The Temple and the Diaspora Suffer Identical Problems

 

At first glance, these two problems appear to be as separate as any problems plaguing the planet. The reality, once ones digs deeper, is the two share quite a number of similarities. The similarities are all in the excuses which was driven home to us by this article dealing with excuses for not making Aliyah immediately. This is where the lights started to come on until everything was ablaze washed in bright light. The Jews, especially those living in presumed comfort in the United States; reveal the full spectrum of excuses. We must credit them with one excuse which has no equal when discussing the Temple. So, let’s get this one out of the way first and then continue digging. There are those Jews who have decided that Israel is a nation under siege while the United States is the Promised Land. There can be no building which could replace the Temple as the resting place for Hashem on Earth. Not even the elegant and wondrous structure that is the Chrysler Building. We will add a few pictures below before continuing. Just for additional information, the Chrysler Building was the one Will Smith jumped from in Men in Black III to make his “time jump.”

 

Chrysler Building Montage

 

So, as long as the basic inspiration came from the above link, why not just take things in order. The first reason they cover for when a person will finally be willing to make Aliyah is once they have left the mortal coil and are being buried. The corollary for building the Temple is that it will not be built in my lifetime. When either person using such an argument is pressed to further explain, their answer is often a restatement of their original argument and it is because that is just how it will be, period. Their entirety on the subject is emotional and their way of simply putting the problem off on the next generation or the one after that or whenever in the distant future. About the only thing we can say in their favor is that at least they are willing to allow that eventually the Temple will be built, and by built we obviously are saying rebuilt. The only people who have an even lower expectation are those who claim that the Temple will never be built. These people will claim that the Islamic and Christian structures make building the Temple impossible and the world will never permit our building the Temple. They will claim that even attempting to build the Temple would start a World War with everyone attacking Israel and destroying Jerusalem in order to prevent the building of the Temple. These people are akin to Jews buried in foreign lands.

 

The next argument is a variant on the former argument that the Temple will not be built in my lifetime except they now place the blame on the Mashiach not coming during their lifetime. They may not actually state this because nobody knows when the Mashiach will be sent and arrive to right the world through their bringing of Hashem’s judgement. This is simple procrastination placing an event beyond our control as the point at which we are to begin to build the Temple. One could ask them exactly where the Mashiach is supposed to stay if the Temple is not yet built. If we remember correctly, the Mashiach is supposed to enter Jerusalem and proceed directly to the Temple where the fireworks begin. This would be somewhat difficult if the Temple has not been built. We realize that the Mashiach could construct the Temple through a miracle and having it simply appear revealed by the waving of the Mashiach’s arm, but that is taking the wrong approach, as it demands nothing of us. Of course, the having any demands that we ourselves actually become proactive and actually do something is the problem for many of these people. They simply do not care to be responsible for the accomplishing of building the Temple as their lives are already filled with important tasks that they need to give their full attention and building the Temple, well, that is a really big and difficult item to place on one’s to-do list.

 

The next plan covered is waiting for retirement which all but precludes being much help in building the Temple. Basically, this is a route where you are waiting until the performance of building the Temple will fall on a younger generation. The only credit we can give this group is that at least they desire the Temple be built during their lives, or at least is begun to be built during their lifetime. Still, this is not being all that proactive which we can attest to as we are retired without making any attempt to build the Temple thusfar in our lifetime. To be honest, if given an opportunity to assist with the construction of the Temple, we would jump at the opportunity to learn how to move many tens and hundreds of thousands of tons of stone blocks using nothing more than sound, and in particular, a group of people singing notes in specific harmonics slightly changing pitch in order to direct the huge block of stone into place. And if the method for moving these stone blocks were different, we would still love to learn the secret, as even with modern equipment these stone blocks would present a monumental problem in placement. Even being retired, my singing voice is still as flat and my ears as tone deaf as they ever were, so sonic movement of stones might have not even been my cup of tea.

