Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on September 19, 2021

JNS.org We have witnessed a remarkable development as a result of the publication of an article by Rabbi Meir Soloveitchik in Commentary titled The Real Truth About the Temple Mount, which suggested that the government of Israel owes it to its citizens, and thousands of years of Jewish history, to state unequivocally that the Temple Mount, and not the Western Wall, is the locus of Jewish longing. He also expressed sympathy for those seeking to ascend to the Temple Mount, enclosed within the Muslim Haram A-Sharif compound, so that they could continue to pray, writing, For those who care deeply about the Jewish connection to the Mount, and who desperately desire to pray there, it may well be that today it will be achieved first and foremost with finesse.

For Soloveitchik, what is important is foremost Jewish visits.

The development? He caused the public-affairs director of Agudath Israel of America, Rabbi Avi Shafran, to unite in common cause against Rabbi Soloveitchiks views with Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president emeritus of the Union for Reform Judaism. A true only Jewish accomplishment. Both were united in their negative reactions. Both, however, displayed in their reasoning misrepresentations, misreadings, lack of historical context and even partisan theology.

The first to respond was Yoffie, whose view was encapsulated in the title How and where to start a holy war between Jews and a billion Muslims, characterizing Soloveitchiks article as deeply disturbing and ominous and idiotic and potentially catastrophic. He asserts that the article calls for freedom of worship on the site for Jews. But it does not; surely, not explicitly. It does note that that right, by the way, one enshrined in law and in many decisions of Israels High Court of Justice an institution Yoffies activists turn to as an instrument to gain recognition was missed, beginning in 1967 when a new form of the old status quo was adopted.

September 19, 2021 9:13 am

He deceptively accuses Soloveitchik of undermin[ing] longstanding agreements between Jordan and the State of Israel, while ignoring Jordans commitment in its 1994 peace treaty with Israel to act to promote interfaith relations freedom of religious worship. In reality, Jordan has been the one to ignore its responsibilities, tolerating and even encouraging disruptive and violent acts at the site and sabotaging security measures, such as surveillance cameras, that could pacify the situation. And if Yoffie is concerned about not only a confrontation between Arabs and Israelis but to holy war between Jews and more than a billion Muslims, I suggest that he work harder on getting the United States under this administration to halt Irans plans for a new Holocaust.

For Yoffie, in an odd reversal of religious semantics, the rules set by [Moshe] Dayan have since been sanctified by the Muslim world, as if Holy, Holy, Holy. He then proceeds to praise Orthodox halachah, a legal formula he normally finds disdainful, which has a consensus that Jews were not to ascend to the Mount. That consensus, of course, is to be disregarded when Yoffie writes of the rights of women at the Western Wall. The position of the Haredi world is obscurantist for the Reform, but Yoffie wants Muslims to benefit from that outlook. He then lowers himself to unseemly verbiage, calling those who struggled for freedom of worship weirdos and crackpots.

As if he ignores his own thoughts, he then doubles back on his argument, writing, And the humorous part of this whole affair is that if the American Orthodox community cares the least little bit about freedom of worship in Israel, it is news to me. Yoffie perhaps misses that the joke is on him.

From the other extreme, Shafran was of the opinion that Israels decision not to let Jews pray on the Temple Mount after its capture in 1967 shows sensitivity and wisdom, and therefore, in NBCs News Digital Think section, published On Yom Kippur, Jerusalems most sacred piece of property must be a place of peace.

He justifies the restriction on all but Islamic prayer on the Temple Mount as born of compelling practical concerns. Those concerns were a result of conquest and occupation of Jerusalem by Arab tribes spurred on by a new religion (one that considered non-Sabbath-observing Jews as apes, but that may be more Yoffies problem), which facilitated for Muslims an exclusive [] control of the site. Any change, Shafran reasons, would be a gross affront to the Muslim world, thus joining, as it were, Yoffies minyan but adding an emotional disrespect as well.

For Shafran, that Jews would push the prayer envelope on the Temple Mount is to be a provocation without a justification. Why does he adopt such an unctuous, obsequious and even servile attitude? Can he not point out that there is but one mosque there Al-Aqsa? In blatant disregard for that status quo, Shafran and Yoffie ignore the three new mosques that have been added since 1967.

Shafran acknowledges that as a Haredi Jew, he believes that Jews today are forbidden by religious law from ascending the Temple Mount and that until the Temple is rebuilt, it is prohibited. And a rebuilt Temple is something that can only happen with the arrival of the messiah.

While he insists that it is God alone that can herald a new era of history, is he sure that the reuniting of Jerusalem and the return of Mount Moriah to Jewish control was not Gods doing? That God was not heralding a new historical era? Shafran knows that the sacred Temple Mount is much smaller than the current precincts of the Haram A-Sharif. He knows that the Rambams opinion was challenged and that Haredi rabbis beginning with the Chatam Sofer, Akiva Eiger and others some two centuries ago sought to renew sacrifices and even to permit entry into the area within the constrictions of halachah. Why can he not be practical and work towards solving the problems the Agudah has with their interpretation?

Soloveitchik states plainly that certain parts [of the Mount] cannot be entered in a state of ritual impurity.

His op-ed was initiated by Israeli politicians who voiced the view, one quite wrong, that if Jews wish to pray, the holiest place for Jews is a few meters from there the Western Wall. If the wall possesses any holiness, then it is due to it being an outside retaining wall of the Temple. Soloveitchiks main concern was the denying of historical fact, which gives ammunition to enemies of Israel, who seek to lie about Jewish history provid[ing] propaganda to those who seek to negate the Jewish connection to Jerusalem.

Both the Reform Yoffie and the Haredi Shafran still have to confront their failings to history, human rights and the value of Judaism, and their lack of caring deeply about the Jewish connection to the Mount and not sufficiently acknowledging in an unequivocal manner the Jewish relationship with the Temple Mount.

Yisrael Medad is an American-born Israel pundit and opinion commentator.

Read the original post:

Top Agudah and Reform Rabbis Join Forces Over Temple Mount - Algemeiner

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