The Foundation Stone

As Jacob approaches death in Vayechi, the Zohar introduces an extraordinary sequence. It compounds the Foundation Stone of creation, Isaiah’s tested cornerstone, the rejected stone of Hallel, Jacob’s matzevah, Zechariah’s seven-eyed stone and the Stone of Israel into a single identity.

God cast a stone into the abyss, the Zohar says, and from it the world was planted. It is the central point of creation, “and on this point stands the holy of holies.” The Zohar identifies this primordial stone with Isaiah’s “tested stone, a precious cornerstone” and “the stone rejected by the builders.”

These are not merely analogous stones. Zohar, Vayechi 43:445 declares them to be the same Foundation Stone.

Its wording must nevertheless be preserved carefully:

ובהאי נקודה קיימא קדש הקדשים

“At/on this point stands the holy of holies.”

The statement occurs within a cosmic and mystical account of creation. It does not explicitly say that Solomon’s architectural Holy of Holies stood over this stone or provide measurements for constructing a chamber around it. The Foundation Stone is the sacred center at which the holy of holies stands or is present.

The following passage identifies its earthly manifestation. The primordial stone, compounded from fire, water and air and resting above the abyss, was placed as a sign at the center of the world. The Zohar then says: “It is referred to in the words, ‘And Jacob took a stone and set it up as a matzevah.’” The citation is Genesis 31:45.

Jacob did not create the foundation of creation. He established it “above and below” by making there a “house of God,” invoking his declaration:

“This stone, which I have set up as a pillar, shall be God’s house.”
—Genesis 28:22

Jacob’s physical matzevah therefore makes the cosmic Foundation Stone present within a particular house of God.

The chain continues with Zechariah’s “one stone” bearing “seven eyes.” The Zohar again calls it the Foundation Stone, places the Cherubim “in that place,” invokes Mount Zion and finally calls the mystery the “Stone of Israel”—the phrase contained in Jacob’s final blessing in Genesis 49:24.

It then states:

אבן, דא כנסת ישראל

“Stone—this is Knesset Israel.”

The Stone of Israel is therefore not simply Temple masonry. It is identified with the supernal Assembly of Israel. The Zohar discloses what Jacob’s stone became:

Jacob’s matzevah established the house of God.
The house of God established the sacred center.
The sacred center is the Foundation Stone.
At that point stands the holy of holies.
The Foundation Stone is the rejected cornerstone.
The cornerstone is the Stone of Israel.
The Stone is Knesset Israel.

From mystical identity to physical stone

The Zohar develops an older tradition. Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 35 describes Jacob returning to the stones upon which he slept and finding that they had become one. He erected that stone as a matzevah. God then sank it into the depths like the keystone of an arch, making it the Even haShetiyah—the Foundation Stone and navel of the earth. From it the world unfolded, and upon it stood the House of God.

The difficulty begins when this identity is converted into architectural geography.

The Mishnah in Yoma 5:2 describes a stone inside the Second Temple’s Holy of Holies that projected three fingerbreadths above the floor and received the High Priest’s incense after the Ark disappeared. Maimonides similarly places a stone beneath the Ark in the western part of Solomon’s Holy of Holies.

That is not an obvious description of an upright matzevah. The Zohar identifies the sacred mystery but does not resolve the architectural difference through measurements.

Rashi encounters a related geographical problem. Jacob’s revelation occurs at Beit El, yet Rashi identifies “the place” with Mount Moriah. He preserves their identity through kefitzat ha’aretz: Mount Moriah moved toward Jacob.

Perhaps the archaeology now permits part of that geography to be unfolded.

Two adjacent rooms

The excavated complex stands on the eastern slope of the City of David, on the southern side of the Mount Moriah ridge and immediately above Jerusalem’s ancient spring.

Its eight interconnected rock-cut rooms contain an in-situ standing stone, installations associated with oil and wine and, in the immediately adjacent room, a preserved bedrock platform connected to a liquid channel. The excavation report concludes that the rooms formed a cultic complex originating around the transition from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age and continuing until its organized closure in Iron Age IIB. The report was published by the Israel Antiquities Authority.

The spatial relationship is crucial. The matzevah and possible altar platform are not distant or unrelated features. They occupy neighboring bedrock rooms within one cultic arrangement.

Nor should the platform necessarily be understood as the complete surviving altar. The Torah commands that a stone altar must not be built from hewn stones (Exodus 20:22). Deuteronomy requires an altar of “whole stones” (Deuteronomy 27:5–6).

The altar proper could therefore have consisted of a removable superstructure assembled from separate, unhewn stones upon the platform. Those stones might later have been removed while the durable bedrock footing and liquid channel remained. The cautious description is not a surviving rock-cut altar, but a platform that may have supported an altar of unhewn stones.

The Torah’s command to Moses does not prove that Abraham built his altar in this form. It does explain why the absence of a surviving stone superstructure is not an objection to the platform’s proposed function.

Nearby radiocarbon evidence confirms activity on this part of the eastern slope during the sixteenth and early fifteenth centuries BCE, time of the patriarchs, although it does not directly date the standing stone or platform. The results were published in Radiocarbon.

The sanctuary was entered from the east, with the matzevah toward its western side. Maimonides records that Abraham rejected the eastward orientation of solar worship and, on Mount Moriah, “turned therefore to the West.”

Together the remains present a candidate of exceptional specificity: a Bronze Age sanctuary on Mount Moriah containing an upright matzevah and, in the adjacent room, a possible altar platform.

The altar that cannot move

The Rambam’s treatment of the altar is explicitly legal and geographical.

In Hilchot Beit HaBechirah 2:1, he rules that the altar occupies an exceptionally precise location and “may never be changed from its place.” He immediately connects that coordinate to the Akedah:

“In the Sanctuary, Isaac our father was bound.”

In Hilchot Beit HaBechirah 2:2, he records the tradition that David and Solomon built their altar where Abraham erected his altar and bound Isaac. The same point is associated with Noah, Cain and Abel, Adam’s sacrifice and Adam’s creation.

The Rambam is not describing transferable sanctity. He is defining one recurring altar coordinate.

This creates an unavoidable choice. Either the platform beside the matzevah did not support Abraham’s altar, in which case it remains an unidentified cultic feature; or, if it did support the Akedah altar, the future Temple altar must return there.

A later altar erected elsewhere could not cause the Akedah coordinate to migrate.

Beneath the golden dome

The conventional reconstruction places the Holy of Holies around the exposed rock beneath the Dome of the Rock. Its surviving geographical chain, however, is associated with the Muslim conquest rather than an extant Second Temple measurement.

