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From:
<womeningreen@womeningreen.org>Date: Sun, Nov 16, 2014 at 12:47 AM
Subject: The Chief Rabbi's War on Har Habayit by Rabbi Eliezer Melamed
Rabbi Goren and the Temple Mount
The controversy with the Wakf is a nationalistic issue. There is also
an halakhic issue on which rabbis disagree. The late Chief Rabbi Goren
tried to arrange a mass prayer on the Mount in 1967 and was stopped by
the government.
From Rabbi Eliezer Melamed
November 14, 2014
The yahrzeit of late Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Israel Rav Shlomo
Goren's is this week.
Rabbi Goren's Decision to Print his Book about the Temple Mount
Next week on the 24th day of the Jewish month Mar Cheshvan (Monday)
will be twenty years since the death of the Chief Rabbi of Israel, the
Gaon, Rabbi Shlomo Goren ztz'l. In these days, when Har Habayit (the
Temple Mount) is in the headlines, it is worth quoting segments from
his book "Har Habayit", published a year before his death. In his
book, he investigates in detail the site of the Mikdash (Holy Temple)
and the azarot (Temple courtyards), areas that are forbidden to enter
even after immersion in a mikveh (a bath used for the purpose of
ritual immersion in Judaism), and areas that Jews are permitted to
enter after immersion.
The time was the days of the second Rabin government, which conducted
agreements with the PLO terrorist organization, and handed over parts
of the Land of Israel to our enemies. In his introduction to the book
he wrote: "Currently, when Jewish sovereignty over the Temple Mount is
in danger, Mount Moriah is liable to become the subject of negotiation
between us and the Arabs, and unfortunately, there are politicians who
are willing to negotiate our sovereignty over the Temple Mount,
relying on the alleged prohibition of the Chief Rabbinate to enter Har
Habayit. This prohibition is liable to be used as an excuse to hand
over the nation's Kodesh ha'Kodashim (inner sanctum) to the Muslims.
Therefore, I decided to publish the book now, from which it will be
proven that there are large areas of the Temple Mount which all Jews
are permitted to enter, according to all halakhic opinions, after
immersion in a mikveh..."(p.15).
The Reasons for the 'Heter'
The Temple Mount is composed of two areas. The first, which is the
smallest area, includes the site of the Holy Temple and the
courtyards, and is called machaneh shechina (the inner azara), which
nowadays is forbidden to enter because we cannot be cleansed from
tumat met (defilement of the dead). The second area, which includes
the majority of the Temple Mount, is called machaneh levia, and it is
permitted to enter these areas today after immersion. Indeed, in the
years preceding the establishment of the State of Israel the rabbis,
including Rabbi Kook ztz'l, instructed us not to enter the Temple
Mount at all, for fear that people might go beyond the permitted areas
and enter forbidden places.
Three factors prompted Rabbi Goren to permit going up to the majority
of areas on the Temple Mount: 1) the precise mapping of the Temple
Mount conducted by the I.D.F. Engineer Corps under his orders after
the liberation of the Temple Mount; with these maps, it was possible
to accurately determine which areas were permitted to enter according
to all halakhic opinions. 2) The many testimonies that for more than a
thousand years after the destruction of the Holy Temple, Gedolei
Yisrael (eminent rabbis) used to pray on the Temple Mount in the
permitted areas. 3) The threat to Jewish sovereignty on the Temple
Mount.
It is possible that one of the motivations for placing the warning
signs not to enter the Temple Mount might have been so as not to
provoke the Muslims when the British ruled Israel, and in events of
riots, did not properly protect the Jews.
Lowering Ourselves to the Kotel - The Result of the Sufferings of Exile
Rabbi Goren wrote about his feelings after the Six Day War: "I could
not escape the feeling that from a historic perspective, assigning the
Western Wall plaza for Jewish prayer was nothing but the result of the
expulsion of the Jews from the Temple Mount by the Crusaders and
Muslims together. Thus, an intolerable situation was created in which
even after our liberation of the Temple Mount, the Muslims remained on
top of Har Habayit, and we were down below; they were inside, and we
were outside.
