The Chief Rabbi’s War on Har Habayit
The Chief Rabbi’s War on Har
Habayit
The Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Shlomo Goren ztz’l, acted firmly and tirelessly
to preserve Jewish sovereignty on the Temple Mount * In his book about the
Temple Mount, he explained why it is imperative to move up from the Kotel, and
pray on the Temple Mount * Rabbi Goren’s struggle against the decision of the
Government and Defense Minister Moshe Dayan to relinquish the Temple Mount
to the Muslim Waqf * The politicians used the rabbi’s prohibition of entering the
Temple Mount as a pretext to hand it over to the enemy * Blessed are those who
go up to the Temple Mount according to Jewish law, for they strengthen our
sovereignty over the Temple Mount and the entire Land of Israel
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 mentioning segments from his book “Har Habayit”,
which he 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 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 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.
There is room to add 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 and leaders who ruled Israel at the time, 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 will be remembered 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 eyes” (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
Some people believe that 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 saw 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 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.
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