Temple Politics

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Future Temple Jewish Priests Get Fitted For Holy Garments

A new fitting center opens at the Temple Institute, as Jewish priests are measured for their garments for the first time in 2,000 years. July 3rd 2008

Yehuda Glick, director of the Temple Institute, presided over the first-ever fitting of Kohanim for their priestly garments. “Today, in this room, Kohanim are being measured for the first time in 2,000 years for the type of garments they will be wearing in the rebuilt Temple," announced Glick to an audience of rabbis, reporters and cameramen on hand to witness the historic event.

The ceremony, inaugurating the Institute’s new “Bureau of Outfitting” on Ma’amadot Israel Street in the Old City, attracted several well-known rabbis who are also Kohanim.

At the beginning of the ceremony, Rabbi Yisrael Ariel delivered a speech describing the importance of the occasion. “Just like the animal sacrifices atone for the Nation of Israel, so do the clothes of the Kohen,” he remarked. A man named Aviad Jerufi was on hand to model the full uniform of the Kohen, while each individual garment was described.

Among the Kohanim being measured were Rabbi Nachman Kahane, brother of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, and Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, Chief Rabbi of Efrat. Each Kohen measured received a “Kohen number”, with Rabbi Kahane awarded the honorary first number, 1, to much applause, and Rabbi Riskin - number 2.

According to Yaacov Gutfreund and Yitzchak Shechter of the Israel Textile Association, the clothes for which the Kohanim measured during the special fitting, and which they are to receive, are not intended to be worn during actual Temple service. They are rather meant to be identical in fabric and dimension to the Bigdei Kohanim that they hope and pray to wear when the Holy Temple is rededicated.

AN ALTERNATE
Fourth B'rakhah: The Celebration of Shabbat
THE DREAM OF REDEMPTION You established Shabbat, exalted its holiness, prescribed its observance, bestowed it as Your treasured delight.
Those who take pleasure in Shabbat inherit eternal glory; those who savor Shabbat truly merit life; those who love its teaching have chosen to join in its greatness.
For at Sinai the shoot of redemption was planted for us and for the world.
May it be Your will, Adonai our God and God of our ancestors, that we may be led to our land,
and planted within our borders, in wholeness and in peace, singing joyfully with voices of gladness, filled with love and friendship.
May we walk together by the light of Your countenance, all of us living lives of righteousness and justice, love and compassion, as Your prophet Isaiah proclaimed:
“There shall not be evil or destruction on My holy mountain, for the world shall be filled with the knowledge of God, as the waters fill the sea.”
“Thus shall Adonai be an eternal light for us, and your God shall be your glory.”

ALTERNATE BUSSING. Both the Rabbinical Assembly's Slddur Sim Shalom and the Israeli Masorti Siddur Va'ani Tefilati have offered revisions of this brakhah emphasizing elements of universal redemption rather than the restoration of Temple offerings. The accompanying prayers written by Slmcha Roth and Ze'ev Kainan. under the direction of the editors of this volume, follow In that tradition.
This alternate rendering emphasizes Shabbat as a taste of redemption, and It sees the return to the land as an opportunity to fulfill the prophetic vision of redemption. In which the world will be characterized by peace and justice.

RThe year 1996 marked an important milestone in the world of religious Zionism. The Council of Yesha Rabbis (CYR) ruled that Jews are permitted and even encouraged to enter the Temple Mount.

