Tag Archives: Temple Mount

Well, Rabbi, another week of Madlik Disruptive Torah, and you were in Israel last week. Were you at the Temple Mount? Were you at the Kotel?

Adam Mintz (01:05.052)

at the Kotel but I was not on the temple mount but I was at the Kotel. I saw where the temple mount was.

Geoffrey Stern (01:11.713)

So, you were at the place. Now we have discussed these exact verses in a previous podcast called Ha’Makom Place No Place. And there we went in a totally different direction because once the temple was destroyed, there were those that used Makom as a name of God and it didn’t relate as much to place anymore. But today we’re gonna kind of follow up on what we started last week when we discussed the Philistinians and the ancient Israelites, and obviously we and our listeners drew the conclusion that it might have an impact on discussions today about Palestinians and Israelis. So today we’re going to discuss the ancient texts, trace them up into the present, that revolve around this spot, this place on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem.

that has attracted so much attention, discussion, and even controversy. So, we are in Genesis 28-10, and Jacob is leaving the country. I would say he’s kind of running away from his brother Eisav He’s stolen, taken, or achieved the birthright, and he’s leaving town. And in 28-10, it says, Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran.

Haran is where Abraham was born. So he’s going back to the roots as his father did. He’s looking for a wife from the homeland. And by that I don’t mean Canaan, I mean where they all came from. He came upon a certain place, Vayifga ba’ Makom, and stopped there for the night. For the sun had set, taking one of the stones of that.

place, Ha-ma-kom, he put it under his head and lay down in that place, Ba-ma-kom. Rabbi, in one verse it says the word ma-kom, place, three times, so I think we are talking about the place. So he had a dream, a ladder was set on the ground, its top reached up,

Adam Mintz (03:10.605)

times. That must be an important word.

Geoffrey Stern (03:19.733)

to the heavens. The messengers of God were going up and down on it and standing beside him was God who said, I am God, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. The ground on which you are lying I will assign to you and to your offspring. So now it doesn’t say place but it starts to talk about the ground. Ha’aretz asher ata Shocave aleha

Your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth you shall spread out from the west to the east to the north and to the south. Huferatza, Negra, Vakadim, Tsvfona and all the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you and your descendants. Remember I am with you. I will protect you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.

So, in verse 16, Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, Surely God is present in this place and I did not know it. He is Yeish Hashem b’makom hazeh v’anokhi lo yedati. Shaken, he said, how awesome is this place. This is none other than the abode of God. And this is the gateway to heaven. Early in the morning, Jacob took

the stone that he had put under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. So in addition to Makom and Ha’aretz, now we also have this stone, a single stone, ha-evin, which he had slept on. And we also have dedication, pouring oil on top of a stone is really sanctifying a holy place. I would say almost sanctifying an altar, if you will.

So, we really have in these verses all of the ingredients for creating a very holy spot in our tradition. And then it goes on to say, he named that site Beth-El.

Geoffrey Stern (05:29.463)

which literally means house of God, but previously the name of the city had been Lutz. So harkening back to our discussion last week, we’re in the naming game again. So, Beth-El literally, if you get from the bet, this sense of a house, Har Ha’ Bayit we call the temple mount today, he is creating that edifice that and it’s a holy place. is Beth El, the house of God. And he’s also in a sense kind of renaming it. So it is a fascinating moment in our history that again has ripple effects up until today. What do you have to say, Adam?

Adam Mintz (06:14.068)

No, that’s 100 % right. So, Beth El clearly is the house of God and that’s the place. You say we’re in the naming game. It’s interesting that all these places, tell you what the original name was. You know, it’s almost like it’s written for, you know, for those days. Like if they told you New York City, its original name was New Amsterdam. Like there’s nobody who cares about.

because that’s history. But here, obviously, this was known as Luz, and it comes to show that when God, when Jacob get involved in the place, the place changes its name. It doesn’t only change its name, the name’s character changes. Luz is just a name. Beit El defines its quality.

Geoffrey Stern (07:01.985)

You know, and we saw that last week, and that’s why I call it the naming game. The Romans wanted to not only eradicate the memory of the Jews and kick the Jews out of Judea, they changed the name to Palestine, and in effect it worked.

When you change a name, you take a lot of baggage and you move it. So, we’re all involved. We’re in Genesis. We could be talking about some ancient patriarchs, but in fact, what we are witnessing is the movement of history, the reclaiming of history. And so even if we go back earlier in Genesis to Genesis 12, where we’re talking about Abram,

Abraham passed through the land as far as the site of Shechem at the terebinth of Moreh. So we’re starting to see it’s called Makom Shechem, but again a terebinth of Shechem. This was a holy site. The Canaanites were then in the land. God appeared to Abraham and said, I will assign this land to your offspring.

I will build an altar there to God who had appeared to him. From there he moved out to the hill country east of Beth-El and pitched his tent with Beth-El on the west and Ai in the east. He built there an altar to God and invoked God by his name. So, this is not the first nor the last time where number one, and I will be arguing this throughout the episode, where we take places that had before been holy sites.

had been Terebinths, had been places of worship, and we rededicate them, and we might change their names, and we make them ours. But there is nothing, nothing new here. I would argue not only amongst the Jews, but this, as you say, New Amsterdam to New York.

Geoffrey Stern (08:53.079)

It is a change. And of course, I just realized New Amsterdam was giving homage to Holland and New York was giving homage to England. So it was a changing of the guard, so to speak. So, Rashi.

Adam Mintz (09:01.868)

Of course, right.

