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February 27, 2004/Adar 5 5764, Vol. 56, No. 23
Central teachings of the Temple Mount
RABBI SHLOMO RISKIN
Terumah/Exodus 25:1-27:19
"And let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them." (Exodus 25:8)
The sanctuary was the forerunner of the Holy Temples. They stood aloft on the Temple Mount of Jerusalem - and indeed the unique sanctity of Jerusalem emanates from the special quality of the Temple Mount.
World Jewry was electrified on June 7, 1967, at the zenith of the Six Day War, when Motte Gur triumphantly and tremblingly announced, "The Temple Mount is in our hands."
What national secret does the Temple Mount hold? Is it worth disputing over with our Muslim cousins?
Since our traditional texts consider it to be the most sacred piece of real estate in the world, and since Jewish groups are now visiting it in droves every day despite the fact that the Muslim Wakf refuses to allow Jews to pray there, it would behoove us to understand the message of a mountain that seems to hold the key to our eternity.
The first message is the sacredness of sacrifice. For Maimonides, "the most established place (of the Temple) is that of the altar. ... There is a tradition in the hands of all that the place where (Kings) David and Solomon built the altar is the very place where Abraham erected the altar upon which he bound Isaac. ... It was the altar upon which Cain and Abel offered their sacrifice." (Maimonides, Laws of the Chosen House, 2:1, 2)
Maimonides is teaching us that the very world was created from the altar of sacrifice - and that Israel was born from the near-sacrifice of Isaac on the altar of the Temple Mount.
The paradox of the binding of Issac is that God is teaching the first Hebrew the most paradoxical message of all: You will only merit a future if you're willing to risk your future.
The altar of the Temple Mount expresses yet a second message, crucially significant in this period of homicide bombers. "This is the very place where Abraham erected the altar where he bound Isaac," teaches Maimonides; bound, but not sacrificed. God amends his initial command: "Abraham, Abraham ... Do not raise your hand against the boy, or do anything to him." (Genesis 22:11, 12)
Rashi comments: "I only meant for you to uplift and dedicate him, not to slaughter him; I want him committed to Me in life, not sacrificed to Me in death." (Rashi, Genesis 22:2; Babylonian Talmud, Ta'anit 4a)
The third message is what Maimonides calls its "eternal sanctity of the Divine Presence, a sanctity which can never be nullified." (Maimonides, Laws of the Chosen House, 6,16)
Obviously Maimonides cannot possibly believe that the Divine Presence is a physical quantity, since he is the philosopher-theologian who teaches the absolute non-corporeality of God. Apparently Maimonides is referring to the word of God and the idea of Jerusalem as a city of peace.
And the final message is that of pluralism over exclusivism, acceptance of all who follow the seven fundamental laws of morality centering around "Thou shalt not murder," rather than rejecting all who refuse to believe in a particular belief system. Everyone is welcome on the Temple Mount as long as they believe in - and practice - the ideal of peace.
The messages of the Temple Mount are the sacredness of sacrifice, the sacredness of life, the sacredness of peace and the sacredness of humanity. Is this worth fighting and dying for? The only life worth living is a life dedicated to ideals more precious than any individual life - then it becomes a sanctified life that participates in eternity.
Rabbi Shlomo Riskin is the spiritual leader of Efrat, Israel.
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