The ruling by the CYR is contrary to long-standing religious edicts, to the position of the leaders of the Mercaz Harav yeshiva, to the position of the Chief Rabbinate, and to the opinion of the majority of ultra-Orthodox rabbis. All these authorities argue that it is a grave religious transgression for Jews to enter the Temple Mount. According to Halacha, all Jews are considered to be impure due to contact with the dead, since they have come into contact with deceased persons or with others who have at some point been in such contact. During the Temple Period (536 BCE--70 CE) Jews were cleansed from the impurity of the dead by virtue of the "sin water"-the ashes of the red heifer mixed in water. Since the destruction of the Second Temple, red heifers have not been available. Moreover, the precise dimensions of the Temple have been lost, including the location of the Kodesh Kodashim-the most sacred site-identified as the dwelling place of the Shechina, the Divine Presence. Entry into this section was absolutely prohibited, with the exception of the High Priest (who was cleansed with the "sin water" before performing his sacred duties) on the Day of Atonement. Since the location of the Temple is no longer known, and since red heifers are unavailable, it was ruled that Jews are prohibited from entering the entire Temple Mount area, even though this area is known to be bigger than that of the Temple itself. Accordingly, a person who enters the Temple Mount area incurs the (theoretical) penalty of Karet (the Divinely-imposed death penalty). This position that prohibits Jews from entering the Temple Mount has been supported in numerous Halachic rulings.

Since the 1967 war, Israeli governments have always sought to mitigate the tension raised by this subject, allowing the Muslim Waqf to maintain its control of the Temple Mount....

Just a few hours after the Temple Mount came under the control the Israeli forces on June 8, Israel Radio issued the warning by Rabbinate not to enter the site. At the first convention of the Council of the Chief Rabbinate after the war, Chief Rabbis Nissim and Unterman continued to argue that Jews must not be permitted to enter the site.

the Council of the Chief Rabbinate ruled that the entire Temple Mount area was out of bounds. Yitzhak Abuhatzeira, rabbi of Ramle, was the first rabbi to demand that warning signs be placed at the entrance to the site forbidding Jews to enter.

[Rabbi] Shlomo Goren was the Chief Rabbi of the IDF at the time of the Six Day War. This biographical fact constitutes a key point in the development of his personal approach and his vigorous campaign to open the Temple Mount. After the war, he initiated the mapping of the site by soldiers from the Engineering Corps in order to identify areas prohibited to Jews, since the Temple Mount site of today is considerably and indisputably larger than the original dimensions of the First and Second Temples.

When he realized that his initial expectation that the Islamic presence would be removed would not materialize, and that the mosques were to remain, Goren sent a confidential memorandum to Prime Minister Levi Eshkol demanding that entry to the Temple Mount be closed to both Jews and Gentiles, but this was rejected. After the war, Goren established his office on the Temple Mount. On Tisha B'Av (the day of mourning to commemorate the destruction of the first and second Temples) the rabbi and a group of his supporters brought a Torah scroll, ark, and prayer benches to the Temple Mount, where they prayed Mincha (the afternoon service).

Moreover, the question of the entry of women was one of the aspects that deterred him from issuing an independent declaration opening the Temple Mount to all Jews. Goren believed that women must not be permitted to enter the Temple Mount area due to the question of ritual impurity, and was afraid that a sweeping permit for Jews to enter would also result in women entering the site.

Over the years, several attempts have been made by extremist activists to blow up the mosques on the Temple Mount as a first step toward religious Redemption. The leaders of the Jewish Underground (who were among the founding figures in the Gush Emunim movement) prepared operational plans to blow up the mosques, but their plans were foiled after they were apprehended in 1984. Another attempt was prevented that same year with the arrest of the "Lifta Underground", a group of newly religious Jews who were profoundly influenced by Kabalistic traditions, and who sought to destroy the mosques in order to pave the way for Jewish redemption.

Avi Dichter, former head of the Israeli General Security Service, has commented that the possibility of Jewish extremists launching an attack on the Temple Mount constitutes a key strategic threat to the State of Israel, and that it is right to be extremely concerned about such an eventuality.

According to Rabbi Kook, the process of national revival of the people was perceived as a Revealed End and was ultimately due the full redemption of Israel, namely: the establishment of the kingdom and the renewal of the rites on the Temple Mount. To he established the Torat Cohanim yeshiva in 192I. This institute higher learning was planned, as its declared intentions stated to study the Talmudic order of Kodshim, the regulation of worship in the Temple, the commandments that relate to the Land of Israel and the religious laws relating to the state."'

In the responsum, Rabbi Kook issues a strong warning against entering the Temple Mount area. It seems that this responsum was issued in reaction to the proposal by Rabbi Chaim Hirschenson, mentioned in the book Malki Bakodesh, to construct a house of prayer on the Temple.