According to historical tradition, the Jewish convert Kaʿb al-Aḥbār accompanied Caliph Umar into Jerusalem and identified the exposed Sakhra as the Even Shetiyah. Umar cleared the site for prayer; approximately half a century later, ʿAbd al-Malik enclosed the rock beneath the Dome. An Encyclopaedia Judaica account preserves this tradition.

Kaʿb may have transmitted genuine Jewish teaching. But his identification does not constitute archaeological proof that the exposed rock occupied Solomon’s Holy of Holies.

Neither the Rambam nor the Zohar names the rock beneath the Dome. If the eastern-slope complex supplies a better candidate for Abraham’s altar or the earthly manifestation of Jacob’s Foundation Stone, the inherited geography must be reconsidered.

The distinction is fundamental:

The Rambam fixes the altar through the Akedah.
The Zohar identifies Jacob’s stone as the Foundation Stone and Stone of Israel.
The Dome preserves a later geographical interpretation.

Zion before Solomon

Biblical Zion first denotes David’s stronghold, explicitly identified as the City of David (II Samuel 5:7). Before Solomon built the Temple, David placed the Ark in a tent inside that city (II Samuel 6:17). Solomon was later anointed at Gihon with oil taken from that sacred tent (I Kings 1:38–40).

The City of David therefore possessed an Ark-centered sanctuary before Solomon’s Temple.

Ronny Reich’s identification of the spring commonly called Gihon with biblical En Shemesh adds a boundary marker. Joshua places En Shemesh between Judah and Benjamin. The Talmud similarly preserves a Temple tradition in which most of the altar stood in Benjamin, its southeast corner entered Judah, and the Sanctuary remained in Benjamin (Zevachim 53b).

The spring, tribal boundary, Zion, Ark, matzevah and possible altar platform converge upon the same eastern landscape.

The conclusion forced by the Akedah

The archaeology does not prove that the standing stone belonged to Jacob or that Abraham built an altar upon the adjacent platform. No inscription names either patriarch.

But the consequences of the proposition are precise.

If the platform carried the Akedah altar:

• It marks the unchangeable coordinate described by the Rambam.

• The altar may have been built from removable, unhewn stones.

• Removing those stones would not erase the bedrock coordinate.

• The future altar must return to that location.

If the standing stone is the stone identified by the Zohar:

• It is Jacob’s earthly establishment of the Foundation Stone.

• It is the tested, rejected and seven-eyed stone.

• It is the Stone of Israel, identified with Knesset Israel.

• It is the sacred center at which the Zohar says the holy of holies stands.

• It does not, by itself, provide the architectural measurements of a future inner chamber.

The Zohar supplies the identity of the stone. The Rambam supplies the immutable law of the altar. The archaeology supplies two adjacent rooms containing possible physical candidates for both.

The Akedah fixes the physical coordinate of the altar.

Jacob’s stone identifies the sacred center beside it.

The stone rejected by the builders may therefore be the surviving earthly expression of the Stone of Israel, standing immediately beside the platform upon which the immovable altar must be restored.restored.

Bowing Toward Zion!

Bowing South to Zion before Mecca

A discovery could rewrite Jerusalem and Zionism itself. Below the Temple Mount, the most contested patch of earth on the planet, a groundbreaking discovery could change the world with a single question: What if history’s holiest flashpoint is no longer the relevant place to contest?

For centuries, Jerusalem’s Temple Mount has been the axis of world faith and conflict. Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike have looked to its heights as the place where Abraham bound Isaac, where David laid the foundation stone, where Solomon raised the First Temple, and where creation itself began. Wars were waged over this summit. Empires clashed in its shadow. Today, it remains the most disputed piece of land on Earth.

But the drama may not be where we think it is. On the eastern slopes of Mount Moriah, south of and below the famed summit, a team of archaeologists has uncovered something extraordinary: a stone temple complex and water system dating back more than 3,500 years to the time of Malchi-Tzedek and Abraham.

Processing animals

Altar platform for assembling altars 

Carved directly into the bedrock of the mountain, this system includes a reservoir and a channel designed to wash blood and refuse from animal sacrifices on temporary sacrificial altars that were periodically built on a relief left over for a bedrock platform. Radiocarbon dating performed by Cambridge University and Israel’s Weizmann Institute places the sites construction and last use around 1535 BCE, in the precise 30 year window the Bible situates Jacob's return to and final years in the land. After that Jacob ultimately left for Egypt with his family, thereafter archaeology at the site and on the mountain ceased abruptly for almost 300 years.

The site’s architecture is not random. A westernmost altar matches Maimonides’ teaching that ancient pagans prayed eastward toward the rising sun, but Abraham turned his back to the sun, facing west toward the sanctity of the one true God. One chamber appears shaped for processing slaughtered animals, another for burning sacrifices on an altar and between them stands a matzevah - a standing stone remarkably consistent with Jacob’s pillar in Genesis 35: "Jacob set up a pillar at the site where God had spoken to him…” and when he returned to it (Genesis 35:14) he accepted his name Israel.

Matzevah on bedrock

This is not merely archaeology. This is scripture meeting bedrock. The irony is profound: The modern political conflict over Zionism also originates from a dispute over this very place. Zionism was born from a simple, ancient claim: The Jewish people have a right to their ancestral land because a specific place - Zion - was promised, inhabited, sanctified, and remembered. Zion, the City of David, Jerusalem and ultimately the Temple Mount became the physical and symbolic anchor for that claim. It was allegedly the 'stone' upon which Jewish historical legitimacy was cast. Modern anti-Zionist narratives lean heavily on undermining that very connection: Some argue Jews have no ancient ties to Jerusalem. Others claim the temples never stood on the mountain. Still others insist the Jewish link is a colonial myth retrofitted to a holy Muslim site.

Zion Redeemed

The Temple Mount is thus not just a place, it is the political fulcrum of Jewish indigeneity. Control the narrative of the Mount, and you control the legitimacy of Zionism itself. But, here lies the explosive twist: If the sanctuary of Israel's forefathers, its altar, and stone pillar are actually located on the lower slope, not the Temple Mount summit, the entire frame of the modern conflict shifts. For Christians the implications touch salvation history. For Muslims, it challenges centuries of inherited tradition about the sacred geography and posits them bowing south toward Zion, which would stand between their bowing and Mecca. But, for Jews, the ramifications are seismic!

If Abraham’s altar of Akeida and Jacob’s monument stood not where today’s Dome of the Rock sits, but on the lower slope above the ancient spring of En Shemesh (Gihon), then: Jewish worship would no longer be shackled by the political status quo on the Temple Mount. The “status quo” used to block Jewish prayer might simply be irrelevant. The dream of a Third Temple transforms from geopolitical nightmare to practical possibility.

