To live a Temple-less life as a Torah Jew?

by Rabbi Pinchas Winston

THE GEMARA SAYS that any generation in which the Temple has not been rebuilt, it is as if it was destroyed in that generation (Yerushalmi, Yoma 5a). Of course, a statement like this raises all kinds of questions and inspires different kinds of answers because it just doesn’t seem fair.

For starters, it is a lot harder to build something that doesn’t exist than it is to destroy something that does. It takes a wrecking ball two days to bring down what took a year to build. Relationships too. It can take months, even years to cultivate a good relationship, but one quick slip of the tongue can destroy it. Besides, while the Temple stood, people saw what had to be preserved. While it doesn’t, well, as the expression goes, “Out of sight, out of mind.”

I remember once, while ascending the long stairway leaving the Kosel (Western Wall), looking back to get one more glimpse of the holiest spot in the universe before leaving. At that point, I was high enough to also see the Temple Mount and, of course, the mosque squatting there. But this time, before turning around to continue my ascent and journey home as in the past, something made me stop.

As I thought about it, it all of a sudden occurred to me how I, and so many others, had become so accustomed to seeing an Arab place of worship where the Jewish one belonged, that I related more to a retaining wall than I did to the Makom HaMikdosh, the place of the Temple. It was as if I had lost all connection to the Temple Mount and made the Kosel HaMa’arvi the new Makom HaMikdosh, and wondered how many others had done the same.

Surprised by my realization, I continued to stand there but instead imagined the Jewish Temple functioning where it belonged. Every time I return to the Kosel, I make a point of the reminding myself that the Kosel, as wonderful and holy as it is, is not the Bais HaMikdosh. When I daven there, especially Mussaf on Rosh Chodesh, I have intention for the sacrifice being offered where it should be and, as a Levi, helping with the avodah.

We don’t need to ask eichah—how—about how we haven’t yet built the Temple. Thousands of years have passed since the destruction of the Second Temple, and many exiles have been endured. If we didn’t have Tisha B’Av, and the two weeks leading upon to it, only those fortunate few who learn about the Temple service would remember it. Look how easy it has become to live a Temple-less life as a Torah Jew.