12 Adar I 5771This is the last of the original blogposts that I will repost. It's from 03.01.08.
Jerusalem, Front and Center
In an article from the National Council of Young Israel's winter edition of their publication Viewpoint, there appears the following question:
"Will we, the generation that G-d graced with the gift of A United Yerushalayim, protect her, or G-d forbid, fail her?"
I suggest to you, ladies and gentlemen, that the failure already took place forty years ago and continued every day that the mosques remained and the Beit Hamikdash was not rebuilt. And this is why she is now being ripped from our guilty hands. For does it not say that in every generation that the Temple remains unbuilt, it is as if it was destroyed in that generation?
This is another case in point. Suddenly people have awoken to the fact that a big problem exists (that happens when the status quo is shaken by unexpected forces), but for some reason they can't seem to connect the dots. They don't appear able to follow logically from problem to solution even with 4000 years of Jewish history as their guide. As Shlomo Hamelech was wont to say, "There's nothing new under the sun."
Haggai, Perek 1: "...the word of the Lord came to Haggai, the prophet ...saying: This people has said, "The time has not come-the time for the house of the Lord to be built." And the word of the Lord came through Haggai the prophet, saying: Is it [an appropriate] time for you yourselves to sit in your ceiled houses, when this house is in ruins?
And now, so said the Lord of Hosts: Consider your ways. You have sown much and you bring in little. You eat without being satiated. You drink without getting your fill. You dress, and it has no warmth. And he who profits, profits into a bundle with holes.
So said the Lord of Hosts: Consider your ways. Ascend the mountain, bring wood, and build the house-and I will accept it, and I will be honored, said the Lord. You looked for much, and behold, it became little. And you brought it home, and I will blow into it. Because of what? says the Lord of Hosts, Because of My house that is lying in ruins. Yet you run, each to his house.
Therefore because of you the heavens have kept back, so that there is no dew, and the earth has kept back its produce. And I called for a drought upon the land, and upon the mountains, and upon the grain, and upon the wine, and upon the oil, and upon everything that the ground will bring forth-and upon man, and upon beast, and upon all the labor of their hands."
This was at a time when few had answered the call to come home from Babylonian captivity. Enemies surrounded us and dwelt among us. When we first began to rebuild Yerushalayim with the permission of our foreign master, we had to post guards for protection from those who did not want to see the Jews returning and rebuilding the Holy Temple. A new master replaced the more benevolent one and based on false accusations against the Jews (see, nothing new at all), our foreign master ordered the building stopped. We were poor and few in number and not masters of our own Land, yet Hashem held us accountable and not after forty years but after only eighteen!
How our guilt cries unto Heaven!! Hashem granted us great military victories over our enemies. We grew in strength and numbers and wealth. We ruled over ourselves with no one to answer to but Hashem Himself! Look how the city has grown and prospered and spread out. Luxury apartments are being sold for literally millions of dollars. And where is the House Hashem made us promise to build for Him???
Yerushalayim does not exist to become simply another world capital, another tourist destination, a place for Jews to face while in prayer and mention at the end of the Passover seder. It is the very gateway to Heaven and the dwelling place of the Shechinah! By leaving it in ruins, we have disrespected and disgraced the Makom!
What does the Council of Young Israel counsel us to do?
•We will cry out...
•We will take to the streets worldwide on her behalf.
•We will pray...
Do they proclaim to all the world---the Jews are going to rise up en masse to lay the cornerstone of the Third Beit Hamikdash---and then organize to accomplish it? Why not??? For this is the ONLY solution. If we don't do it, then we will lose her. Mark my words!
Yes, it will be temporary, but woe to us for even the "temporary" loss of Holy Yerushalayim and the shame and pain and degradation which we will suffer along with the Holy One, blessed be He!
Read it and weep! Your forefathers knew how to respond to punishment. They knew how to do teshuvah!!
Haggai, Perek 1: "...And Zerubbabel the son of Shaltiel, and Joshua the son of Jehozadak the High Priest, and all the remnant of the people heeded the command of the Lord their God and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent him, and the people feared the Lord. And Haggai, the messenger of the Lord, said in [fulfilling] the Lord's mission to the people, saying: I am with you, says the Lord. And the Lord inspired the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shaltiel, the governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Jehozadak the High Priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people, and they came and performed labor in the house of the Lord of Hosts, their God."
We can do no less and have any hope of salvation. Hashem have mercy!
3 comments:
The leading Torah Scholars and Poskim did not tell us to do this ... as the time was not yet right, unfortunately. Perhaps the article you published is similar to the tribe of Efraim who left Egypt early, and those who left were all killed.
I feel we have this misconception the GD gave us back Yerushalayime. No. He let us "borrow" it for now to see how we utilize it. If we dont use it well, he will once again remind us who it ultimately belongs to. Always remember, Yerushalayim is ours, even if we lose it, it is only temporary as it has always been. Only when Mashiach comes will we truly have it. May it be very soon! Amen
Ben---They don't have to tell us. Hashem already told us via the prophet. Hashem does not change and apparently we don't either because we keep making the same mistakes. You've just parrotted the same thing the people said 2500 years ago. "The time isn't right." And the prophet came on Hashem's directive and said, "The time is ALWAYS right." You just lack the desire and the courage. Today's Torah leaders are not unlike the politicians. They look to see where the people are holding. They won't tell them something that they don't think they will listen to. If 10 of the 12 leaders of the generation that merited to receive the Torah could be wrong, how much more so what counts as leadership today!
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