And for the modern ideological struggle? Anti-Zionism loses its central pillar. If Jewish sanctity does not hinge on the contested summit, the claim that Zionism is a colonial intrusion on Muslim holy space collapses. Instead, the archaeological record reinforces that Israel was here first and that their earliest sanctuary at Zion came well before later constructions, long predating Solomon, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, or Islamic claims.

For centuries, the Temple Mount was weaponized by Crusaders, by Sultans, by politicians, by terrorists. The October 7th massacre by Hamas and Islamic Jihad was named the 'Al Aqsa Flood', invoking the Temple Mount as justification for genocide. But Zionism was equally shaped by this pressure point. It emerged from a world that tried to dislodge Jews from their ground and a determination to return to that ground despite it. The contested nature of the place forged the movement itself. Yet, if the original altar of Isaac's binding (Akeida) lies on the lower slope, not on the summit of Mount Moriah, the entire narrative religious, historical and political must be rewritten.

Skeptics will argue the connection is circumstantial; believers may dismiss it as heresy. But the evidence is converging: The archaeological dates align with Jacob’s presence, during 10 of his last 30 years before leaving Israel. The orientation opposes the sun. The architecture matches traditional temple service descriptions. The water system supports sacrificial functions, not domestic use. The standing stone mirrors Jacob’s matzevah. The tribal boundaries converge on the altar and if these stones indeed tell the story they appear to tell, then the ideological battlefield over Zionism may have been misplaced for centuries.

The place that changed the world may not be the place that will change the world again. No city has borne more weight upon its stones than Jerusalem. But, if this discovery holds, then Jerusalem’s oldest stones reveal a stunning revelation: Zionism may not originate from a disputed Temple Mount summit after all, but from a forgotten sanctuary on the lower slope that every day Muslims face from Al Aqsa. And that revelation could shift the world politically, spiritually, and historically.

The stones of Jerusalem still have secrets to tell. And those secrets may yet reshape the meaning of Zion, the struggle for it, and the future built upon it.

Zionism — And I Will Remember the Land — What’s the Problem?

Adapted from a speech delivered on Shavuot. 

There is a strange modern habit of speaking about Zionism as though it were a recent political invention, a nineteenth-century slogan, a colonial ideology, or an embarrassment that Jews are expected to explain before being allowed to participate in polite society. Yet before Zionism became a modern movement, before Herzl stood beneath that famous beard, before Basel, or the British Mandate, before the United Nations, or the State of Israel, and before every contemporary political argument that now crowds the word, there was Zion. Zion was not born in Europe. Zion was not invented by diplomacy. Zion was not manufactured as a public-relations phrase for Jewish statehood. Zion is a word in Tanach, a word in Jewish prayer, in prophecy, in mourning, in weddings, in exile, in return, and a word embedded in the very grammar by which the Jewish people understand Jerusalem, covenant, kingship and divine presence.

The Torah says, in the tochacha, after exile, suffering and dispersion: “Vezacharti et briti Yaakov… veha’aretz ezkor” — “I will remember My covenant with Jacob… and I will remember the land.” Not only the people. Not only the commandments. Not only ethics. Not only memory as an abstract spiritual category. The Land. That phrase is devastating to every ideology that wants Judaism to become a floating morality without geography. The Torah does not allow Jewish identity to dissolve into a university department, a humanitarian mood, or a set of universal values with no mountain, no valley, no spring, no border, no stone and no ancestral name. Jewish memory has geography. It has direction. It has inheritance. It has Jerusalem. It has Zion.

This is why the modern opposition to Zionism so often depends on ignorance. If someone says, “I oppose Zionism,” the first question should be: which Zion are you opposing? The Zion of King David? The Zion of Isaiah? The Zion of Tehillim? The Zion of Jewish prayer? The Zion toward which Jews turned their faces for generations? The Zion for which Jews broke glasses under the chuppah? The Zion mourned on Tisha B’Av and invoked to comfort mourners? Or are you opposing a word encountered last semester in a badly photocopied political pamphlet? Those are not the same thing. To oppose Zion while refusing to learn what Zion means is not moral clarity. It is a refusal to read and learn.

We live in an age in which ignorance travels quickly and with great confidence. Before social media, ignorance had to walk to the marketplace; today it has Wi-Fi. A person may stand in New York, London, Sydney or Melbourne and declare, with impressive moral seriousness, that Jews have no indigenous connection to Zion, while standing in a city named after a colonial governor, speaking a language exported by empire, and drinking coffee harvested by people whose names they will never know. Then they lecture the Jews about colonialism. One has to admire the chutzpah, but one should not confuse it with knowledge.

Of course Jews may debate Israeli politics. Jews debate everything. Three Jews in a room can produce five opinions, seven WhatsApp groups, and one person insisting that his cousin in Ramat Beit Shemesh knows the real story. There can and must be arguments about governments, policies, borders, strategies, mistakes, personalities and moral responsibilities. That is normal. That is healthy. But the modern political debate is not the origin of Zion. Zion is older than the State. Zion is older than modern nationalism. Zion is older than the political categories now imposed upon it. Zion is the name of a primordial Israelite reality, the place where land, covenant, memory, kingship and divine purpose meet.

In Tanach, Zion first emerges explicitly in the story of David: “David captured the stronghold of Zion; it became the City of David.” That verse alone should stop the conversation from drifting into abstraction. David does not capture an idea. He does not capture a metaphor. He captures a place, a stronghold, a real location, and that place becomes bound to the identity of Jerusalem and the destiny of Israel. Later, when Shlomo gathers the elders of Israel, Melachim again identifies the City of David with Zion. Isaiah then gives us one of the most astonishing prophetic phrases: “Ki ayin b’ayin yiru beshuv Hashem Tzion.” Usually this is translated as “they will see eye to eye when Hashem returns to Zion,” but the Hebrew can be read with greater accuracy and force: “they will see eye to eye when Hashem returns Zion”, when Zion itself is restored to its proper place, and only then do we see eye to eye.

That is not a newspaper slogan. That is a prophecy. Prophecy is dangerous because it refuses to let politics become the whole story. Politics says: this is about power. Prophecy says: no, this is about memory. Politics says: this is about competing claims. Prophecy says: no, this is about covenant. Politics says: this started recently. Prophecy says: no, you arrived late to a very old conversation. Once one asks what Zion actually is, the argument changes. The Jewish relationship to Zion is not merely emotional, although it is emotional. It is not merely religious, although it is profoundly religious. It is not merely historical, although history cries out from every layer of Jerusalem’s stones. It is textual, ritual, liturgical, geographical, archaeological and covenantal.