The prayers at the Western Wall are a symbol of destruction and exile,
and not of liberation and redemption, because Jewish prayers at the
Western Wall began only in the sixteenth century - before that, Jews
prayed for centuries on the Temple Mount ... only about three hundred
years ago, the Jews began praying at the Western Wall. And this the
proof: in every reference in the Midrash where it is mentioned that
the shechina (Divine Presence) has not moved from the Western Wall,
and learns this from the verse in Shir Hashirim (Song of Songs):
'Behold! There he stands behind our wall' - this refers to the western
wall of the azara, or the wall of the heichal, in other words, the
wall of the Kodesh HaKodashim, and not the wall of the Har Habayit,
which we call the Western Wall"(pg. 26).
The Necessity to Ascend from the Western Wall to Har Habayit
However, the intensity of the minhag (custom) based on over three
centuries was considerable, and therefore after the Six Day War, the
public at large thronged to the Western Wall to pray. Rabbi Goren
himself wrote that one of the things that prevented him from acting
quickly to regulate the ascent of Jews to the Temple Mount was his
being "bound by the 'chains of love' for the remnant of our Holy
Temple, the Western Wall, where I used to pray every Shabbat, holiday,
and Rosh Chodesh evenings. Since my first visit to the Western Wall
(as a child), my love and emotional affinity for the Wailing Wall has
not faded... ","but our shout ...Who may ascend the mountain of the
Lord"... aroused him to become stronger and clarify the heter to
ascend Har Habayit (pg. 14). Consequently, he began organizing prayers
on the Temple Mount (ibid, pg. 27).
The Canceled Prayer
Before the Shabbat following Tisha B'Av in 1967, Rabbi Goren publicly
announced a mass, gala prayer to be held on the Temple Mount in the
areas where entrance was permitted after immersion. However, by the
orders of Prime Minister and Defense Minister the prayer was canceled.
A few days later, the ministerial committee decided that the Defense
Minister and the Chief of Staff order the Chief Rabbi of the I.D.F.,
Rabbi Goren, not to arrange any more prayers on the Temple Mount (pg.
29-30).
The Shock
The order shocked Rabbi Goren, and he tried everything within his
power to cancel it, including writing a long and detailed letter to
the ministerial committee, in which he argued: How is it possible that
precisely in the holiest place for Jews, it is forbidden for them to
pray?! True, there are a limited amount of areas in which entrance is
forbidden according to the Torah for Jews and Gentiles alike, but
entrance to the majority of the Temple Mount is permitted. Towards the
end of his letter, he called out: "Distinguished men! Save the Holy of
Holies of the Jewish nation; do not hand over the Temple Mount to
those who defile it ..." (pp 30-33).
The Defense Minister
Unfortunately, Rabbi Goren's call went unanswered. Defense Minister
Moshe Dayan decided to transfer the responsibility for managing the
Temple Mount arrangements to the Waqf, and ordered the Military
Rabbinate to evacuate Har Habayit, and not to interfere in matters
concerning the Temple Mount any more. Rabbi Goren responded with "rage
and sorrow", informing the Defense Minister that "this, God forbid,
could lead to the destruction of the Third Temple, for the key to our
sovereignty over Judea, Samaria and Gaza is the Temple Mount" (page
34).
Nevertheless, the Defense Minister implemented one of the most
shameful acts in the history of Israel, and handed over the affairs of
the Temple Mount to the Muslim Waqf. For many years it was known that
Moshe Dayan had both a dark and a light side jumbled together. On the
one hand, he was a Jewish military hero, but on the other hand, an
adulterer and a thief. Apparently, his adultery and thievery tipped
the scales against him. That is when he began to lose his public
status. His name go down in infamy.
Sovereignty
Still, when the Muslims closed the Mughrabi Gate to prevent Jews from
entering the Temple Mount, at the request of Rabbi Goren, the I.D.F.
broke through the gate to ensure free entry for Jews, thereby
expressing sovereignty over the Temple Mount. However, this act did
not change the order prohibiting Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount.
