On the Temple Mount with Moshe Feiglin

By Michael Fuah

With praise to G-d, we actually managed to enter the Temple Mount complex. We waited in line for two hours, while the police allowed only 15 Jews in at each interval. Yes, it was frustrating. The police announced that in another half hour the Mount will be closed, and we were still waiting in line. At the last minute, the Manhigut Yehudit group managed to enter, with Moshe Feiglin as our intrepid guide. We gingerly ascend the Mount, trying not to show our lips moving as we quietly utter the Shir Hama'alot Psalms. We pass through the gate and stand beneath the plaza, which is dominated by the Dome of the Rock; the Foundation Stone that was part of the Holy of Holies in the Second Temple lies inside the Dome. It is hard to integrate the destruction and shame. Tears begin to well up and flow naturally down my face. A wakf guard jumps on me and shouts, "It is forbidden for you to pray here!" An Israeli policeman hurries over and tells me in no uncertain terms that I had better stop praying - or else. Moshe Feiglin intervenes and maintains that we have every right to cry on the Temple Mount. The shame burns throughout my entire body. It is forbidden for me to pray in the holiest place on earth - just because I am a Jew. If I was an Arab, for example, I could play soccer on the Mount, pick olives and even enjoy a picnic, as the Arabs do while we try not to show them just how much the sight hurts us.

The Temple Mount is an awesomely spiritual place. As I touch the giant wooden beams from the First Temple, stand at the entrance to the stairway to the Hulda Gates and imagine the Jewish pilgrims streaming forth, continue with them east till the entrance to the courtyard and even manage to hear a surreptitious Priestly Blessing, my heart brims over with excruciating pain and lofty exhilaration.

The wakf keep up a constant barrage of epithets, trying to impress upon us that they are the masters of the Mount. Moshe Feiglin takes advantage of the brief absence of the policeman and quickly prostrates himself on the holy ground. The wakf run toward him, furiously shouting. The policeman, who had evaporated when the Arabs were harassing us, comes running. Moshe, pleased that he had the opportunity to bow down on the Temple Mount quickly gets up and continues with his explanations as if nothing has happened. "Next time, please make sure that the Arabs do not disturb us," he says to the policeman. The wakf guards fall silent. They understand Moshe's language.

We silently mumble the Shema Yisrael and Aleinu L'shabeach prayers at the place closest to the Holy of Holies to which access is permissible according to Jewish law. We pray for Jonathan Pollard and Gilad Shalit and most of all - for the redemption of Israel and the building of the Holy Temple. We exit at the western gate, keeping our faces turned all the while to the Holy of Holies, singing and dancing with hope and prayer that the Temple will speedily be built.

The Temple Mount is the site of the most extreme desecration of G-d's Name. 24/7. Ascending the Mount according to Jewish law does not decrease the desecration. It may even cause it to be expressed in a more tangible manner. But the ascent to the Temple Mount expresses our unequivocal desire to rectify the humiliating situation. And the power of that desire is gaining momentum.