That is why Zion cannot be reduced to modern nationalism. Modern nationalism speaks in the language of statecraft: flags, armies, institutions, borders, elections, sovereignty and diplomacy. Zion speaks first in the language of memory, covenant, sanctity, longing and return. Political Zionism may have built the practical structures required for Jewish survival in a world of empires and nation-states, but it did not invent the Jewish claim. It operationalized an older memory. It translated ancient longing into the machinery of modern power. That translation can be debated. It can be criticized. It can be morally refined. But the older claim cannot honestly be dismissed as a nineteenth-century fantasy when Zion is already woven through the deepest strata of Jewish consciousness.

This is especially important on days when the Jewish people celebrate words inscribed in Torah. The Torah is not only a book of private spirituality. It is a national covenant. It is the constitution of a people meant to live a moral life in a particular land. That makes some people uncomfortable. They prefer Judaism as a set of universal values with a pleasant soundtrack. They like the Ten Commandments, but they become nervous once one mentions borders. Yet the Torah gives no permission to separate covenant from land. Avraham is told to go to a land. Yitzchak is told not to leave the land. Yaakov dreams in the land and returns to the land. Moshe leads the people toward the land. The mitzvot constantly point toward life in the land. And even in exile, Hashem says: “I will remember the land.” The Land is not the optional side salad of Jewish identity. It is part of the covenantal meal.

From there the question moves to Zion itself. There is a deeper tradition, drawn from Zohar and from Rav Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev, that Zion is not only a physical place but a deeply spiritual location and an indigenous, perpetual memory that David sought to rediscover. In Kabbalistic language, Zion is invoked in Yosef; it shares the same gematria, 156. It is the spiritual and emotional attribute of Yesod or foundation, layered in form. There is an upper Yesod associated with Yosef’s land and a lower Yesod, the inner covenantal point, associated with his brother Binyamin’s land, together considered the Periah of Milah or covenantal circumcision.  This parallels the northern border of Binyamin’s land with Yosef and opposite southern border with Yehuda. Jerusalem is Malchut or kingdom, the outer covenantal expression on Yehuda’s land, whose northernmost tip, on the lower slope of Mount Moriah, intersects Binyamin. This is considered the Orlah of Milah or covenantal circumcision. In simpler terms, the sacred geography points to a meeting-place: on the lower slope of Mount Moriah, the foundation stone, Zion converges at the northernmost land-tip of Yehuda at the south-east corner of the altar, while the other corners are associated with the land of Binyamin. Zevachim preserves the memory that the altar consumed one cubit from the portion of Judah. From that origin, Zion expands outward into the whole covenantal land. This is Zion's GPS.

It's a holistic idea that asks us to read geography, family history, tribal inheritance and spiritual structure as one system and that is precisely how Torah works. The personal drama of the forefathers is never merely personal. It becomes land, tribe and boundary. It becomes destiny. Prototypical Zion begins In Mitzrayim, at the beginning of the Jewish nation’s exile and ultimate journey to receive Torah. Yehuda approaches Yosef about Binyamin's retention. Each brother carries hidden guilt before their father Yaakov. Yehuda knows the brothers have concealed a dark secret about Yosef from their father. Yosef knows the full story, but did nothing to relieve his father’s suffering. Binyamin remains innocent, the one brother not implicated in the sale of Yosef, and yet he will have to co-opt and subdue their dark secret in order to uphold family unity. This is Yosef’s Yesodian moment, he comes out of concealment for revelation and unity to preserve fracture, uphold their father’s honor and rebuild family unity.

Vayigash is the moment of hishtavut, transcendence and revelation. Yehuda offers himself in exchange for Binyamin. Yosef reveals himself — “Ani Yosef!” — and cries upon Binyamin’s neck. The Torah uses the plural “necks,” and Rashi famously links this to the destruction of the Temples. On the surface, one may ask how Binyamin can have more than one neck. But in the geography of their future land inheritance, Binyamin does have two necks: One facing Yosef to the north and one facing Yehuda to the south. The oscillation between these necks expressed as tears over the future Temple destructions that would be underwritten by the tension between Yosef and Yehuda for the permanent Temple location at a point where these spiritual, family, land and covenantal roles meet. Yosef is the hidden tzaddik who sustains life in exile. Binyamin is innocence sacrificed and the lower covenantal point, Yehuda is kingship, Malchut, leadership revealed in the open. The union of Rachel’s only sons Yosef and Binyamin with Leah’s Yehuda is the first step in the deep architecture of return.

This is why Zion may be described as Israel’s enduring singularity. The Jewish people are not only meant to carry memory internally. They are designed to reveal it externally. We are not only meant to believe. We are meant to build. We are not only meant to remember Zion in our hearts. We are meant to return Jerusalem to its history. And that is precisely what many cannot tolerate. A Jew who remembers Zion privately is charming. A Jew who sings about Zion is cultural. A Jew who writes poetry about Zion is acceptable. But a Jew who returns to Zion, builds in Zion, digs to uncover Zion, and says, “This is not a metaphor,” becomes a problem. Why? Because Jewish memory has become physical again.

The world is often more comfortable with dead Jews than living Jews, more comfortable with ancient Jews than sovereign Jews, more comfortable with Jewish suffering than Jewish agency. The museum Jew is admired. The biblical Jew is studied. The Holocaust Jew is mourned. But the living Jew who says, “This is my ancestral land and I intend to live here,” suddenly becomes controversial. That is the real problem. Not Zionism. Jewish continuity.

This does not remove moral responsibility. It intensifies it. If Zion is holy, Jewish sovereignty must be morally serious. If Jerusalem is sacred, power in Jerusalem must be disciplined. If the Land is remembered by Hashem, then Jews must act in the Land with humility, courage, justice and restraint. But humility does not mean self-erasure. There is a strange expectation placed on Jews, that they prove their morality by denying their own story. No other people are asked to become historically homeless in order to be considered ethical. The Irish may love Ireland. The Greeks may love Greece. Indigenous peoples may speak of ancestral land, sacred geography, dispossession, memory and return, and rightly so. But when Jews say Zion, suddenly the room becomes tense.

So again: what is the problem? If the problem is with a particular policy, government, military decision or political leader, then say so. Let the argument be specific. But if the problem is with Jews remembering Zion, longing for Zion, praying for Zion, returning to Zion, building Zion and uncovering Zion, then the problem is not politics. The problem is that Jewish memory survived. And that is not a Jewish problem. That is someone else’s problem.

