Love of the Land: The Temple in Jerusalem: Our Raison d'etre

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

Love of the Land: The Temple in Jerusalem: Our Raison d'etre