UPCOMING EVENT

(Please note: this event is not sponsored by HaTenu'ah LeChinun HaMikdash. For more info, email mailto:jsid@dorsai.org or call (718) 670 3771)

IMPORTANT WEEKEND CONGRESS FOR ALL JEWS AND SUPPORTERS OF ISRAEL

The Second International Judean Congress

Themes: Har HaBayit - Anti-Semitism - Judea - Hebron

The Judean Voice and Yeshiva Rav Meir will be holding a VERY IMPORTANT UPCOMING WEEKEND - Sept. 19 - 21, 1997. All of those who care about the future of the Jewish people in Israel and around the world are being urged to attend. SINGLES AND FAMILIES ARE MOST WELCOME.

Special guests from Israel and around the world will join symposiums on the following important topics:

PLO State or State of Judea? - Should we rely on the IDF-PLO joint patrols to protect besieged Jews of Hebron and Gaza or Should we help form independent defense network? - Should World Jewry Prepare Emergency Aliyah To Israel? Is the Building of the Beit HaMikdash exclusively a job for Mashiach or a Mitzvah upon us as well?

Special Guests will include Binyamin Zev Kahane, Lenny Goldberg, Rabbi Herbert Bomzer, Rabbi Dr. Yosef Rosenbluh, Rabbi Chaim Prussman, Mike Guzofsky, Rabbi Mordechai Friedman and others.

Any experts and Jewish leaders who would like to join the debates and symposiums and any people who wish to reserve - CALL NOW: (718) 670 3771.

This Historical event will be held in a Glatt Kosher Lodge in the Catskill mountains of NY.

IN THE NEWS

DAILY NEWS FROM ISRAEL - ISSUE 451 - 13th July 1997

TEMPLE MOUNT PRAYER BAN ERODING

Researchers at the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies have found that over the past year, a consensus barring Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, has been breaking down, and is the primary influence on changes in the status quo in the city.

According to excerpts from a report the institute is preparing ahead of final status negotiations on the city between Israel and the Palestinians, prayer on the Temple Mount is no longer considered taboo in the national-religious camp, and that mainstream organizations such as the Council for Jewish settlements in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, have even been advocating such visits.

Until now, rabbinical rulings barred for halachic reasons Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount complex, which also contains Moslem holy sites.

{HAARETZ 7/11 H}

Arutz-7 News: Monday, July 14, 1997

PA MUFTI CALLS FOR DESTRUCTION OF U.S.

Vicious anti-Semitic and anti-American slander was broadcast by Voice of Palestine Radio, the official radio station of the Palestinian Authority, this past Friday. The malicious vilification was broadcast in the framework of the weekly sermon by the PA’s Mufti, Shiekh Akrama Sabari, from the al-Aksa mosque atop Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. Among the Mufti’s choice expressions: "Allah, destroy America, for it is controlled by Zionist Jews. Paint the White House black." Another pearl of incitement was: "The Prophet Muhammad will take his revenge on the settlers, those sons of monkeys and pigs." No apology or correction was issued by the Palestinian Authority since the inflammatory broadcast.

Arutz-7 News: Thursday, July 17, 1997

Plans by the Ministry for Religious Affairs to renovate the area in front of the Western Wall has aroused angry response in the Arab world. Feisal Husseini, who holds the Jerusalem portfolio in the Palestinian Authority, has said that this is an additional violation of the Oslo agreement, and is a clear indication of the "extreme and racist policies of the Netanyahu government." Husseini said on Radio Palestine that the situation could deteriorate and lead to war: "There is no doubt that the grassroots explosion - when it come - will be great, and will cover a wide area of the region."

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

July 16, 1997

Dear Yirmi,

Thank you for obtaining the answers to my previous Temple questions and also for the publishing of them in Mikdash-build e-mail. I have a few more questions.

Q. My first question was which Temple will be built next?

A. The consensus ... is to rebuild the Second Temple as specified in the Mishnah.

Q-1. I have found no historical record of the Shekinah Presence ever appearing over the Second Temple (Mishnah) on a permanent basis as it appeared over Moses Tent & the First Temple have you?

Q-2. If the consensus is to rebuild the Second Temple why rebuild a temple in which the Shekinah never appeared?

The consensus of the rabbis state that the second Temple will be built unless a prophet shows us otherwise. The only prophet who I can recall that clearly prophesied that the Shekinah will appear was the prophet Yehezqel (Ezekiel). GOD will appear over his Temple.

Prophet Yehezqel 43:2-5 & 44:4 on his Temple. "And behold, the Glory of the GOD (Shekinah) of Yisra'el came from the way of the east: and his voice was like the sound of many waters: and the earth shined with his Glory ..... and a spirit took me up, and brought me into the inner court; and, behold, the Glory of the LORD filled the house."

44:4 "Then he brought me the way of the North gate before the house: and I looked and behold, the Glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD."

Q-3. Why go through all the effort to build a Temple in which the Shekinah is not guaranteed to appear as it is over Yehezqel's Temple?

Thank You so much for answering my previous questions. Looking forward to answers over which I have pondered for quite a while.

Shalom,

Mike Young

Mike,

Although the Shechina (Divine Presence) was not as apparent in the Second Beit HaMikdash as in the First, it was definitely present. When Shimon the Tzaddik was the Kohen Gadol (High Priest), Shechina was obvious, with blatant miracles happening, such as the wood and oil burning but not being consumed, requiring adding only two branches and a drop of oil each day in order to fulfill the mitzvot (commandments). The Channuka Miracle, where one night's supply of oil last 8 days, signaled that the Shechina had returned to the Beit HaMikdash. Throughout much of the Second Beit HaMikdash era, when the generation was not at such a high level, the Shechina was present in a lesser way. This was demonstrated by the 10 daily miracles listed in Pirkei Avot and by the Western Candle of the Menorah lasting longer than the other six candles (with the same amount of oil), showing that the Shechina was present.

Our Sages considered the destruction of the Second Beit HaMikdash to be a great tragedy and counted it a reason for fasting on the 9th of Av. If the Second Beit HaMikdash was such a void, why did our Sages require we fast commemorating its destruction. Certainly, they understood that the Shechina was present.

"The heavens are the heavens of Hashem, but the Earth He has given to Mankind" (Tehillim 115:15) Our responsibility, as Jews living on Earth, is to keep the mitzvot of the Torah, according to our best understanding. Bestowing the Shechina is up to Hashem. It is up to us to fulfill the first part of the verse (Shmot 25:8), "And they shall make me a Mikdash". It is up to Hashem to fulfill the second part, "and I shall dwell among them."

As stated in previous letters, building the Beit HaMikdash is to be governed by the same halachic process as fulfilling all mitzvot, which means doing it according to the accepted understanding of the Torah. The laws of building the Beit HaMikdash are stated in the Mishnah, Tractate Middot, and that is how we are to build the Beit HaMikdash. Even Yechezkel's contemporary Prophets, who were involved in building the Second Beit HaMikdash, did not completely follow Yechezkel's design. Yechezkel's prophessy is ambiguous, and we do not fully undersand it. If, however, there would be a prophet to tell us to build according to Yechezke's prophessy, then we would do so, or even modify an existing Beit HaMikdash to conform. Until then, we have a kosher design for building the Beit HaMikdash, handed down from our Sages.

Let us work on rebuilding the Beit HaMikdash and hope and pray that with the revitalization of the Jewish People and the coming of Mashiach, that our generation will be worthy that the Shechina will appear as it did for Moshe and King Shlomo.

Chazak ve-ematz,

yirmi

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