The Cruelest Cut!

The Temple Mount - Southern Wall - Hulda Gates

In a beautiful Jerusalem hotel, in the peak of Summer season I am alone, the only guest eating breakfast in an entire hotel of more than 200 rooms. Where are the families, the business people, the fans of this great city? I’m reminded of the words of Prophet Yirmiyahu (Jeremiah) inscribed in the years before Jerusalem’s destruction: “How does the city sit solitary, that was full of people. How has she become as a widow. She that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how has she become tributary. She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks; she hath none to comfort her among all her lovers; all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies.”

In Jew savaged Europe on Tisha B’Av, Napoleon once entered a village synagogue where mourners were lamenting over their destroyed Temple. There he stated; “A nation that cries and fasts for 2,000 years for their Temple will surely be rewarded with its rebuilding”. Little has changed, today Jews struggle to find sanctity in nations around the world, Israel fights wars on its borders, the media preys on the ever popular Jewish negative image and exiled Jews postpone their time to be present in Israel, body and soul. I’m not talking about a 50% decline in inbound tourism, it’s more than 90% in the top end hotels that would normally be teeming with guests. Being present in Israel at a time of conflict is a serious commitment, but for the most part many of her cities remain unaffected.

Israel’s diplomatic machine is spinning to offset the global conditions closing in on her Jews in their other nations. Despite these unfamiliar geo-political occurrences, the magnetism of Israels strengthening Jewish cultural core continues to carry the loudest voice. In times of war when even the anti-religious dedicate time to lay tefillin or light candles and the cry for the Temple grows ever louder, loyalty to Israel's Torah ideal is more evident. Jerusalem’s Temple complexities on The Temple Mount are notorious. Jewish practices not to shave, launder clothes or eat meat for the first nine days of the Hebrew month of Av, the day of the destruction, amplify sentiments. Luxuries are denied by loyal Jewish families who yearn for the Temple rebuilding.

Most who connect with the Temple ideal fixate on the reclamation and building on the Temple Mount site. But, a location for the Temple altar has to first be decided by at least an authoritative body before a building can be planned on it's site on Mount Moriah. The authoritative religious body must be widely supported across the spectra of Judaism. It must arise to determine the nations legislation in deference to its Biblical or Talmudic law so that resolutions can be determined and new instructions issued before a new building can be erected.

Jerusalem's Temple will be built once the greater city is optimally prepared for its erection and can capitalize on the economic benefits that flow from it. Such benefits hold great hope for the eradication of poverty that presently distorts and exaggerates the importance of Israel's insurgents. Demand ushers in the developing opportunity for the realization of such an event. Napoleon was right, the Temple will be rebuilt because inherent in Jewish culture is a deep conviction to see it's return. Despite the views of Jews like M'eretz political party's Erel Margalit who has abandoned the ideal and opposes such activism, the traditional lament grows stronger. The Temple ideal directly serves Israel's spiritual and economic interest and for these reasons alone, even the most extreme opposition will progressively be muted as the nation discovers, adjusts and moves toward its internalized, native insurgency for peace.