Posted on 07/21/2008 11:03:46 AM PDT by Raineygoodyear
The Temple Mount in Jerusalem is one of the most sacred places on earth, and one of the most contested.
For Jews, it's the place where the Holy Temple once stood.
Today Muslims control the Temple Mount and Jews are forbidden to worhip there. But that hasn't stopped some people from making plans to build the next temple.
Everyday, three times a day, Jews recite this prayer: "May it be your will that the temple be speedily rebuilt in our own time."
It's a prayer they've prayed for almost 2,000 years. But today, Jews here in Jerusalem are doing more than just praying.
Just a few steps away from the western wall, rabbis and craftsmen are building what they call a "temple in waiting."
Chaim Richman is a director at the Temple Institute in Jerusalem.
"The Temple Institute is actively engaged in the research and preparation of the resumption of service in the holy temple to the extent of actually preparing operational blueprints for the construction of the temple according to the most modern standards," he said.
This menorah is just one of several vessels being created for the next temple. It's covered with 95 pounds of pure gold and has a price tag of $2 million.
Piece by piece, the third temple is taking shape, with priest's garments, vessels of copper, gold, and silver, and a new generation of levite priests specially trained for temple service.
"We have enough in place now to resume divine service and to build the temple," Richman said. "But obviously, a lot of things have to happen in order for this to happen."
Richman isn't the only one who's ready to rebuild.
Some 3,000 years after King Solomon built the first Jewish temple, another Solomon is laying the foundations for the third one.
Gershon Solomon leads a group called The Temple Mount Faithful.
"From the womb of my mother, I have a task and a mission in my life, which is connected with the rebirth of Israel," he said.
The group commissioned these cornerstones for the third temple. The six-ton stones were consecrated with water from the biblical pool of Siloam and cut with diamonds.
For several years, Solomon and his followers tried to place the stones on the Temple Mount, and every year they were stopped by Israeli police.
"Unfortunately, weakness of the Israeli leadership did not allow us to bring the cornerstones to the right place," Solomon said. "The end-time temple should be built on the same location as the first and the second temple."
But that location is already occupied. The holiest site for Jews is also the third holiest site for Muslims.
"The issue of the Temple, it's so sensitive," Yousef Natsheh of the Palestnian Antiquities Authority explained. "It's not an undeniable fact; it's theories. The political situation, the misunderstanding, the mistrust distorted all the facts.
Muslim law forbids archaeologists from digging on the Temple Mount, so instead, Gabriel Barkay is digging through its trash.
"We have here the entire history of the Temple Mount," he said.
He and his team are sifting through truckloads of debris, unearthed by bulldozers and discarded by Muslim authorities.
Among their finds: an arrowhead from the Nabylonian invasion in 586 B.C. and a 2,400-year-old coin, the oldest ever minted in Jerusalem.
"A beautiful piece, tiny silver piece with an owl and the Hebrew inscription 'Yehud' which is the Aramaic name of Judea," Barkay said.
Some of the most dramatic traces of temple life have been unearthed here at the western wall.
On the walls, you can still see the marks from the fires that destroyed the temple in 70 A.D. Overturned stones are still lying where they were thrown from the top of the Temple Mount by the armies of Rome.
On one stone is a Hebrew inscription: "To the place of trumpeting."
Even more intriguing is the part of the western wall that's still underground.
Dan Bahat spent 40 years excavating the tunnels around the Temple Mount, and he says the most compelling case for the temple is yet to be discovered.
"I believe that behind this stone is a large arch which forms a storehouse, which stored all the treasures of the temple," he said. "In the future, when it will be possible to dig, maybe we'll get to there."
But Bahat's interest in the temple is strictly in its past, not in its future.
"There is no chance whatsoever for the third temple. The third temple will be when the Messiah comes," he said. "Both Jews and Christians are waiting for him so when he comes, let us see what happens. It won't happen before."
“Would anyone know how the Jews determine who is a genealogical Levite, if the temple records were destroyed in 70 AD?”
By DNA, of course.
I am a Cohen by name and family tradition — and participated in a DNA study of Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jewish men.
In a second study, Dr. Skorecki and associates gathered more DNA samples and expanded their selection of Y chromosome markers. Solidifying their hypothesis of the Kohens’ common ancestor, they found that a particular array of six chromosomal markers were found in 97 of the 106 Kohens tested. This collection of markers has come to be known as the Cohen Modal Haplotype (CMH)—the standard genetic signature of the Jewish priestly family. The chances of these findings happening at random is greater than one in 10,000.
The finding of a common set of genetic markers in both Ashkenazi and Sefardi Kohanim worldwide clearly indicates an origin pre-dating the separate development of the two communities around 1000 C.E. Date calculation based on the variation of the mutations among Kohanim today yields a time frame of 106 generations from the ancestral founder of the line, some 3,300 years, the approximate time of the Exodus from Egypt, the lifetime of Aharon HaKohen.
