The Temple in Jerusalem: Our Raison d'etre

The Jewish Leadership Weekly Newsletter
3 Nissan, 5770 (March 18)
Issue 7025

At this week's dedication ceremony for the newly re-built Hurva Synagogue, Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger made the following disturbing statement:

Chief Rabbi: Talk about new temple a lie
"Pay no attention to malicious slander. All we are doing is resurrecting the 'Hurva,' which was destroyed 60 years ago. We have no intention of rebuilding the temple, not this week – unless the Almighty God descends it from the heavens," said the chief rabbi during the inauguration ceremony. (Ynet: March 15, '10)

All of Rabbi Metzger's prayers, blessings and Torah learning revolve around the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. Are they all lies? The Chief Rabbi - and all the rabbis who work in an official state capacity on the condition that they leave the Torah in its current state of exile – will not tell the truth.

The truth is that we have every intention of building the Temple! The debate as to the actual construction of the Temple – if it will be built by humans or if it will descend from Heaven or if it will be a synthesis of both – has nothing to do with the basic desire of every Jew to build the Temple.

"And they shall make a Temple for Me," G-d directs us in Exodus 25:8.
He does not instruct us to simply dream about a Temple. He does not instruct us to merely pray for a Temple. G-d commands us to build the Temple.

The Nation of Israel exists to make a dwelling place for G-d on earth. That is why the State of Israel exists, as well. Our mission as Jews is to perfect the world in the Kingdom of Heaven - to crown G-d as King of the world. The geographical location where this mission will manifest is the Temple, on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

The world knows the truth. That is why the forces of evil do battle with our grasp on the Land of Israel and on Jerusalem. They are fighting against the universal conscience that threatens to triumph. "The Jew is the conscience of the world and thus must be destroyed" (Hitler, may his name be blotted out). That, in a nutshell, is the battle that Ahmadinijad, Obama and the Europeans are waging against the Nation of Israel. They wish to destroy the Jew and his reshaping of reality into G-dliness – the reality that is grounded in the Land of Israel, via Jerusalem and that necessarily leads to the Temple that Rabbi Metzger insists on relegating to the realm of dreams.

The struggle against the building freeze in Judea and Samaria and the stranglehold closing in on Jerusalem all stem from the same, fundamental question: Will the Jewish People fulfill their mission and live or will we distance ourselves from it and become extraneous, G-d forbid?

All the Torah portions of the previous weeks provide us with the technical specifications for the Temple, bringing it closer to reality. Only the Chief Rabbi and his ilk alienate themselves from the precious charge deposited in our hands, explaining that it is all a lie.

Our weekly Torah portion, though, gives us hope for the future. The entire portion revolves around the service of G-d in the Holy Temple. Near the end, the Torah expounds on repentance. Because in the end, all the Jews will return to G-d. The leftists, the official rabbis, everyone. There are moments, like after the Six Day War, when the Jewish heart opens and longs for the Temple. May we merit to build it soon. All the Jews, together.

Shabbat Shalom.........Moshe Feiglin
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NYT Blames Israel For Palestinian Incitement

Leo Rennert
American Thinker
16 March '10

The Hurva Synagogue was the premier Jewish place of worship in Jerusalem's Old City in the 19th and early 20th Centuries -- until Jordanian troops destroyed it in 1948. On March 15, after several years of painstaking restoration, it came to life again -- an exact replica of the old Hurva.

In the week before its reopening, however, the Palestinian Authority unleashed a vicious conspiracy campaign that falsely claimed that reopening the Hurva was a prelude to Israel's intent to destroy Al-Aqsa Mosque on Temple Mount to make room for the Third Jewish Temple. Palestinian officials called on Arabs to rush into the Old City by the thousands to "defend" Al-Aqsa -- the usual rallying cry for violent riots and the unleashing of stone barrages from Temple Mount on Jewish worshippers below at the Western Wall. Israeli authorities had to deploy several thousand police to prevent what could have been a bloody conflagration.

So how did the New York Times report this latest inciteful provocation by the Palestinian side in violation of its obligations under the U.S. road map's requirement that Palestinians cease all anti-Israel incitement?

Answer: By putting the blame on Israel! Yes, it's all Israel's fault.

In a March 16 article headlined "Rebuilt Synagogue Is Caught In Disputes Over Jerusalem," Isabel Kershner's lead paragraph reads as follows:

"In what appeared to be a case of unfortunate timing, Israel officially inaugurated a rebuilt synagogue in Jerusalem's Old City on Monday, entangling what was intended to be a festive cultural event with the diplomatic row over new Israeli construction in the contested territory."

(Read full article)
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When Dedicating a Synagogue Is a War Crime

Noah Pollak
Contentions/Commentary
17 March '10

Yes, really. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights — one of a myriad of NGOs waging a war of delegitimization against Israel — has issued a press release declaring that:

The inauguration of a Jewish synagogue in East Jerusalem [sic] is considered a form of settlement activity, and thus constitutes a war crime under international humanitarian law.

Of course, this was not the inauguration of a synagogue — it was the rededication of a synagogue that dates to the Ottoman empire and was destroyed by the Jordanians during their occupation of Jerusalem. The Hurva synagogue was built in the 1860’s (even then on the ruins of a synagogue that had been built during the previous century) and demolished intentionally by the Arab Legion in 1948, during the War of Independence. Oh, and I almost forgot: it’s not in “East Jerusalem” — it’s in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City. Just a stroll away from the Western Wall, whose existence by this logic is also a war crime.

