Jews Have Worshiped and Visited the Temple Mount for Nearly 2500 Years

 

Jews Have Worshiped and Visited the Temple Mount for Nearly 2500 Years

I came across an interesting video.  I wish to share it with you.  It is an interview between Adam Scott Bellos and Rabbi Yehuda Levi who is the Director of Outreach for Yeshiva Har HaBayit.  They discussed the importance of ascending the Temple Mount and the almost “2500 year unbroken chain of connection [of] worship and visiting of the Temple Mount by Jewish people.” The video of the interview can be seen here.  Rabbi Yehuda had written an Opinion piece for Daily Wire titled “Temple Mount Is Judaism’s Holiest Site, And It Always Has Been.  Here’s Everything You Need to Know."  In this interview, Rabbi Yehuda discusses this history.  When Adam Scott asks the Rabbi to summarize Judaism, his response is in large part “Love your fellow man as yourself” (22:41 min).     

"I know that the LORD has given you the land."

 

“I know that the Lord has given you the land.”^[1] The historical context for the above saying is from the Book of Joshua, where Rahab speaks to the two spies sent to Jericho to investigate the land just before the conquest in the 13^th century BCE.  When I read from Joshua today, I imagined what it would be like for Palestinians to say, “I know the LORD had given you the land of the Haram Al-Sharif.”  This view was once held by the Supreme Moslem Council in A Brief Guide to AL-HARAM AL-SHARIF, dated 1924.  It states,

Its identity with the site of Solomon’s Temple is beyond dispute.  This, too, is the spot, according to the universal belief, on which “David built there an altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings.[2]

In recent years, some Palestinians have denied any connection between the site and Solomon’s Temple.  I found this out firsthand from conversations with Palestinians when I visited Jerusalem, Israel in May 2017.  However, in a recent report, a new book entitled, The Noble Sanctuary Book, is claiming the historical connection.  The work is by the Jordanian photographer Bashar Tabbah and the scholar Dr. Robert Schick; the book is a photographic and historical exploration of Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Al-Haram Al-Sharif.[3]  According to Arnon Segel, “Despite the Arab tendency to deny the Jewish past of the mountain, it is interesting that this book actually mentions the existence of the two Jewish temples there.”[4]

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^[1] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Jos 2:9.

[2] A Brief Guide to Al-Haram Al-Sharif Jerusalem (Franciscan Printing Press: Jerusalem, 1925), 4.  * #

[3] Saeb Rawashdeh, “Jordanian Photographer Launches Photobook of Noble Sanctuary,” The Jordan Times.  March 4, 2023.  Online Source: Uploaded June 14, 2023.* 

[4] Arnon Segel, “A Book Financed by Jordan Confirms: There Were Temples on the Temple Mount,” Makor Rishon, June 5, 2023. Translated. Online Source: Uploaded June 13, 2023. *