Q&A: Ascending the Temple Mount and the Rebuilding of the Temple
Ascending the Temple Mount and the Rebuilding of the Temple
Question
Hello,
A. What is the Rabbi’s opinion about rebuilding the Temple nowadays? Is there a need, or even an obligation, to do so?
B. Is it permitted to go up to the Temple Mount?
Answer
A. It is clear that there is an obligation to do so, but it seems to me that there is no practical possibility of doing it. That is both because of external constraints (the nations of the world and the Muslims) and because of internal constraints (the Jewish people do not want it). This is an obligation on the community, not on each individual.
B. I have not examined the issue on the practical level, but those who have looked into it are presumed to know how to identify the places where one may enter.
Discussion on Answer
If you are asking whether I long for it—my answer is no. But from the standpoint of Jewish law, it does seem that this is indeed supposed to return.
Your claim that we are refined and so on does not sound at all necessary to me. There is a basic principle in Jewish law that practical service is also required—commandments—and not just ideas. More generally, my claim is that philosophy is not Judaism. Correct philosophy obligates all human beings, even if it comes from the belly of an idol-worshipping gentile, and incorrect philosophy is not correct even if Moses our Teacher said it. What makes the Torah and the service of God unique is Jewish law and its study (Torah study), not ideas.
It may be that the revulsion we currently feel is because we have not experienced the religious and spiritual meaning of the Temple service, and when we do experience it, we will understand why it is so important. I do not know.
Beyond that, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook argues that in the future, animal offerings will in fact not return, and only offerings from plant life will.
I have an emotional problem with the sacrificial service in the Temple. It seems obvious to me that one’s connection with God should come through the higher parts of the human being, through abstract intellect such as philosophy and through refined emotions such as love. The sacrificial service seems to me primitive and barbaric. It seems strange to me that God wants us to smear the blood of a slaughtered animal on the sides of the altar and burn the animals’ internal organs on the outer altar.
What does the Rabbi think about this commandment? Why is it valid in the refined modern age? It could take Judaism thousands of years backward, from an intellectual religion to a primitive religion.