(Read full post)
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Two dedications

Fresnozionism.org
16 March '10

Yesterday, the newly rebuilt Hurva (which means ‘ruin’ in Hebrew) Synagogue, located in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, was rededicated.

Started in 1701, the Hurva was destroyed for the first time (by unpaid Arab creditors) in 1720. Rebuilt in 1864 by the Sultan’s architect with money from Montefiore, the Rothschilds and Jewish communities around the world, the synagogue was the tallest structure in the Jewish quarter — which is itself on a hill, making it reach higher than the al-Aqsa Mosque — it was a magnificent structure. Benjamin Balint writes,

It also was a forum for public assemblies. Here the city’s Jews held a memorial service for Queen Victoria; celebrated the coronation of King George V; thrilled to the orations of such Zionist leaders as Theodor Herzl and Zeev Jabotinsky; and, in 1942, conducted a mass prayer service for the victims of Hitler’s genocide.

Naturally, the jealous and racist Muslim world found the existence of such a Jewish structure unacceptable. In 1948, Jordanian troops overran the Jewish Quarter, expelled the Jews and blew up the Hurva. After 1967 plans were made to rebuild it, but in a gesture of misplaced generosity to Muslim sensibilities, only a memorial arch was built. After all, how could anything Jewish be allowed to overshadow the Muslim holy places?

Now it has yet again been rebuilt, in a form similar to the 18th century version. And — guess what — the Arabs are furious!

Jews have lived in the Old City since long before Muhammad was a gleam in his father’s eye, but Palestinians insist that any part of the city that was conquered and ethnically cleansed by the Jordanians in 1948 is “Arab East Jerusalem,” so they declared a “day of rage” today, complete with the usual stone- and firebomb-throwing.

(Read full post)
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'Next year in….' An open letter to Rahm Emanuel & David Axelrod

David Wilder
Hebron.com
15 March '10

Dear Rahm and David,

I’m writing this as I sit and watch, via live internet, the ceremony marking the rededication of the Hurva synagogue in Jerusalem, in the area you would classify “east Jerusalem”, disputed territory, or perhaps, ‘occupied territory’ over the ‘green line’ adjacent to 'Temple Mount.'

Before asking a few questions, I’d like to describe to you several men who took part in tonight’s celebration.

First, there is Reuvan ‘Ruby’ Rivlin, presently speaker of the Knesset. A seventh generation Jerusalemite, Ruby is a ‘Rivlin’ from both his mother and father’s side, descended from both Rebbi Yisrael Ba’al Shem Tov and the Gra, the Gaon, Rebbi Eliyahu from Vilna.

Rivlin, a seasoned politician, had trouble controlling his voice as he spoke, his words quivering with emotion, as he repeated the words of his great-grandfather, who spoke at the rededication of the destroyed Hurva shul a hundred and fifty years ago.

Also speaking briefly was former Prisoner of Zion, former minister, and present chairman of the Jewish Agency, Natan Sharansky, who described how, in 1992, he convinced the entire Israeli government to unanimously approve reconstruction of the Hurva, destroyed by the Jordanians following their occupation of the Jerusalem in 1948.

But the man who most impressed me was David Rabinovitch, an Israeli Russian, who contributed heavily to the renovation of the Hurva. Rubenstein spoke briefly, albeit in Russian, and announced that he and his partners, whose financial fortunes built the Hurva, would participate in rebuilding the nearby Tiferet Yisrael synagogue, also destroyed by the Arabs during the War of Independence. These men, who grew up without any Jewish background, and who today barely speak Hebrew, are investing their life’s fortunes in synagogues, in Jerusalem.

And you, Rahm and David, what are you investing your lives in?

(Read full letter)
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The Hurva’s symbolism

Twice destroyed and twice rebuilt, the Hurva synagogue is a symbol of the Jewish people’s tenacious insistence on returning to its rightful land against all odds.

JPost Editorial
15 March 5770

A dedication ceremony will be held today, the eve of the first day of Nissan, for the Hurva (literally “ruin”) Synagogue, located in the middle of the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City.

More than just a house of prayer, the Hurva was a venue for key historical events – Herzl’s visit to Jerusalem, a recruitment ceremony for Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s Jewish Legion, the honoring of pro-Zionist British High Commissioner Sir Herbert Samuel – leading to the reestablishment of Jewish sovereignty.

It symbolizes, perhaps more than any other site, the Jewish people’s yearnings to return to its homeland. It is concrete proof that Judaism cannot be reduced solely to an abstract religious faith devoid of national aspirations, as some – most notably German Jews of the the 19th century and contemporary Jewish anti-Zionists – attempted to claim.

While the Western Wall has been the focal point of prayers for redemption, the Hurva has been at the center of Jewish activism to maintain a presence in the Land of Israel.

Already in the Second Century CE, less than a hundred years after the destruction of the Second Temple and the end of Jewish sovereignty, a synagogue existed on the Hurva site. During the Byzantine era it was here that a road leading to the Jewish Quarter and to the Temple Mount broke off from the main market plaza known as the Cardo. In the 13th century it was called the Ashkenazi compound by European Jews who had “returned” to their homeland.

But Jews faced constant opposition. In Jerusalem, which was known to have a special religious meaning for Jews, a Muslim decree was strictly enforced. According to historian Arie Morgenstern, Muslims wanted “to prevent, heaven forbid, the realization of Jewish hopes regarding the prophecies that foresaw the return to Zion and the rebuilding of Jerusalem.”

(Read full article)
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