Before the Temple Can Be Built...

9 Av 5785

Tzom Kal

All day long you are going to hear one version or another of the admonition toward unity for the sake of rebuilding the Beit Hamikdash.  They say the tikun for sinat chinam is ahavat chinam.  It sounds nice, but going from one extreme to another has never been any solution.  The truth is that before the Temple can be built, there must first be a separation as in when Moshe Rabbeinu called "Mi l'Hashem elai!" in the midbar and again in the time of the Maccabim when Matityahu repeated that call, "Mi l'Hashem elai!"  

We must prepare ourselves because Mashiach is going to reveal himself and repeat those very words and if you intend to follow him, you will have to be prepared to separate.  This is not a call to unity, but a call for separation - the holy from the unholy.  It's a call to Jewish Jihad - a holy war for Hakadosh Baruch Hu.

Twenty years ago today, we heard the rallying call to unity - unity above all, ahavat chinam - even in the face of the most hateful actions on the part of the government, which included the current prime minister.  I recorded some of it on my website which I called Jewish Jihad...

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JEWISH JIHAD (26 Aug 2005)

A Lesson in Holding Onto the Land

"Speaking at the Hassan Bek mosque in Jaffa ..., [Sheik Raad] Salah warned Israel his followers would not leave the country easily. Anyone who thinks they can get us to leave our land had better prepare a million coffins...." (Ynet)

Rabbi Kook on ceding the Land of Israel :

"The obligation of `you shall inherit the land and settle it' is that the land should be in our hands, and we should not abandon it to any other nation," Kook said. "This is a positive commandment from the Torah, clear and absolute, applying to all of Israel: that for this land, throughout its borders, we are obligated to give up our lives.  If the moment of compulsion comes, whether from non-Jews or, God forbid, from Jews - because of political errors and errors of judgment - we are all obligated to die rather than violate [this commandment].

"Judea and Samaria, the Golan Heights - these will not go without war," he continued.  "Someone asked me if I want to start a civil war.  I won't get into terminology, and I won't put a name to this matter, but this is a fact: It will not go, it will not pass without a war.  Over our bodies and our limbs.  All of us.  The non-Jews will not bring it about, nor will our own political messes.  Under no circumstances in the world."  (Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda HaCohen Kook)

9 Dec 2008 update: Further on in this article we find the following:

" Rabbi Eliezer Melamed of Har Bracha, told Haaretz that the issue of Kook's speech also arose before the evacuation of Yamit, in Sinai.  "But I don't know a single rabbi who believes that Rabbi Kook's intent was that we should wage a civil war over the land of Israel...

Another rabbi, who asked to remain anonymous, said that there are people "on the fringes" who take Kook's words literally, but insisted that this is an incorrect interpretation....."

It's something we must think deeply about and review in light of our long and illustrious history, especially with Hanukah approaching.

"Another leading student of Kook's, Rabbi Shlomo Aviner of Beit El, recently published a strict prohibition against violence during the evacuation, in a circular distributed throughout the settlements.  "This army is our army, and this police force is our police force," he wrote.  "They are Jews, not Britons.  They are our brothers, even if they are coming to carry out an order that should not have been given ... Don't lift a hand, don't insult, don't hate.  Even in difficult situations, we will adhere to love for all Israel...  We will not even shove a soldier. We will embrace him."

This, my friends, is the voice of the Erev Rav.  How piously he shuns "hatred" and embraces "love."  What a sham!

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Throughout the Torah, we are commanded over and over again not to show mercy where justice must apply. (Example: see Devarim, chapter 13) In the name of unity and free love, the Land of God has become polluted with every kind of evil and is not even fit for Jews to live, much less to build the Beit Hamikdash!  

How can it be that the focus of this day has become to celebrate the dream of Beit Hamikdash, up to dancing and singing on Har Habayit like Mashiach already came and destroyed the Erev Rav and the land is free of all our enemies and at peace.  

We are far, far away from having or even deserving the Beit Hamikdash.  Our people are being ill-served in my opinion by being led to believe otherwise.  

On this day of all days, we have plastered everywhere across the world a picture of one lone Jew, starved and barely standing, in the darkness of a tunnel in Gaza, digging his own grave while an evil Yishmaelite records it on his phone.  What is this "Jewish" government doing about it?  What are WE doing about it?  Is there truly nothing that CAN BE done???  Why would anyone think today is the day to celebrate building the Beit Hamikdash under such circumstances!!!!!!!!!!!!

Poignant Gush Katif withdrawal from Gaza documentary- Part 1 of 2 (English & Hebrew with subtitles)

Poignant Gush Katif withdrawal from Gaza documentary- Part 2 of 2 (English & Hebrew with subtitles)