This is why anti-Zionist politics must flatten Jewish history. It must turn Zion into a recent claim. It must pretend Jewish longing began in Basel in 1897. It must ignore Tanach, ignore Hebrew, ignore prayer, ignore archaeology, ignore exile, ignore return, ignore the Gihon, ignore the City of David, ignore David’s stronghold, ignore Isaiah’s prophecy and ignore the Torah’s own declaration that Hashem remembers the Land. That is a great deal of ignoring. At some point, ignorance becomes ideology.

The Jewish response should not be anger alone. It should be our education, our confidence and our memory. We should be able to say: you may oppose a policy, but do not tell us Zion is foreign to the Jewish people. Zion is in our sources. It is in our prayers. It is in our bones. It is in the geography of our ancestors. It is where David turned Jewish longing into kingship. It is where the prophets located redemption. Zion is where Jewish memory refuses to die.

One should remember that Torah was never meant to produce a people embarrassed by its own covenant. A tired Jew may not be ready for a full geopolitical debate. But every Jew should be ready to say this: Zion is not an insult. Zion is not a colonial invention. Zion is not a modern embarrassment. Zion is one of the oldest names of Jewish identity and of Jewish destiny. If Hashem says, “I will remember the Land,” then perhaps our task is also simple. We must remember our covenant with it too, not with arrogance, not with hatred, not with slogans, but with knowledge, courage, faith, humor and enough coffee to keep learning until morning.

Beshuv Hashem Tzion. Hashanah haba’ah b’Yerushalayim.

The Temple Zero Beacon

I recently compiled a thesis for academic discussion to address the physical and metaphysical evidence that must and does converge on Zion.

Hebrew

English

The thesis is supported by this video presentation:

The Primordial Reality of Zion!

Abstract

Kabbalistic philosophy is not a later interpretation of Tanach; it is the supernal root and central vein from which the entire revealed Torah emerges. As affirmed across Lurianic, Chassidic, and Ramchal traditions, the sefirotic structure, covenants, and psycho-spiritual realities precede and animate the written text.

“Zion” is first and foremost the Kabbalistic sefirah (attribute) of Yesod (Foundation), the precise psycho-spiritual locus where the inner covenant (periya) unites with outer Kingdom (Malchut/Jerusalem). Drawing directly on the Zohar, Sefer Yetzirah, Kedushat Levi, and the gematria of Tzion = Yosef = 156, the physical site of Zion, on the lower southern slope of Mount Moriah directly above the Gihon Spring (En Shemesh/En Rogel) must precisely converge. 

Joshua’s immutable tribal boundaries fix Benjamin’s lower Yesod connection, David’s conquest of the “stronghold of Zion”, the breaking of the “HaMakom” chain at the summit threshing floor, Isaiah 52:8’s unique grammar (“God will return Zion”), Maimonides’ insistence on altar precision, and the geo-physical requirements of aliya-la-regel together form an irrefutable multi-disciplinary proof. As psycho-spiritual and physical realities realign at the original Zion location, God will literally return Zion to its place, restoring the Shechinah in full Messianic revelation.

1. Central Vein: Kabbalistic Philosophy as the Preceding and Eternal Foundation of All Tanach

Zohar teaches that Zion is the psycho-spiritual attribute of Foundation, the Yesod activated by separating the inner periya of Jewish circumcision from the outer orla representing Malchut, Kingdom, Jerusalem, then by folding them together they manifest Jewish covenantal reality. The Book of Creation, Sefer Yetzirah, relates these to the covenant of holy tongue, to language and its use of Hebrew’s holy letters, inspiring man to aspire to The Creators pure speech.

The Kedushat Levi explains that this type of “speaking” (speech) was expressed by Joseph The Righteous, Yosef Hatzadik refusal to “suckle” from impure sources (a reference to his struggle in Egypt). The Hebrew letters of Yosef and Tzion share the same numerical value or gematria ‘156’ both represent Yesod, the organ of Israel’s covenant which Yosef guarded and maintained in purity avoiding foreign, impure influences (both physical and spiritual).

The Lesson: Rav Levi Yitzchak teaches that the mouth, that is destined to “speak to the Shechinah” (Divine Presence) must be guarded against impurity, just as Yosef guarded himself in Egypt. By following the dietary laws first stated in Shemini, Jews sanctify their mouths to ensure they are worthy of connection to God, mirroring Yosef’s righteousness. Then, in Shemini, Nadav and Avihu died bringing a foreign fire into the Holy of Holies and later, from Balak the midrash and Zohar describe how their souls converged into a zealous Pinchas who was immediately and uniquely elevated to the Priesthood and ultimately reincarnated into The Prophet Eliyahu. Now, Zohar explains Pinchas is also the Sefirah of Yesod symbolizing the peace he brought about through his zealous actions to defend God and the Jewish people.

Every Passover Jews pour a cup of wine then walk it to their front doors where they call outside for Eliyahu’s return, which is thought to be the event that precedes Messianic return (Moshiach). The same Eliyahu is welcomed at every Jewish Circumcision, The Covenant, who comes to spiritually observe the separation of periya and orla of every brit milah (covenant of circumcision).

This perpetual Jewish ritual connecting covenant with speech, Zion with Joseph manifests in King David’s Messianic reality when Eliyahu returns to tell about the imminent realization of Moshiach in the world. This is the time that Zion will be fully revealed and the Shechina, representing God’s presence, restored as the prevailing and dominant feature of manifest reality.

Its because Kabbalistic science precedes and illuminates all of Tanach that the physical location of Zion cannot be separated from this inner architecture. The supernal Yesod demands exact convergence with Kingdom, its earthly counterpart.

2. Tribal Boundaries: Joshua’s Immutable Map of Kabbalistic Convergence

Jewish Law and Tradition establish Zion, the inner Foundation and Jerusalem, the outer Kingdom by absolute precision, fixed by Divine designation, tribal boundaries, and physical features that can be verified against text. They are in fact not only places reserved for the psycho-spiritual-realm, their convergence must also, both occupy the same place in the physical realm and when they do, “God will return Zion” to its place!

Joseph’s only brother Benjamin represents the lower aspect of Foundation, Yesod and that is precisely where the psycho-spiritual connection between Foundation and Kingdom manifests. It is on Benjamin's land that Joseph's upper Foundation was destined to connect to David's tribe of Judah land, that point of connection is Zion.