“Would anyone know how the Jews determine who is a genealogical Levite, if the temple records were destroyed in 70 AD?”
Methinks that you don’t have your facts straight:
http://www.outreachjudaism.org/genealogy.html
See also Post #22.
True, we have a Sefer Yuchsin, allegedly back to Aaron, but the version I have seen dates from the 1700s -— and my aunt go ahold of it, and she is a nut.
Personally, I have no idea. I just hope these people know what they're doing and aren't violating HaShem's will in any way.
May Mashiach come speedily and render all such debates academic!
Who?
Yes, a pure red heifer without blemish must be sacrificed before the foundation can be laid. However, no one knows what happened to the Ark of the Covenant.
Hmmmm, interesting. Personally, I don’t think that a cloned heifer would qualify because if G-d wants a red heifer to sacrifice, he will provide one naturally.
What race is that? I thought Kohanim were from India? as they say they are the ones of the Kohanim Priests..
and that Khazar Jews cannot be part of the Temple Priests
From some of the latest evidence I have been reading about...
I have no idea what “race” you mean. The tribe is Levi, just another semetic race, like pretty much most Jewish people, I guess.
I’m a lanky white guy. My family was kicked out of Spain during the Inquisition.
So naturally, the third holiest site for mooooslims must trump the the holiest site for Jews, since Islam is just oh so superior to all other religions. What is the 4th holiest site in Islam? The 5th? The 100th? How many "holiest" sites does a religion of murder and mayhem need?
Science has proved that we are descendants of the Cohanim or hereditary priests. This will improve our status in the Jewish community,’ says Ezra Moses, honorary secretary and trustee of Thane’s Shaar Hashamaim or Gate of Heaven synagogue.... ‘...Now the DNA tests have confirmed our claims,’ says Rachel Gadkar, a retired schoolteacher who recently published a book in Marathi called ‘Bharatiya Bene Israel’, that traces the origins of her community.... The current finding that the Bene Israel carry Moses’s genes is the result of a research project that started seven years ago.... Sixty-six-year old Phinas Bamnolkar, the hazan or cantor at the Thane synagogue says, ‘It was always our claim that we are descendants of Moses. Our claim has now been scientifically proved.’
That’s why I thought they were from India as some of the other writings is that the Original Tribes were not caucasions, and a caucasion cannot be considered a semite..I had not heard of that before
Slightly off topic:
1. There are all these signs at this place to the effect of “this item was donated in loving memory of Dr. and Mrs. Morris and Nancy Greenburg, of Cherry Hill, NJ.” Struck me as funny, for some unknown reason.
2. I know several of the people (relatives, in fact) who have been “practising” for the Temple. In recent Passovers, they went and observed the Samaritans (yes, there are a few left, probably 1,500) perform the ritual sacrifices to potentially copy their methods. I found this highly ironic, but then I am a cynic.
Of course, one could theoretically be a descendant of Aaron, and not be Jewish -— father decides your tribe, mom (or the mikvah, increasingly) determines your status as a Jew.
My daughters are not Jewish, for example, as I (detroying my status as a kohen, among other transgressions) married a non-Jew.
God has not abandoned His chosen people. The Jews will be brought into His Kingdom, perhaps through the temple with Christ at its head.
God alone may judge His people. By rejecting the Jews’ claim to Messiahship one condemns the Messiah.
That said, I hope these people know what they're doing. There are people who disagree with them.
So you are saying the tribe and the race are different?
Y-chromosome markers is to Jewish populations in the Middle East and beyond... Aaron thus became the first Jewish priest, or cohen, a tradition that has since been handed down from father to son. [Michael] Hammer, Karl Skorecki, David Goldstein, and colleagues studied Y markers from three hundred Jews, including more than one hundred cohanim, and found that half of the Jewish priests shared the same genetic signature, compared to less than 5 percent in the lay Jewish population.... The results of the DNA studies [of the Lemba people of South Africa] were stunning: a significant portion of the Lemba Y chromosomes exhibit the characteristic genetic signature found in the cohanim, including more than 50 percent of the Buba, one of the 12 Lemba clans. These markers have also turned up in the Bene Israel, the oldest Jewish community in India..
In the war of 1948, Abdallah’s Arab League, under British guidance, captured the eastern part of Jerusalem, including the Old City. The one significant change in the subsequent 19 years of Jordanian rule was the attempt to obliterate the Jewish presence and the signs of Jewish identity. It was at this time nonsense about the Temple Mount being a “holy site” in Islam started.
Jerusalem is not even mentioned in the koran.
It’s just B.S. to get arabs to kill Jews.
“So you are saying the tribe and the race are different?”
Sure. Tribal affilliation (from the 12) is dependent on the father. Jewishness is from the mother (or conversion).
You can think up any number of different scenarios where tribe and race don’t coincide.
Most Jewish people, for example, are “tribeless.” The exceptions are (generally) Levi and Cohen.
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