From: <eidelberg@foundation1.org>
Date: Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 1:09 AM
The Temple Mount: Part II
Prof. Paul Eidelberg
It was pointed out in Part I that Jewish control of the Temple Mount, Israel's holiest site, is a fundamental precondition of uncontested Jewish control of Jerusalem and, eventually, of Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel. Moreover, Jewish control over the Temple Mount will restore to the Jewish people the esteem of the nations and enable Israel to fulfill its historical mission: to declare from Jerusalem—from Zion—God's sovereignty in the world.
It needs to be emphasized that the first concern of any statesman worthy of the name is national unity. But that is precisely what the Temple symbolizes for the Jewish people.
Let us recur to Joshua Berman's The Temple, to clarify the Temple's vital significance.
The Temple represents the entire congregation of Israel. The tribes ascended to Jerusalem, gathered in the Temple courtyard, there to encounter God. Berman cites Psalm 122:
A song of ascents, of David:
"I rejoiced when they said to me,
'We are going to the house of the Lord.'
Our feet stood inside your gates, O Jerusalem.
Jerusalem built up, a city knit together,
To which tribes would make pilgrimage,
The tribes of the Lord—as was enjoined upon Israel—
To praise the Name of the Lord."
From Jerusalem the Priests and Levites went out across the land and taught the laws and precepts of the Torah. Not only the Temple but also "the city of Jerusalem was considered the source of authoritative values." Isaiah (2:4) declares: "For instruction shall come forth from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem."
Berman asks: "What does Jerusalem mean for us today?" He answers: "All of the dimensions that animated and invigorated the spiritual meaning of Jerusalem for the psalmist centuries ago, have returned to animate her—if on a diminished scale—again today, two thousand years later. We await the reinstatement of the Davidic king, but we can already see in Jerusalem today the seat of a sovereign Jewish government…."
"We have no formal guild of Priests and Levites who bring the word of God out from Zion, but Jerusalem is today the world capital of Jewish learning of all forms. We do not fulfill the halakhic requirement of gathering as a nation on the pilgrimage of the festivals in the Temple courtyard, yet Jews from all over the world flock to Jerusalem and to the Western Wall on each of these occasions. Jerusalem today stands as a symbol of the unity of the Jewish people as the largest Jewish city in the world, and the point to which all Jews look as the center of the Jewish world."
"The rebuilding of the Temple," says Berman, "needs to be seen as the pinnacle of a process that is measured in collective and national terms…. Zionism, from a religious perspective, ought to be perceived as a movement dedicated to building a nation around the highest ideals of the Zion of old—around a city that stands as a symbol of Jewish sovereignty on the land, justice, the wisdom of the Torah, Jewish unity, and the opportunity for collective encounter between the Almighty and His people, Israel."
Epilogue:
The nations are conspiring to wrest Jerusalem from the Jewish people. Islam knows it can never conquer the world so long as Jerusalem is in the hands of the Jews. Jerusalem, the City of Truth, reveals Islam as false, a fabrication of men. This is why it's absurd for Israel to engage in negotiations with Muslims—as if the Truth is negotiable.
The conflict between Israel and Islam is the final conflict of mankind, and this conflict centers on Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. It is not merely a conflict between freedom and tyranny, but between Truth and Falsehood, between the God of Israel and the false god of Islam. The failure to recognize the theological nature of this conflict— and that Human Reason itself and Human Dignity are at stake in this conflict—is precisely what is driving the democratic nations insane, as Melanie Phillips shows in her book The World Turned Upside Down.
Know, therefore, that if Islam were to gain possession of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, the Dark Ages would descend upon mankind. The world's economy would shut down completely. Hundreds of millions of human beings would perish of hunger, disease, and global bloodshed.
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem, that it remain in Jewish hands.
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Sincerely,
Robin Ticker
This email is L'Ilui Nishmat Yisrael ben David Aryeh ob"m (Izzy - Kaplan) a great activist and lover of Eretz Yisroel, Am Yisroel and the Torah. Yehi Zichrono Baruch.