Joshua 15:7 (Benjamin's Eastern, Judas Western Border):The boundary ascended from the Valley of Achor to Debir and turned north to Gilgal, facing the Ascent of Adummim that is south of the wadi; from there the boundary continued to the Waters of En-shemesh and ran on to En-rogel. Joshua 15:8 (Benjamin's Southern, Judah's Northern Border) “The boundary went up the Valley of Ben Hinnom to the southern slope of the Jebusite city, that is Jerusalem and climbed to the crest of the mountain west of the Hinnom Valley at its northern end, at the Valley of Rephaim.” Joshua 18:16 (Judah's Northern, Benjamin’s Southern Border): “The border went down to the foot of the mountain that lies before the Valley of Ben Hinnom, which is in the Valley of Rephaim on the north; it continued down the Valley of Hinnom to the slope of the Jebusite on the south, and descended to En Rogel.”

God's presence settles in the west,
therefore mirror image, so left swaps right.

These verses place the boundary at the southern slope of Mount Moriah, the Jebusite city (Jerusalem), the Valley of Hinnom, and En Rogel to En Shemesh, the exact area of the Gihon Spring along the eastern slope of Mount Moriah. Later the Gemara explicitly adopted these Joshua boundaries, albeit to describe the second temple altar.

3. Davidic Conquest: The Stronghold as Temporary Substitute for Primordial Zion

Zion is mentioned first in 2 Samuel 5:7–9 which says: “David captured the stronghold of Zion and renamed it City of David…Whoever would strike the Jebusites, let him go up the water channel (TZiNoR).” The site is the “stronghold of Zion” captured via the water channel.

“Stronghold” could mean adjacent (nearby) or surrounding "of Zion", but close in proximity. So, we are left to ponder whether David ever located the physical Zion that the stronghold protected or what may have happened to it? When David captured the “stronghold of Zion”, the Jebusite village was a settlement on the upper ridge on the lower (southern) slope of Mount Moriah immediately above, in line with the spring of En Shemesh, first mentioned in Joshua 15:7 a few hundred years prior.

However, 2 Samuel 5:9 tells us the stronghold was renamed City of David, later 1 Kings 8:1 says the City of David is Zion and much later Isaiah 52:8 says God will return Zion.

King David had been anointed seven years prior to his arrival at the Stronghold, so what compelled him to come to this Mount Moriah location, conquer the stronghold and invoke the name Zion? As we have already discussed, the ancient psycho-spiritual-reality converging Zion and Jerusalem was already entrenched in indigenous tribal Israelite culture. The name Salem emanated at Abraham tithing Malchi-Tzedek, the High Priest of Salem and later at the binding of Isaac Abraham added the name Yireh to the same site together constituting Yireh-Salem: Jerusalem.

On David’s arrival at the mountain, his coining the word “Zion” declared it as the integral objective of his mission. But, the stronghold was a lesser substitute for a Zion that was not ready to be returned. Instead the City of David became its deflection. Once the first temple had been built Zion drifted from its anchor and its original location on Mount Moriah shifted from the place, by which Jerusalem had once obtained its name.

4. The Breaking of the Chain: “HaMakom,” the Akedah Altar, and the Summit Shift

Tanach reserved the definite article “HaMakom” (“The Place”) for the Moriah location, that permanently identified the Abrahamic event that established Yireh-Salem and the altar of Isaac’s binding - Akedah. But, almost 1000 years later, toward the end of his reign, King David made a surprise announcement: “This is the altar for the burnt-offerings of Israel”, it broke the chain and shifted Zion off the eastern ridge once designated as the "stronghold of Zion" to the mountain summit “of Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to David, at the place that David had appointed, on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.”

Walking up to the holy places of Mount Moriah, whether the eastern ridge or the summit threshing floor can only ever, geo-physically, occur by approaching from the south or east. In first and second temple Jerusalem the sense of psycho-spiritual rising up or elevation known as aliya-la-regel was preserved through the centuries by an approach from the South. Approaching from the east became the exclusive practise of the priests serving in these temples.

5. Prophetic Confirmation: Isaiah 52:8 as the Decisive Grammatical and Mystical Linchpin

The prophet Isaiah, Yeshayahu states: בשוב ה״ ציון (52:8) which literally means “God will return Zion”. Commentators debate comparative translations of similar verses, but all other grammar relating to Zions return include prefix or suffix letters that indicate God will return to Zion. However, here God will return Zion, which we can comprehend in the lofty psycho-spiritual realm, but we must also understand it in reality.

The prophet is not speaking metaphorically. He is announcing the imminent convergence of Kabbalistic and geographical truth. When God returns Zion to its place—above the Gihon Spring on the lower slope of Mount Moriah—Foundation (Yesod) and Kingdom (Malchut) will occupy the identical physical coordinates, and the Shechinah will descend fully.

6. Maimonides and the Immutable Altar: Reaffirming Kabbalistic and Textual Precision

Maimonides rules in Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Beit HaBechirah 2:1: “The altar is [to be constructed] in a very precise location, which may never be changed, as it is said: ‘This is the altar for the burnt-offerings of Israel.’ This ruling ties Akedah to the incident that caused King David to build an altar at the foot of the Angel of Death that was standing on a threshing floor on the summit of Mount Moriah. Crucially, well before King David, Tanach makes it clear the site of the Akedah altar was a specific, pre-existing altar, not a threshing floor and no apparent association with Zion or Yireh-Salem.

7. The “Temple Zero” Candidate: Archaeological Corroboration of the Original Zion Site

Eli Shukron’s excavations on the eastern slope of the City of David, directly above the Gihon Spring, have uncovered an exceptional eight-room rock-hewn ritual complex dating to the Middle Bronze Age/Melchizedek era. The structure features an altar platform installation, a standing stone (massebah), oil press, and libation channels, clear evidence of sustained cultic/religious practice. It was first exposed and deliberately sealed with fill in the 8th century BCE, aligning precisely with King Uzziah and ultimately Hezekiah’s centralization reforms that abolished outlying ritual sites. Shukron, the excavation director, described it as the only known structure of its type from the biblical period in Jerusalem, used by Judahites. Informally termed “Temple Zero,” its location matches exactly the coordinates of the “stronghold of Zion,” the Joshua tribal boundaries (En Shemesh/En Rogel, southern slope of the Jebusite city), the tzinor water channel, and the lower slope above En Shemesh. This is the physical footprint of the primordial Yesod—the original Zion that served as the psycho-spiritual anchor before the Davidic shift and summit substitution. No comparable Iron-Age cultic installation exists elsewhere on the ridge. “Temple Zero” stands as the archaeological candidate that fulfills every textual, mystical, and geo-physical criterion.

