Indicators invited Jews to go to the Temple Mount. Why Israel’s chief rabbi forbade them.

(RNS) — After Israel captured Jerusalem within the 1967 Six-Day Conflict, the Israeli Chief Rabbinate ordered {that a} signal be posted on the Mughrabi Gate, the doorway to the sacred Temple Mount for non-Muslims, warning that “In accordance with Torah Legislation, getting into the Temple Mount space is strictly forbidden because of the holiness of the positioning.” 

The Mount — Judaism’s most sacred website, and towards which Jews the world over face once they pray — was the place the 2 historical Jewish temples, the facilities of the religion and Jewish life, initially stood. It is usually believed by Muslims to be the place the place the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven, and it’s dominated at this time by the Dome of the Rock shrine and the Al-Aqsa Mosque complicated. It’s administered by the Waqf, a Muslim endowment run by Jordan.

The indicators posted in 1967 remained there for many years, till this previous August, when unknown activists changed it with one asserting, in opposition to the rabbinate’s place and rulings by essentially the most revered haredi (or “ultra-Orthodox”) authorities, that ascending the Mount is permitted after immersion in a ritual bathtub.

In 1967, Israel made the selection to not disrupt the Waqf’s oversight. Israeli authorities and Muslim non secular authorities agreed that Jews can be permitted to hope on the Western Wall, a part of the retaining wall surrounding the Mount, courting again to the times of King Herod. Muslims would proceed to have efficient management of the Islamic edifices atop the Mount. The compound can be open for visits by non-Muslims, however not for prayer.

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Apart from Jewish non secular objection to Jews getting into the complicated, there’s a secular, political curb in place as nicely. By Israeli regulation, non-Muslims might go as much as the Temple Mount to go to, however to not pray or conduct rites.

From a purely affordable perspective, a prohibition in opposition to praying at a spiritual website — to not point out Jews praying at their religion’s holiest one — may appear puzzling. Certainly, there have been some voices in 1967 demanding that Israel not solely occupy the positioning however raze its mosques and construct a 3rd Jewish temple to interchange the second, razed by Rome in 70 C.E.

Non secular Jews arrive to hope on the Temple Mount, identified to Muslims because the Noble Sanctuary, within the Outdated Metropolis of Jerusalem, Aug. 2, 2021. Jewish prayers at Jerusalem’s most delicate holy website have been as soon as unthinkable. However they’ve quietly turn into the norm lately, defying long-standing conference, straining a fragile establishment and elevating fears that they may set off a brand new wave of violence within the Center East. (AP Picture/Maya Alleruzzo)

The non secular causes for the prohibition are complicated. To enter such a holy place, Jewish regulation requires any Jewish man or lady who has had contact with or been below the identical roof as a deceased particular person to endure a purification ritual that includes, amongst different issues, a wonderfully purple heifer that has by no means been labored in any manner — in different phrases, one thing exceedingly uncommon. In Jewish thought, the “purple heifer” ritual is taken into account the final word instance of an imponderable regulation however is binding all the identical. 

However Israel’s political leaders additionally felt that, to take care of the peace and show goodwill towards Muslims, Islamic worship on the Mount shouldn’t be disturbed. And so the take care of the Waqf was struck and has been honored over time. The one occasions Israeli police have entered the compound have been when clear risks have been posed, as when rocks and particles have been thrown down at Jewish worshippers on the Western Wall.

Recently, Jewish nationalists bent on affirming the Jewish connection to the Mount have more and more visited the positioning, some attempting to skirt the prohibition on non-Muslim prayer. In 2021, visits to the positioning by Jews, together with Knesset members, exceeded 30,000.

A few of the guests might have been motivated totally by non secular emotions, their souls pining to face the place their ancestors prayed hundreds of years in the past. Others appear motivated extra by nationalistic emotions than non secular ones, by a need to show Israel’s final jurisdiction over the Temple Mount, even when they should be accompanied by Israeli police to make sure that they don’t violate the “no praying” rule.

The latter is a provocation with no justification. It is usually a present to Muslim extremists the world over who detest Israel and seek for something they will painting as insulting.

The substitute of the rabbinate’s warning that Jews ought to chorus from ascending the Mount with an indication allowing it was one more provocation.

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Fortunately, in keeping with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef approached the official rabbi of the Western Wall, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch, requesting the removing of the brand new signal and the return of the unique one forbidding Jews to ascend the Mount. 

Some nationalist Israelis is perhaps bristling on the previous signal’s return. However Jews whose non secular convictions aren’t entangled with nationalistic sentiments consider it not solely fallacious as a problem of Torah regulation to ascend the Mount, however fallacious as nicely to goad or incite different peoples or religions. They — we — proceed to hope, on the Western Wall and in synagogues and houses throughout the planet, that God himself will usher within the period when, within the metaphorical phrases of Isaiah, “a wolf and a lamb shall graze collectively,” when world peace and unity of objective amongst all folks will reign.

(Rabbi Avi Shafran is a columnist for Ami Journal and serves as director of public affairs for Agudath Israel of America. The views expressed on this commentary don’t essentially replicate these of Faith Information Service.)