The Sleeping Heart Begins To Awaken – The Temple Mount Revolution!
Benzi Gopstein’s latest “Behind the Flames” column in the Shabbat publication Matzav HaRuach:
The Sleeping Heart Begins to Awaken – The Temple Mount Revolution!
In honor of the “Between the Straits/Ben HaMeitzarim” season and the impending month of Av, I saw fit to dedicate the column to the most central and critical issue of our national existence – the Temple (Beit HaMikdash).
Just as a person who has many organs, but the heart pumps blood to all of them – so, too, do Am Israel have a heart. The heart of Am Israel is the Temple. The Temple is the source of all abundance, all the good that Hashem pours out on us. All Israel gathers to the Temple on foot, where they atone for their iniquities, where they gather in times of trouble and celebrate in times of victory.
There are different kinds of struggles, and there are various groups working for various and important causes for Am Israel. But the heart of Am Israel – the thing from which everything stems, into which all struggles drain – is the struggle over the Mount of Hashem’s home. When our Rabbis saw the wilderness and desolation on the Mount of our holy Temple, even seeing a fox running out of the Holy of Holies – tears streamed from their eyes. Today, there’s no wilderness. And no foxes there. There are murderous enemies who robbed us of our sanctuary and our glory, who robbed us of the heart of a nation, but over the many years of exile, the heart was sealed and emotions blocked, until even in the face of the great desecration of G-d’s name that we all see – there is almost no compensation here, and no one says a word.
We said ‘almost’, because even with the apathy of the general public, there are outstanding individuals who are waging a stubborn and uncompromising battle against the cruel enemy from the outside, and even more difficult than that – against the ridicule and contempt from within us.
For more than 4 years now, via the Temple Mount Yeshiva, headed by Rabbi Eliyahu Webber shlit”a, every day, every morning people go up to the Temple Mount after immersion in a mikve according to Jewish law, for the Shacharit prayer and to study Daf Yomi on the Mount. The Yeshiva takes care to guide those coming, and especially those coming up for the first time, on how to arrive according to all the rules of Jewish law, when a great emphasis is placed on the mitzva of Awe of the Temple and the gravitas of the aliya, thus keeping a positive mitzva of the Torah – “and My sanctuary you shall fear.”
This year, in addition to the Temple Mount Yeshiva, we were privileged to see the establishment of Kollel Drishat Tzion, with the help of G-d, headed by Rabbi Elisha Wolfson, a Kollel whose interest is in devotion to the redemption of the Temple Mount and the building of our Temple. The students of the Kollel go up in purity each and every day, for a public Mincha prayer and words of Torah on the Temple Mount. These dear students work so that during all the hours the Mount is open, the voice of Torah and prayer are heard on the Mount of Hashem’s home.
As anyone who is privileged to go up to the Mount can see, the permanent and diligent aliya of the Yeshiva and the Kollel has led to great improvements on the site – things we never even dreamed of only a short time ago, like prayer in a minyan – have been realized thanks to those pioneers.
At this time, I call on each one of us to join us and support the Temple Mount Yeshiva – 074-7871553, who are dedicating their lives to the heart of the nation, and in that merit, may we be privileged to see the Final Redemption quickly in our time.
To report/donate: 074-7871390
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