Zvi Yehudah [Kook] sharply criticized Shlomo Goren, the Chief Rabbi of the IDF, and later a Chief Rabbi of the State of Israel, who advocated Jewish prayer on the Mount, as discussed in the following section. Zvi Yehudah felt compelled to oppose in the fiercest possible terms the idea of Jews entering the Temple Mount area in order to pray. Indeed, Kook- father and son alike-Avraham Yitzhak and Zvi Yehudah-ruled that the sanctity of the Temple Mount was so great that it was prohibited even to place one's fingers inside the cracks in the Western Wall. Zvi Yehudah fiercely opposed the demand to undertake archeological excavations on the Temple Mount, since it "is surrounded by a wall. We do not pass this wall and we have no need for [the site] to be studied.

The general rabbinical approach to the question of entering Mount may be divided into four main schools.

The first rejects such a possibility, which is left to Messianic position is shared by the majority of members of the plenum Chief Rabbinate.

The second seeks to prepare actively for Redemption, but within legitimate religious frameworks, through theoretical study of the laws relating to the sacrificial worship. This approach does not include actual entry into the Temple Mount site and remains within the accepted framework of Torah study. The approach of Avraham Yitzhak Hacohen Kook reflects this position.

The third school argues that the construction of the Temple is indeed a public commandment, but before this takes place, spiritual elevation is needed, through settlement across the entire Holy Land and the dissemination of the light of faith, which constitute the foundation on which the Temple may be constructed. Thus, until that time it is prohibited to enter the mount. This approach is the most common among the Mercaz Harav yeshiva school.

The fourth and most activist school permits Jews to enter the Temple Mount, with certain restrictions. To this end, much effort is devoted to identifying the borders of the Temple area in order to avoid problems of ritual impurity that arise in entering the prohibited areas. This fourth school is becoming more dominant among the religious Zionist leadership, both political and rabbinical.

The study also discusses the clear phenomenon of the erosion and weakening of the prohibition against Jews entering the Temple Mount. It is difficult to ignore the growing support for this approach among ever wider circles. The research also discusses the manner in which a political process-the Oslo Accords-led to a series of counter-reactions, influencing religious approaches that had previously been considered immutable. We see that strict Orthodox circles have changed their religious behavior as the result of changing times. The fear that the Temple Mount will be lost and transferred to Arab control legitimized far-reaching changes in a long-standing religious ruling.

The yearning of the religious population for the Temple Mount and for the ideal of re-establishing the Temple grew stronger due to the threat to Israeli sovereignty over the site. As long as Israel controlled the site and the idea of handing the Mount over to Palestinian sovereignty as part of a peace agreement was not raised, even activist circles among the religious Zionist community did not, for the most part, seek to change the reality on the Temple Mount. Although the desire to build the Temple is a central theme among these circles, it was postponed until a later stage of the process of redemption, as they see it. By contrast, since the emergence of the Oslo accords and discussion of the division of sovereignty in the "Holy Basin" (the Western Wall and the Temple Mount) there has been an increasingly strong counter-reaction demanding that Jews enter the site and create facts on the ground. The proof of this is the large number of people who have entered the Mount during the year after the Mount was reopened (September 2003) despite the Halachic prohibition. It is reasonable to suggest that it will be difficult to continue to ignore this growing support for action on this question among ever-widening circles.

It is still too early to determine what will become of these trends. It is also possible that further developments would be a result of the changing political reality. It may be, on one hand, that the question of Jews entering the Temple Mount will become routine. On the other hand, if the crisis and violent situation continues, there could be found those who would desire attack the mosques on the site in order to promote the messianic process. If such would appear, then the warning of Avi Dichter, recently the head of the Israeli General Security Service, might

Religious Zionism and the Temple Mount Dilemma—Key Trends, Author(s): Motti Inbari
Source: Israel Studies , Summer, 2007, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Summer, 2007), pp. 29-47
Published by: Indiana University Press