 

The next argument is absolutely wonderful as it is waiting until the necessary funds are available and will remain untouched except to be used to building the Temple. This is something which should be really easy to accomplish. All that would be required is for the Knesset to set aside a black box funding where the funds are taken aside and placed in the black box which is set aside solely for the construction of the Temple. The politicians would be trusted to never ever, no matter how dire the need, dip their hands into the black box and divert the funds for something which would be popular and buy their party votes. That never happens that politicians divert funds from their intended project into their pet project or to some popular project which has the support or even demand of the populace. The truth is that politicians have a history of spending every shekel available and thus there is seldom if ever an unspent shekel. This is why within a single year of any budget excess the excess simply disappears and new projects appear out of the smoke. The most famous example is from the United States and the lock-box for Social Security. Social Security is currently paid from the General Fund of tax and government revenue. This also has resulted in Social Security FICA payments from people’s paychecks going directly into this General Fund. Reality is waiting for funds to be adequate and set aside for completion of the project is simply another way of pushing the responsibility off onto future generations or even to never being built.

 

We are going to jump ahead a couple of reasons as the next two actually do not fit as well as the rest. The next argument is waiting until Israel is safe so that there is no threat to the Temple. Really, you want to wait until Israel is completely safe with no chance that there might be a threat to building the Temple. We are willing to posit that even were Israel to make peace, a warm and friendly peace, with every nation on the planet; even then, building the Temple would become the target of choice for virtually every terrorist or mentally unstable person’s designs. Such a structure would become the central point for contentions to develop simply because of the great importance the Temple being built would become. Further, the religious implications of the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem and the home-place for Hashem on Earth would cause many religious fanatics to very possibly decide that it was their religious responsibility and their being the chosen from Heaven to prevent the completion of the Temple, especially with it being built by the Jewish State. Just building the Temple would bring instability and threats towards Israel thus making Israel guaranteed to have a level of threat simply because the Temple is being built by the Jewish State. Reality is that Israel will never be completely free of threats from both the outside as well as from within.

 

The next would be waiting until Israel meets some religious level such that Israel is deserving of building the Temple. Such target levels would tend to slowly rise as Israel became more religious until the expectation would become that Israel reach a level of religious observance which would place the people on a level so high as to be all but unattainable. This could result in exactly the same expectation as waiting for the Mashiach to arrive and one could even set this as the measure of religiosity. Further, there is and will likely continue to be a fairly significant secular portion of the community which would never meet any religious standard. Demanding a high level of religious observance is not only similar to waiting for the Mashiach, but also is close to the waiting for the funds to be set aside and ready to go being ample for purchasing all the necessary equipment and supplies. Whenever people tend to set a specific level of some measure of nature, funding, religiosity, coming of the Mashiach or any other measure are more often than not done so as to place the event or project beyond their lifetime such that they no longer were to be held responsible for doing anything to even begin the project. They serve as a more polite version of a procrastination than simply actually wearing the T-shirt which states, “Why put off to tomorrow that which you can delay forever?”

 

The conclusion is that the majority of Jews and Israelis building the Temple is a project for some time in the future at least distant enough to remove any responsibility on themselves. Are there what can only be described as mammoth challenges which would require solving before construction of the Temple could even be considered? Yes, but that can be said about any megalithic construction project. Many will claim that the Temple cannot be placed upon the current Temple Mount, as it would require the removal of other religious sites which will never be permitted. We took measurements of the Temple Mount and of the Second Temple and found that a Temple of similar size could be placed on existing open areas of the Temple Mount without causing any damage or requiring the moving or destruction of any existing structures (see images below). What, then, is preventing starting to build the Temple? Political will is what it comes down to; Israeli politicians lack the political will. This is the problem Israel faces in all too many areas. The IDF could easily sweep through Gaza and drive out or kill every Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists, the criminal elements who support the terrorists, and other terror related individuals and place an emphasis on the decapitation of the terror structures which have driven all the destruction caused by the Gaza terror forces. What prevents them is the politicians and the politicized generals who all fear that the European Union and individual European nations would condemn them and threaten them with arrest should they ever land on their soil. Then there is the favorite reason given at every turn by Prime Minister Netanyahu, the Americans do not want us to change things right now because the time is not right and it would cause them problems. Truth be told, if Israel had been afflicted with this attitude in 1948 there would be no State of Israel today.