Rabbi Goren goes on to relate: "Whenever I warned about handing over
of the Holy of Holies of the Jewish nation to the Waqf, the response
of consecutive Prime Ministers was: 'Look, in any case the Chief
Rabbinate forbids Jews from ascending the Temple Mount, and we are
prohibited from praying there." As a result, he decided to write the
book and explain the ways, places, and conditions under which it is
permitted to enter the Temple Mount (pg. 35). Consequently "we must
utilize to the fullest all sides of the heter, so we can demonstrate
continuous Jewish presence there, and maintain Jewish sovereignty over
the Mount, like the apple of our eye" (pg. 46).
The Chief Rabbinate's Sign
It has been claimed that during his tenure as Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Goren
agreed to the prohibition of entering the Temple Mount, but this is
not true. In the introduction to his book, he wrote: "During my tenure
as Chief Rabbi of Israel, I brought a proposal to the Council of the
Chief Rabbinate to remove the signs banning entrance to the Temple
Mount as determined by the previous Chief Rabbis. Because there were a
few members on the Council who had signed on the ban at the time, they
requested delaying the decision to remove the signs prohibiting going
up to Har Habayit until after I published the book ..." For various
reasons, the books' publication was delayed, and the signs remained in
place, "which, in effect, led to the handing over of Har Habayit to
the Muslim Waqf" (ibid pg. 35).
Desecration of the Holy
Moreover, he wrote: "This shameful situation, where under Israeli rule
a Jew does not have the right to pray on the mountain of God, cannot
be tolerated under any circumstances. The debate over where it is
permitted according to Jewish law to go on the Temple Mount, or where
it is forbidden, has nothing to do with the government ... These
sacred places are not the private property of the Muslim Waqf, whose
members have always been a source of bitterness and poison for the
Jews, with their incitement from within the mosques on the Temple
Mount to slaughter the Jews... had they closed the Temple Mount to
Jews and non-Jews alike, I would have kept quiet, but to allow the
Arabs to do there as they please while Jews are forbidden to even open
up a Book of Psalms and pour out their hearts before the Creator of
the world - this is a religious, historical, and legal scandal -
nothing short of blasphemy! "(pg. 41).
He further added (pg. 42) that by abstaining from going up to the
Temple Mount, the Torah prohibition of 'lo techonem' ('nor be gracious
to them'), which may also be rendered 'do not allow them to settle on
the soil' (Avoda Zara 20a) is transgressed, seeing as the poskim
(Jewish law arbiters) have already established that the loss of
sovereignty is similar to destruction (B.Y. and M.A., O.C. 561:1).
Thus, when the government forbids Jews to go up freely, it destroys
the place of our Holy Temple yet again.
The Words of Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda HaKohen Kook
Our teacher and guide, Rabbi Tzvi Yehudah HaKohen Kook, agreed with
the poskim who prohibited going up to Har Habayit. But in my humble
opinion, it seems that had he known that the over- cautiousness of
going up to Har Habayit would result in the loss of sovereignty and
turning the Temple Mount into a focal point of hatred against Israel -
he would have agreed with Rabbi Goren that it is permitted and a
mitzvah to go up. In addition, in my humble opinion, he would have
trusted Rabbi Goren's halakhic inquiries in regards to the areas
permitted to enter.
Blessed are Those Who Ascend the Temple Mount
The continuation of the disgraceful situation on the Temple Mount
brings our enemies hope, and motivates them to kill and riot
throughout the country. In order to suppress the wave of terrorism and
incitement from its roots, the government and the police must assert
Israeli sovereignty over the Temple Mount in the most decisive manner.
Blessed are those who go up to Har Habayit, but only if that is done
according to halakha. Thanks to them, our sovereignty over the Temple
Mount and all of the Land of Israel becomes clearer, and precisely as
a result of this, we will merit security and peace.
This article appears in the 'Besheva' newspaper, and was translated from Hebrew.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/15980#.VGg4FcnNlfZ =============================================
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