The world will try to take it from us (Gd forbid)

REVISED 5:11 PM EST

August 2005: Lazer Brody interviews "Rabbi BT"

Rabbi BT: .... Even though I pray that the decree against Gush Katif will be rescinded, I think it will happen. Gush Katif is miniature compared to the test of faith that awaits us.

Lazer: You mean Jerusalem, Rabbi BT?

Rabbi BT: Yes. The world will try to take it from us. Few Jews will remain loyal and steadfast in their belief (emuna, in the original Hebrew). Many will think Hashem has forsaken us, G-d forbid. But, by virtue of those loyal few who unshakingly cling to their faith in Hashem, Moshiach will come and evil will be destroyed, G-d willing. The test of faith is only beginning...

The golden shrine of the Dome of the Rock mosque, located in the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, also known to Jews as Temple Mount ... Wednesday April 6, 2005.... (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer)

New York Times - front page of Travel section, Easter Sunday, April 2006

Steven Erlanger, chief of the Jerusalem bureau of The Times, writes: "While I sit on a stone wall and look at the intricate tiles of the Dome of the Rock, some Jews are plotting to destroy it and Al Aksa mosque..."

AP - Thu Jun 1, 5:34 AM ET Pro-Israel Christian evangelic pilgrims take part in a a prayer as part of celebrations of the Pentacost near the Al Aqsa Mosque compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, outside the walls of Jerusalem's Old City, Thursday, June 1, 2006. The site is traditionally believed by Jewish historians to be the location of Hulda Gate where the original steps led to the Second Jewish Temple. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer)

Today's post at Jewish Current Issues reveals that this same degradation of the Jewish significance of the Temple Mount was displayed in a Leisure & Arts piece in the Wall Street Journal. Rick Richman opens the post with this quote from II Chronicles:

"Then Solomon began to build the house of the LORD at Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord appeared unto David his father . . ." (3:1)

The next verse says, "And he began to build in the second day of the second month, in the fourth year of his reign."

The Temple Institute:

"Thus all the work that king Solomon wrought in the house of the L-rd was finished. And Solomon brought in the things which David his father had dedicated, the silver, and the gold, and the vessels, and put them in the treasuries of the house of the L-rd." Kings I 7:51

A look at this Timeline of Torah and Israel for children shows us that Solomon's Temple, the First Temple, was built in seven years, from 832 BCE to 825 BCE. It stood for 410 years. The Second Temple was built in 422 BCE, and it stood for 420 years.

Correction, with thanks to Lynn B (and a better timeline at templemount.org): The First Temple was completed c. 950 BCE and destroyed on the 9th of Av c. 587-586 BCE. So it stood for about 363 years.

The Second Temple was completed around 515 (Lynn B) or 541 BCE (templemount.org) and then destroyed - also on the 9th of Av - in the year 70 of the Common Era. So it stood for over 500 years.

For all the centuries during which the Temples stood, Jews from all over the world travelled to be there three times every year, for Pesach, Shavuos and Sukkot.

For all those many centuries, Islam was not even in existence.
Do the math (and watch out for mistakes). Islam did not exist until fourteen fifteen centuries after Solomon's completion of the First Temple. Fifteen centuries. Yet now for some reason the media is suddenly driven to disregard -or even distort- these most fundamental and significant aspects of Jewish (and Islamic) history. What could possibly motivate them, other than fear of - and acquiesence to - the threats and demands of today's terrorists?

For 1,936 years the Jewish people have been without the Temple. Yet Jews all over the world, every day, at least three times a day, for all those years have been reciting the Amidah or Shemone Esre, in which we plead for the six needs of the Jewish people:

ingathering of the exiled, restoration of justice, destruction of Israel's enemies, reward for the righteous, restoration of Jerusalem, and the coming of the Messiah.... The closing three blessings speak of the hope of return to Temple worship, thanksgiving to God, and a prayer for peace.

On Yom Kippur, the morning Torah reading deals with the service in the Temple and the Avodah during the Musaf service relives in awesome detail the Yom Kippur rituals in the Temple in Jerusalem. Every Shabbos and holiday we recall the offerings brought for the community at the Temple. Chanukah is based on the rededication of the Temple, Succot we celebrate a remembrance of the Temple Service. On Pesach we remember the Korbon Pesach lamb which was eaten with matza and maror. The Pesach seder and the Ne'illah service (at sunset on Yom Kippur) both end with the proclamation, "Next Year in Jerusalem." On Tisha B'Av we fast and mourn the loss of the Temple and long for its rebuilding. At every brit milah, we begin by saying, "Happy is the man You choose and bring near to dwell in Your courtyards; we will be satiated with the goodness of Your House, Your Holy Temple." At every wedding we break a glass to recall that our joy is not complete while the Temple is still unbuilt. The Kotel, or Western Wall, remains to this day the focus of our attention and the place where we aim all our payers.

Josias Leslie Porter lived in Damascus "since 1849" and wrote Jerusalem, Bethany, and Bethlehem - published in 1887; of the "Wailing Wall" in the 1800's, he noted:

Here the Jews are permitted to approach the sacred inclosure, and wail over the fallen Temple, whose very dust is dear to them, and in whose stones they still take pleasure. . . . Some were on their knees, chanting mournfully from a book of Hebrew prayers, swaying their bodies to and fro; some were prostrate on the ground, pressing forehead and lips to the earth; some were close to the wall, burying their faces in the rents and crannies of the old stones; some were kissing them, some had their arms spread out as if they would clasp them to their bosoms, some were bathing them with tears, and all the while sobbing as if their hearts would burst. It was a sad and touching spectacle.

Eighteen centuries of exile and woe have not dulled their hearts’ affections, or deadened their feelings of national devotion. (Source: Jerusalem, Bethany, and Bethlehem, pp. 39-40).

Here's another 19th century eyewitness, quoted in Earthly Footsteps of the Man of Galilee:

On Friday afternoon, March 13, 1863, the writer visited this sacred spot. Here he found between one and two hundred Jews of both sexes and of all ages, standing or sitting, and bowing as they read, chanted and recited, moving themselves backward and forward, the tears rolling down many a face; they kissed the walls and wrote sentences in Hebrew upon them. One of the words most frequently written is the simple word, as translated in English, "Hoping." The lamentation which is most commonly used is from Psalm 79:

"O God, the heathen are come into Thy inheritance; Thy holy temple have they defiled; they have laid Jerusalem on heaps. We are become a reproach to our neighbors, a scorn and derision to them that are round about us. How long, Lord? Wilt Thou be angry forever? Shall Thy jealousy burn like fire?”

Again (or is it... still?) We are become a reproach to our neighbors, a scorn and derision to them that are round about us.

How long, Lord?

Will You be angry f-o-r-e-v-e-r?

judaism.com

Comments

[Lynn B.]

Super post! But Akhlah's dates sseem to be a little funky. The First Temple was completed somewhere around 950 BCE (not 825), and destroyed in 586 BCE (not 492, by which time Solomon was long dead). The Second Temple was completed around 515, and was destroyed in 70 (not 68) CE. (And the typo in my trackback has been corrected)

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