 

Temple Mount with Proposed
Options to include Third Temple
Without Destroying or Interfering
Other Religious Structures

 

Yes, President Truman did instruct the American Ambassador to the United Nations to support UNGA Res. 181 which suggested splitting the lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea into an Arab and Jewish States. The Arabs refused this deal and instead began a war to eliminate the Jewish presence and the ending result was Jordan holding the Shomron and Egypt holding Gaza, both of these were occupations of Israeli lands. When the Arab League refused to accept UNGA Res 181, all the lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea became what they had been promised as under numerous international treaties from just after World War I all of which described the Arab State as Jordan, the lands east of the Jordan River to Iraq and the remaining lands of the British Mandate west of the Jordan River as the Jewish State. There was never any plan for another Arab State until the United Nations decided that they had no reason to obey their Charter and in particular Article 80 which held them to enforce the International Laws established by the Mandate Systems. So, Truman’s directive to support UNGA Res. 181 became meaningless once the Arab League rejected the offer. When Israel declared their independence, they claimed the lands legally theirs from the Jordan River and westward. These are still all Israel today. The thing is 1948 in May the United States State Department, Defense Department and the vast majority of politicians in the United States and most European nations all were against the declaration of a Jewish State and all desired to settle the Arab-Jewish conflict before the formation of a Jewish State that the Arabs would accept. The Arabs would not have ever accepted the formations of Israel as a Jewish State, only if Israel were a Muslim State ruled by Arabs with the Jews as Dhimmi until something more permanent could be worked out to address the existence of the Jews. This is still the Arab position today and none of the Arab states have recognized Israel. Egypt and Jordan did sign peace treaties and hold a cold peace but they did this in order to allow the establishing of the Palestinian Arab claim to Israel, all of Israel. The Arab League realized that the world saw the Arab-Jewish conflict as the Goliath Arab world against tiny little David of Israel. Now they have reversed the role by having the David being the Palestinians against the all-powerful Goliath of Israel despite the fact that the entirety of the Arab world plus Iran supports the different Palestinian terror groups for the destruction of Israel. They just hide their support sending it through NGO’s and United Nations programs as well as having Europe and the rest of the free world send billions over the years to the different Arab terrorists who work towards the destruction of Israel.

 

This should make Israel all the more determined to construct the Temple and claim all the lands which belong to her by International Law. This would include the clearing of Gaza of all those who would work to destroy Israel. The same need be done to the Shomron along with removing those unwilling to live in peace with Israel. There is a historic manner by which the Jewish People are to decide whether others should be permitted to remain within our borders. Everyone is given three choices. The first alternative is that they accept the Noahic Code, the seven laws given to Noah to use for rebuilding the world after the flood using these basic rules for establishing a workable and functioning government and society. In addition, they are willing to accept all Israeli laws when interacting within Israel. These people would be permitted to rule themselves holding elections within their own areas where they are the vast majority but would not be permitted to vote in Israeli national elections, as they would be resident aliens. The next alternative is to leave Israel and not return starting their lives elsewhere. These individuals will be permitted to sell their property or it will be purchased at a fair market price and we will do nothing to interfere with their departure. It might even be possible to allow these individuals to be aided in their relocation. The final group would necessarily include the leadership and ranking people of the Arab terror political and structural hierarchy. This would include the leadership of every arm of the PLO, Palestinian Authority, Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, criminal elements, and other specific problem people. These would be the people whose desire is to wage war with Israel in any manner be it terror war, political war, economic war or any other means of attempting to destroy the Jewish State. These people, if they are fortunate and choose wisely, will be outside the reach of the IDF and other Israeli enforcement arms. Those who remain after Israel announces her intent to claim all her legal lands and provide the Arab and other non-Jewish populations with these three choices will be considered to be waging war upon Israel and all necessary force will be brought to bear. These people will be targets which the IDF will target directly and all the land which belongs to Israel including the Shomron and Gaza will be brought back within Israeli control. The Temple will be built and Israel will then remain at peace with all who desire peace and will respond to any form of violence with whatever is required to return the society to peace. Anyone committing acts of terrorism will either be expelled from Israel and never permitted return or eliminated dependent on whether they surrender and leave peaceably or resist and force dire actions. Once Israel has regained control over the lands promised the Jews, these will be the final borders for the Jewish State and will be defended. From this point forward, Israel will remain in peace as long as peace is maintained along our borders.

 

Beyond the Cusp