Conclusion

The evidence converges with irrefutable force. Because Kabbalistic philosophy precedes and illuminates all of Tanach, the physical location of Zion cannot be a flexible label that permanently migrated to the summit. It is a fixed psycho-spiritual and geographical reality awaiting divine restoration. When God returns Zion—above the Gihon Spring on the lower slope of Mount Moriah, at the precise site now corroborated by “Temple Zero”—Foundation (Yesod) and Kingdom (Malchut) will occupy the identical physical coordinates. The Shechinah will descend fully, and Messianic reality will be complete. Mainstream tradition’s identification of the Temple Mount platform as Zion’s eternal home rests on the post-Davidic shift and later expansion, not the primal Kabbalistic, prophetic, tribal, legal, and textual record preserved in the original proof.

The Zohar, prophets, Davidic narratives, tribal borders, Maimonides’ precision, Isaiah’s grammar, and Shukron’s Temple Zero constitute decisive proof: the original Zion has never been lost—only temporarily obscured. Its return is imminent.

When God Returns Zion To Its Place!

Zohar (Beshalach 2:55b) teaches that Zion is the psycho-spiritual attribute of Foundation, the Yesod that in reality is activated by separating the inner 'periya' of the Jewish circumcision from the outer 'orla' representing Malchut, Kingdom, Jerusalem, then by folding them over, together they manifest Jewish covenantal reality. The Book of Creation, Sefer Yetzirah relates these to the covenant of holy tongue, language and its use of Hebrew's holy letters, that aspire for pure speech.

The Kedushat Levi explains that this type of "speaking" (speech) was expressed by Joseph The Righteous, Yosef Hatzadik refusal to "suckle" from impure sources (a reference to his struggle in Egypt). The letters of Josef and Zion share the same numerical value or gematria '156' both represent Yesod, the organ of Israel's covenant which Yosef guarded and maintained in purity avoiding foreign, impure influences (both physical and spiritual).

The Lesson: Rav Levi Yitzchak teaches that the mouth, that is destined to "speak to the Shechinah" (Divine Presence) must be guarded against impurity, just as Yosef guarded himself in Egypt.

By following the laws of kashrut as stated in Shemini, Jews sanctify their mouths to ensure they are worthy of connection to God, mirroring Yosef’s righteousness. Immediately prior, also, in Shemini, Nadav and Avihu died brining a foreign fire into the Holy of Holies and later, from Balak the midrash and Zohar describe how their souls were converged into Pinchas who uniquely became elevated to the Priesthood as a Kohen and who was ultimately reincarnated and became The Prophet Eliyahu Tishbi.

Every Passover Jews pour a cup of wine then walk it to their front doors where they call outside for Eliyahu's return, which is thought to be the event that precedes Messianic return (Moshiach). The same Eliyahu is welcomed at every Jewish Circumcision, The Covenant, who comes to spiritually observe the separation of periya and orla of every brit milah.

This perpetual Jewish ritual connecting covenant with speech, Zion with Joseph manifests in the future King David Messianic reality when Eliyahu returns to tell about the imminent realization of Moshiach in the world. This is the time that Zion will be fully revealed and the Shechina, representing God's presence, is restored as the prevailing and dominant feature manifest in reality.

The prophet Isaiah, Yeshayahu states; בשוב ה״ ציון" (52:8)" which literally means "God will return Zion". Commentators debate comparative translations of similar verses, but all other grammar relating to this return include prefix or suffix letters that indicate God will return. However, here God will return Zion, which we can comprehend in the lofty psycho-spiritual realm, but we must also understand it in reality. 

Zion is mentioned first in 2 Samuel 5:7–9 which says: “David captured the stronghold of Zion and renamed it City of David…Whoever would strike the Jebusites, let him go up the water channel (TZiNoR).” The site is the “stronghold of Zion” captured via the water channel.

"Stronghold of Zion" could mean adjacent (nearby) or surrounding Zion, but close in proximity. So, we are left to ponder whether David ever located the physical Zion that the stronghold protected or what may have happened to it?

When David captured the "stronghold of Zion", the Jebusite village was a settlement on the upper ridge on the lower (southern) slope of Mount Moriah immediately above, in line with the spring of En Shemesh, first mentioned in Joshua 15:7 a few hundred years prior. 

However, II_Samuel.5.9 tells us the stronghold was renamed City of David, later 1 Kings 8:1 says the City of David is Zion and much later Isaiah 52.8 says God will return Zion

King David had been anointed seven years prior to his arrival at the Stronghold, so what compelled him to come to this Mount Moriah location, conquer the stronghold and invoke the name Zion? 

As we have already discussed, the ancient psycho-spiritual-reality converging Zion and Jerusalem was already entrenched in indigenous tribal Israelite culture. The name Salem emanated at Abraham tithing Malchi-Tzedek, the High Priest of Salem and later at the binding of Isaac Abraham added the name Yireh to the same site together constituting Yireh-Salem: Jerusalem.

On Davids arrival at the mountain, his coining the word "Zion" declared it as the integral objective of his mission. But, the stronghold was a lesser substitute for a Zion that was not ready to be returned. Instead the City of David became its substitute. Once the first temple had been built Zion began to drift from its anchor and its location on Mount Moriah shifted from the original location by which Jerusalem had once obtained its name.

After the events that established Yireh-Salem Tanach reserved the definite article “HaMakom” (“The Place”) for its Moriah location, which permanently identified it as the altar of Isaac's binding -  Akedah. But, almost 1000 years later, King David made a surprise announcement: “This is the altar for the burnt-offerings of Israel”, it broke the chain and shifted Zion to the mountain summit “on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to David his father, at the place that David had appointed, on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.”

Jewish Law and Tradition establish Zion, the inner Foundation and Jerusalem, the outer Kingdom by absolute precision, fixed by Divine designation, tribal boundaries, and physical features that can be verified against text. They are in fact not only places reserved for the psycho-spiritual-realm, their convergence must also, both occupy the same place in the physical realm and when they do, "God will return Zion" to its place! 

Maimonides rules in Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Beit HaBechirah 2:1: “The altar is [to be constructed] in a very precise location, which may never be changed, as it is said: ‘This is the altar for the burnt-offerings of Israel.' This ruling ties Akedah to the incident that caused King David to build an altar at the foot of the Angel of Death that was standing on a threshing floor on the summit of Mount Moriah. Crucially, well before King David, Tanach makes it clear the site of the Akedah altar was a specific, pre-existing altar, not a threshing floor and no apparent association with Zion or Yireh-Salem. 

