THE STRUGGLE ON THE TEMPLE MOUNT
by the late Chief Rabbi, Rav Shlomo Goren
(Yibane HaMikdash, issue 110, originally in Darchei Torah)
With the first military deployment in the liberated and united Jerusalem, I decided that the time has come to establish facts on the ground, and I started to organize Jewish prayer services on the Temple Mount, in areas permissible for those defiled by contact with the dead to enter.
In these great days, I could not free myself from the thought that, from a historical perspective, the designation of the Western Wall Plaza for Jewish prayer is only the result of Jews being banned from the Temple Mount by the Crusaders and by Moslems together. Hence, an intolerable situation has been created, that even after the liberation of the Temple Mount, the Moslems remained up on the Temple Mount, and we stayed down below, them inside and us outside.
Prayer by the Western Wall is a sign of destruction and exile, and not freedom and redemption, since Jewish prayer by the Western Wall started only in the 16th century. Before that, Jews had prayed on the Temple Mount for centuries, and when they were expelled, they prayed on the Mountain of Olives, across from the Eastern Gate. Jews have been praying by the Western Wall for only about three hundred years.
In the framework of the function of the Military Rabinate, we held organized study and prayer on the Temple Mount -- Shacharit (morning service), Mincha (afternoon service), and Ma'ariv (evening service), and Torah reading on Shabbat, Monday, and Thursday on the Temple Mount Plaza itself, inside the Mugrabi Gate, near our study center. Once, the Waqaf people tried to close the Shevatim Gate, on the northeastern end of the Temple Mount, from a gathering of officers of the Military Rabinate that was held on the Temple Mount. We broke through the gate and entered. That taught them the Temple Mount is ours officially and practically.
On the 9th of Av, 5727 (1967 ce), I held a Mincha (afternoon) service for a small group on the Temple Mount Plaza across from the steps going up south of the Dome of the Rock, a place that is permissible to enter according to all halachic authorities. This Mincha service on the 9th of Av on the Temple Mount raised many reactions in the media in Israel and abroad. Jewish writers hostile to religion in the State started incitement against our efforts to renew Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount.
HANDING THE KEYS TO THE WAQAF
In the midst of deliberations, in both governmental and religious frameworks,
about renewing Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount and building a permanent
synagogue on the open southern plain, the Minister of Defense told me,
to my great surprise, that he decided to pass the auspices and responsibilities
for all arrangements on the Temple Mount to the Islamic Waqaf. He ordered
me to take the Torah study center of the Military Rabinate down from the
Temple Mount and to remove all officers of the Temple Mount. From then
on, according to him, the Military Rabinate has no responsibility for the
arrangements there, and I should stop organizing Jewish prayer on the Temple
Mount. I accepted the order with anger and pain, and I told the Minister
of Defense that this is likely to bring about a third destruction, since
the key to our sovereignty over Judea, Samaria, and Gaza is the Temple
Mount.
IN THE NEWS
Jerusalem Post 20 January 1997, page 12
HAI VEKAYAM ACTIVISTS ACQUITTED
The Jerusalem Magistrate's Court yesterday acquitted five Hai Vekayam
activists of charges of illegal assembly and attacking a policeman who
prevented them from entering and praying at the Temple Mount. Judge Ya'acov
Tzaban ruled that the defense had not proven that they attacked the policeman
and said it was not illegal for them to gather by the Street of Chains
entrance to the Temple Mount. Moshe Feiglin, Haim Nativ, and three others
had been charged with blocking the entrance to the Temple Mount in April
1995, but a video tape incident they submitted as evidence supported their
claim that they did not block the gate or attack police, Tzaban ruled.
HaTenu'ah LeChinun HaMikdash
Gathering en masse to arouse consciousness among the People,
its rabbis, and its leaders to rebuild the Beit HaMikdash
and return the Kohanim to their Service
Telephone: +972-2-5371904
Email: Yirmiyahu Fischer
| Back to Home Page | Mikdash-Build Archives | About Us |
| Events and Shiurim | Ascending Har HaBayit | Links |
This page hosted by
Tefillin Beit E-l: www.tefillin.co.il