As Jewish visits to Judaism’s holiest site increase, Rabbi of the Western Wall, Shmuel Rabinowitz, and Temple Mount scholar and tour guide Zheina Fleischer debate the religious and national implications of Jewish prayer at the sacred site.
The question of what to do with the Temple Mount has been a topic of much controversy of late. While the majority of Israelis don’t factor sovereignty over the Temple Mount into their daily lives, some Israelis do, and that number is growing, especially since the onset of the current war. It is for this reason I set out to speak to two people for whom the question of what to do with the Temple Mount is part of their daily routine, to hear their opinions and viewpoints.
Rabbi Rabinowitz, better known by his title Rabbi of the Kotel and Holy Places in Israel, is often consulted by people who have questions regarding various holy sites around the country.
Zheina Fleischer (PhD in chemistry) is a tour guide on the Temple Mount, visits weekly, and has become an expert on Temple Mount history and religious law over the dozens of years that she has been visiting the site.
Rabbi Rabinowitz and Fleischer sat down with The Jerusalem Report to answer some questions about the tensions surrounding Judaism’s holiest site.
JR: Do we currently know where Jews are allowed to go and where we are not allowed to go on the Temple Mount?
Rabinowitz: We don’t know where the prohibited places are on the Temple Mount; there is no absolute knowledge about this. While the vast majority of opinions state that the location of the Holy of Holies with the Foundation Stone is under the Dome of the Rock, there are opinions that state that the Temple actually stood on the southern side of the Mount, and therefore it is a doubt concerning a biblical commandment, so according to Jewish law we must err on the side of stringency. That is why most of the rabbis of Israel throughout the ages have said that it is prohibited to go up to the Temple Mount. There was an edict drawn up in 1967 that incorporated prominent rabbis from all groups of society – ultra-Orthodox, Modern Orthodox, Sephardi, and Ashkenazi – who stated that it was prohibited to go up to the Mount. Part of the reason was that Jews who go up and take precautions unseen by other Jews encourage them to go up without those same precautions, and that causes a desecration.
Fleischer: There is a long tradition of Jews and Jewish leaders who went up to the Temple Mount, such as Maimonides, Rabbi Yisrael Halevi, the traveler from Bordeaux in 373, and even Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Akiva, who visited the Temple Mount. At no point was there ever any question as to where the location of the Temple stood. It seems clear from tradition, and sources such as Tractate Middot and Josephus, that we know exactly where the Temple stood.
JR: If we are all considered impure according to Jewish law, how can we go up to the Temple Mount at all? And if it is prohibited to do so, will it ever be permissible?
Rabinowitz: When the third Temple will be rebuilt, then Jews will be purified with the Red Heifer, and we will be able to go up. It can happen at any moment. God brings His salvation in the blink of an eye, and we must be ready.
Fleischer: The idea of purity comes from the Jews’ encampment in the Sinai, according to which there are three circles, each with a different level of purity. The circle of God’s presence, what came to later be the Temple, one cannot enter if one is impure. But the second zone, the Temple Mount, one can enter if one is impure with the impurity of death. Thus people can go up to the Temple Mount, but they cannot go where the Temple was. Maimonides himself brings down in two locations that even a dead body can be taken onto the Temple Mount. (Mishne Torah Laws of Coming to the Temple 3:4; Laws of the Temple Bait HaBechira 7:15)
Rabbi Shlomo Goren, who was the head of the Rabbinate for the IDF and a former chief rabbi of Israel, sent staff to go and research where on the Temple Mount we can go. The routes that people take on the Mount today are very far from where the Temple stood.
JR: What can we do now to advocate for the Temple Mount?
Rabinowitz: When the Messiah comes, we will all build the Temple together and be unified. But we do need to correct ourselves in the way we treat one another. The idea of baseless hatred for which we were punished so horribly with the destruction of the Second Temple still exists, and we need to fix that.
Fleischer: There is a concept of whoever controls the Temple Mount will control the entire country. The Arabs understand this much better than the Jews. So they call the entire Temple Mount the Al Aqsa compound, where Al Aqsa is only the mosque on the southern side of the Mount.
There is a bit of a historical shift going on now. One of the big causes is the current war. Just as the Jews don’t understand the Arabs, the Arabs don’t understand the Jews, and they are somewhat afraid of us. So if in the past we were subjected to having Muslim women scream at us on the Temple Mount and police watching us if we moved our lips and arrested us if we did, now we are praying out loud, bowing and prostrating on the ground, and people are finding a connection to something much bigger than themselves.
JR: Does visiting or praying on the Temple Mount today have implications for future efforts to settle the Temple Mount question?
Rabinowitz: I don’t know how to answer what will influence the future one way or another. What I do know is that we need to maintain vigilance and protect the Temple Mount and its purity. I want to believe that God sees our pain, hears our cries and prayers, and will rebuild the third Temple.
Fleischer: People who go up to the Temple Mount don’t think that there is any desecration of the sanctity of the place. There is a prevailing theme that going up to the Temple Mount will bring about the eventual rebuilding of the Temple, and it is a great national effort that needs to be expanded. People go up because they feel that they are reconnecting with the ancient tradition and fulfilling one of the three commandments that Jews were given when they entered the Land of Israel – to build the Temple.
JR: What are the hope, vision, and long-term goals for the Temple Mount?
Rabinowitz: We need to study and learn the laws of the Temple found in the tractates in Seder Kodashim and Teharot. This is what our sages have taught us for generations. The second thing that is that absolutely necessary is that we all have to practice acts of lovingkindness. That is the way to encourage God and show God that we are ready for the final redemption.
Fleischer: Unfortunately, it is not clear what the long-term goals are. While there are organizations that work to increase Jewish autonomy on the site, most people simply go up to feel a connection. It seems to me that there is a problem of national consciousness; and like in many other issues in Israel, there is a lack of foresight and how to deal with long-term goals. People keep the simple status quo because it is more tactically sound in the here and now, but it continues to maintain the status quo, and we don’t move forward.■