TRADITION TODAY: Building the Temple

‘What about the restoration of the kingship? We pray for that too, but do we mean it, or in what way?’

By REUVEN HAMMER
The Western Wall in Tisha Be'av last year (photo credit: RONEN ZVULUN / REUTERS)
The Western Wall in Tisha Be'av last year
(photo credit: RONEN ZVULUN / REUTERS)
In the morning prayers there is a passage that says, “May it be Your will that the Temple be restored in our days… and may we worship You there in awe as in ancient days and years gone by.”
I recite this every day, but exactly what do I mean by it? I thought of this meditation and other prayers for the rebuilding of the Temple when observing Tisha Be’av this year and seeing the way thousands went up to the Temple Mount.
Many of those who did so did it as an act of protest that Jews cannot worship there now and as a sign that they would indeed like to see to it that the Temple be rebuilt now, regardless of the political and security situation and regardless of the fact that the Dome of the Rock stands where the Temple would have to be built. There is even a group that has seriously suggested moving that shrine elsewhere – where I don’t know – rather than destroying it, but getting it out of the way in order to permit the building of the Temple now.
This prayer is yet another example of the way in which some parts of Jewish tradition that were easy to pray for or justify when Jews lived elsewhere become problematic when we return to the Land and face the reality of the situation. The restoration of the Temple is not the only problematic concept.
What about the restoration of the kingship? We pray for that too, but do we mean it, or in what way? The codes, such as that of Maimonides, provide us with all the information we need to be able to do that, but are we serious about it? Some people are, as evidenced by the fact that the people who brought us the racist tract Torat Hamelech have now bestowed upon us a second volume concerning the restoration of the kingship.
Forgetting for a moment the fact that any attempt at the rebuilding of the Temple today would mean a catastrophic war with the entire Muslim world, would we really want to restore the sacrificial rites that were so central to the Temple? I for one would not, which is why in the prayer books I use the words referring to the restoration of sacrifices have been removed and instead we say “…accept the prayers of Your people Israel and restore the service to Your sanctuary,” leaving out mention of sacrifices and prayers for their restoration.
I agree with Rabbi Shmuel Reiner, who remarked, “When prayer replaced sacrifice, a different spiritual world was created… A man or woman now worships God through inner intent and direction,” and with Rabbi Haim Hirschensohn, who wrote that a culture cannot go backwards and that it is therefore unimaginable that we could return to sacrifices.
Therefore, when I utter those prayers I may indeed hope for the building of the Temple, but it is a Temple of prayer and not of sacrifice. As for having it restored “in our days” by that I mean that I would like our days to be the age of peace and perfection of the world when conditions would make it possible for a sanctuary for us and for all peoples to be built on the holy mountain. Remember, God did not permit the building of the Temple by David when it would have been perfectly possible to do so because the time was not ripe, the moral conditions were not right.
King David, who brought the ark up onto the holy mountain, was not permitted to build the Temple. According to I Kings 5:17, it was “because of the enemies that encompassed him, until the Lord had placed them under the soles of his feet.” According to I Chronicles 17:4 Nathan was instructed by God to tell David, “You are not the one to build a House for Me to dwell in.” According to David’s words to Solomon, “But the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘You have shed much blood and fought great battles; you shall not build a House for My name, for you have shed much blood on the earth in My sight” (I Chronicles 22:8). Solomon (whose name means peace) upon whom God will “confer peace and quiet on Israel in his time” (22:9) will build the House.
David’s battles may have been justified, but nevertheless the House of the Lord was not to be built by hands that have shed blood. Is not this true in our time as well? That is not the task for this generation, but for a generation that knows peace and has no enemies.
When will that happen? We do not know, but we can hope and pray for it.
In the meantime one thing is clear, if the House could not be built by David because he had shed blood, it certainly cannot be built if doing so means the shedding of yet more and more blood.
Let those who are so anxious to promote the rebuilding now keep that in mind and spare us yet another calamity in the name of God.
The writer is a former president of the International Rabbinical Assembly and a member of its Committee on Jewish Law and Standards. He is a two-time winner of the Jewish Book Award whose latest book, Akiva: Life, Legend, Legacy (JPS) will be published soon in Hebrew by Yediot Press and the Schechter Institute.