According to the Midrash, Eisav had planned to incite Yishmael against Ya'akov. For, just as Ya'akov had usurped Eisav's role as the firstborn, Yishmael's younger brother -Yitzchak Avinu - had also pushed him out of the first position in Avraham's family. And, though his scheme was never fulfilled, apparently the groundwork was laid for collaboration between the descendants of Eisav and Yishmael to conspire against B'nei Ya'akov.
Thus, the Ya'akov-Eisav relationship is the paradigm, and the Yerushalayim-Caesaria relationship is a function of it. To control Yerushalayim, therefore, is to control Ya'akov, to a large extent, and to hold off the Final Redemption, as the following makes clear:
The following great idea of the [Vilna] Gaon became known: there are only two commandments which a person's entire body has to enter into in order to fulfill them: the commandment of succah, and that of Eretz Israel. This is hinted to in the posuk, "Then His Tabernacle (succo) was in Shalem, and His Dwelling in Tzion" (Tehillim 76:3). The Gaon adds that the commandment regarding succah requires one to construct it for this purpose, that is, to fulfill a positive commandment, and not to use that which previously existed. It is likewise with respect to Tzion, as it states in the Midrash on the posuk, "A redeemer will come to Tzion" (Yeshayahu 59:20). For, as long is Tzion is not yet built, the redeemer will not come. As Chazal have said, only "after Jerusalem is built, will the son of David will come" (Megillah 17b). According to the Midrash, the Ben Dovid will not come until Jerusalem is built. (Chapter 1:7)
"Why aren't there any Messianic types digging tunnels . . ."
Slackers.
AMEN and Merry Christmas
I have a friend who was an archeologist....The temple Holy of Holies was located almost 150 yds away from where the Dome of the Rock stands now....A new Temple could be constructed without destroying anything.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.