Walking up to the site of Akeda or the threshing floor can only ever, geo-physically, be made by approaching from the south or east in order to preserve a sense of psycho-spiritual rising up or elevation known as 'aliya-la-regel'. Some 300 years before King David, Joshua’s tribal boundaries fixed Benjamins Southeast corner on the adjacent northern border of tribe Judah. Benjamin was Joseph's brother and as such is also represented by the lower aspect of Foundation - Yesod and that is precisely where the psycho-spiritual connection between Foundation and Kingdom manifests. It is through Benjamin that the connection between David and Joseph becomes permanent.

Joshua 15:7 The boundary ascended from the Valley of Achor to Debir and turned north to Gilgal, facing the Ascent of Adummim that is south of the wadi; from there the boundary continued to the Waters of En-shemesh and ran on to En-rogel.

Joshua 15:8 (Judah’s northern border): “The boundary went up the Valley of the Son of Hinnom to the southern slope of the Jebusite city, that is Jerusalem and climbed to the crest of the mountain west of the Hinnom Valley at its northern end, at the Valley of Rephaim.”

Joshua 18:16 (Benjamin’s southern border): “The border went down to the foot of the mountain that lies before the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, which is in the Valley of Rephaim on the north; it continued down the Valley of Hinnom to the slope of the Jebusite on the south, and descended to En Rogel.”

These verses place the boundary at the southern slope of the Jebusite city (Jerusalem), the Valley of Hinnom, and En Rogel—the exact area of the Gihon Spring (also called En Shemesh) and the eastern slope of Mount Moriah.

The Gemara (*Zevachim* 53b) explicitly adopts these Joshua boundaries, albeit to explain the second temple altar design: “What is the reason that there was no base on the southeast corner of the altar? … Because it was not in the portion of land of the one who tears, i.e., the tribe of Benjamin … The part of the altar in Judah’s portion was the southeast corner of the base, and therefore there was no base on that corner.” 

God's presence settles in the west,
therefore mirror image, so left swaps right.

On the eastern slope of Mount Moriah, directly above the Gihon Spring (En Shemesh) in the City of David, a rock-cut altar platform, carved from bedrock was discovered along with other significant features in a Stone Temple complex. These features align with the texts:

- Bedrock walls enclose the north, west, and south sides; the southeast corner is open—precisely as required by the Joshua boundaries and *Zevachim* 53b.

- It lies adjacent to the ancient TZiNoR water channel between En Shemesh and En Rogel described in 2 Samuel 5:8 and Joshua 18:16.

- Its location on the Judah-Benjamin border fulfills the tribal division codified in Joshua 15 and 18, with the southeast corner intersecting the boundary exactly as mapped in the excavations.

No other site on Mount Moriah combines these elements: the Joshua-defined border coordinates, the TZiNoR water channel, the open southeast corner, the bedrock foundation demanded by Halacha, and the pre-existing “ha-mizbeach” altar identified by Chizkuni.

When Zion and Jerusalem align in the psycho-spiritual and physical realm Joseph's higher Foundation will unite with Benjamin, then Zion will be returned and Kingdom in Jerusalem will rise again, forever!

Archaeology on Mount Moriah At Time of Biblical Jacob!

In his latest paper lead archaeologist Filip Vukosavović described work on the eastern slope of Jerusalem's Mount Moriah stating the; "discovery also offers conclusive evidence that the Fortified Passage and the Mid-Slope Fortification never functioned together." It’s a key observation that distinguishes Middle Bronze Age (MBA) from Iron Age (IA) archaeology. But, whether the Fortified Passage ever functioned together with the Mid-Slope, Rock-Cut-Rooms (RCR) during the MBA or whether the rooms had already disappeared under earth and were entirely lost at the time of construction and beyond was unknown. It’s important  because it would reveal if Kings from David and later were ever aware of RCR? 

Think about this: Sometime toward the end of the MBA, around 1500-1200 BCE a ruler over Mount Moriah's residents requested assistance to construct of the Fortified Passage on its open eastern face leading to the spring. This was no ordinary construction. Most of the boulders in the Fortified Passage weigh ~2–3 tons, large blocks ~5–8 tons and largest blocks ~8–10 tons, therefore, for several years a significant external labor force would have been present quarrying and moving blocks 10-40 meters up the steep ~20 degree slope. Hillel Geva among other notable archaeologists proposed that the number of inhabitants in Jerusalem in the Middle Bronze Age was at most 500–700. Allied forces were required to provide the labor to undertake such a significant construction.

On the Mid-Slope, at the top of the Fortified Passage construction site, a few meters south, organic material lay undisturbed in an ash layer, just above the bedrock. Adjacent to this ash layer a dormant water channel (Channel 17121) filled with 17th century BCE earth. 5-10 cm above the flat bedrock in a thin 1-cm horizontal layer of ash that was suspended on top of soft earth, archaeologists in 2016 found sample RTD-9962 that was covered over by collapsed medium size stones and RTD-9181 trapped beneath a floor of an IA building (W15048). The ash layer horizon could be traced for around 2m and the samples dated it between 1605 and 1515 BCE with a higher likelihood at the lower end of the range 1545 BCE - 1515 BCE. 

These findings confirmed that neither MBA constructors of the Fortified Passage or any other person since had ever disturbed this delicate ash layer. Therefore, the 2m wide area around these samples was fully preserved during MBA until their discovery in 2016. Further, organic samples above and below plaster lining the bedrock water channel were dated similarly by Weizmann and Cambridge indicating that it and the surrounding area were never used to support the activities of the RCR, implying that the rooms went entirely out of use. 

Now, we can definitively say the MBA Fortified Passage never connected the MBA RCR on the same Mid-Slope even though it was later shared with IA Fortifications (see map W20005 below). That means the RCR went out of use for around 800 years until the IA Fortifications were constructed on the Mid-Slope at which stage the RCR were discovered and promptly reburied and remained buried until the Montague Parker excavation in the early 1900's stumbled across one of the rooms and Eli Shukron uncovered the rest in 2010.  

Notwithstanding that the RCR's were exposed to IA constructors of wall W20005 we validate that dating the area spanning the water channel and ash layer samples over the RCR's, to the east, and down the slope was entirely open: On the slope down to the spring (east of RCR) samples in the mortar of a wall segment sample were dated to the same dates as those in the ash layer (1605-1510 BCE). Therefore, shortly after this wall segment was constructed the entire area of the RCR's went out of use and the samples covered in this article lay in-situ, untouched for the past 3500 years. 

With this in mind, we can now comprehend how, according to Codex Judaica, the most statistically correct and well established Bible chronology, the events that overlap these sampled dates could conceivably coincide with Biblical Jacob.