Adam Mintz (09:08.514)

Right, I mean, just wanted one possibility. It’s possible that Beit El, know, every state has a Springfield. It’s possible that Beit El could, there could be different places that are called Beit El, because Beit El is the place of God. So that’s whatever it is, right? So, you know, it could be that there are multiple places and that the story with Avraham is not the same story as with Jacob. I’m not sure, I’m just, it’s a possibility.

Geoffrey Stern (09:35.671)

You know, I love that, and we are going to be quoting so many rabbinic sources, and there’s not one that says that. So, I think you’re really adding something to the conversation, because everybody is bending over backwards to try to move the pieces on the map to figure as… Okay, but it was done, and we’re going to follow the trail a little bit. So Rashi in Genesis 28 says,

Adam Mintz (09:50.443)

Right. But it’s not necessary.

Geoffrey Stern (10:03.153)

Scripture does not mention which place, but by writing Ba’makom, the place, it refers to the place mentioned already in another passage vis-a-vis the Mount Moriah which it is stating, and he saw the place afar. Now, wink, wink, anyone reading this who knows Rashi knows what he’s referring to. He is referring to the binding or the sacrifice of Isaac.

where Abraham is taking his son Isaac and he is looking and he sees the place from afar. And of course, it starts to make you think when you look back at that story, Rabbi, so much of what we do when we discuss that story is agonize over why or how.

or for what reason and purpose Isaac was sacrificed, here already we have a different nuance. When you look at a place from afar and you want to sanctify it, something has to be sacrificed. It turned out that it wasn’t his son, it ended up being a goat that was there. But the point was, we shouldn’t be surprised that the story ended with a sacrifice, because whether it’s pouring oil on a stone or sacrificing it was there,

But again, here we are connecting these two places that are iconic in our history. This place where Jacob sees this ladder going up to heaven and where Abraham binds his son. Now, because it both says makom, place, we are saying it is referring to the same holy place. The Ibn Ezra says he lighted upon the place.

The reason the bait of Ba Makom is vocalized with a patach, this is a grammatical sign, is that Moshe, in writing the Torah, did so in order to indicate the place that was well known in his time. We talked a little bit about this last week, that the Torah was written certainly at the time of Moses, he already was commenting on previous history.

Geoffrey Stern (12:16.431)

are but those who believe it was written even later, at the time of Ezra, or that it had the foresight to put itself into the shoes of people who would be living at the time of Ezra or at the time of Geoffrey and Adam in 2024, there already was the ability to make references to things that were assumed to be well known. Kind of fascinating.

Adam Mintz (12:38.522)

Fascinating. Well, you would say the place that was well known by Ba’ Makom with a capital MEM Right. That’s where we would say it today.

Geoffrey Stern (12:43.883)

Yep, there we go. let’s, yep. So, let’s go ahead and look at a few more of the commentaries, the Keli Yekar And again, no matter when these commentaries were written they’re not making this stuff up. They’re culling Jewish tradition.

Adam Mintz (13:02.67)

Now, do you know who the Keli Yakar was? His name was Rabbi Ephraim Luntschitz He was a rabbi in Prague around the year 1,600. He was a rabbi who gave sermons on Shabbat morning. And his commentary reads like a sermon always. So he’s great. So let’s see what he has to say today.

Geoffrey Stern (13:22.689)

So he says that he arrived at the place and our sages said in the Gemora in Chullin that this was Mount Moriah. Again, he makes reference to the same verse that we quoted a second ago of the Binding of Isaac. That place was called “the place” without any specific name. Every place has an identifying name derived from the name of its owner or its nature, but in this it was separate from all other places. The essence and the name of this place was hidden.

as I’ve explained above in the portion of Vayera therefore is not simply called the place because it is not yet received the name which will distinguish it from all others. So, he’s adding a new nuance to this. But again, I think if in most s-

populations, Jewish populations. If I say the Rebbe, most people will say it’s the Lubavitcher Rebbe. You don’t have to ask which Rebbe. And if it’s the Rav, it’s Rav Soloveitchik. And I could go down the list. But he’s kind of saying that, but he’s also talking about this sense of being hidden. It’s like a wink-wink for those who know. So again, he goes into the future. There is…

It’s almost because there’s some esoteric nature to it also that just like we don’t call God by his name, I think he’s saying something like that. Just like we call God Hashem, the name, when we say Ha-ma-kom, everybody knows what place we’re referring to. I think it’s clear from all the commentaries that whether it was clear originally when it was written, it’s certainly clear

with the reference of Jewish history, what place we’re talking. I think if you would ask most Jews, no matter how knowledgeable they are in our sources, and if you ask them where did the binding of Isaac occur or where did the ladder occur, I think there would be a high percentage who would guess that it was on the Temple Mount. I’m not sure, what do you think?

Adam Mintz (15:29.041)

I think that’s probably right.

Geoffrey Stern (15:32.949)

So, they get in now to this foundation stone. And of course, there’s a beautiful story where Yaakov takes the stones in the plural before he goes to sleep and he wakes up and lo and behold, they’ve all become one unitary stone. And of course, we take all sorts of ethical and social lessons from that.

But in this particular case, they are now talking about the stone. And it’s called this eben haŠeṯīyyā the foundational stone that, according to rabbinic tradition, the world was built from, the Big Bang. I had a rebbi once.

who said that on this place, time and space were one. It was l’malah min ha makom and l’malah min ha’zman and he said it was EinShtein and he tied it into the theory of relativity. That was Rav Moshe Wolfson z’l the Mashgiach of Torah Vodaas but he said it with a smile. But this, again, this is a place that was inundated with,

Adam Mintz (16:23.153)

That’s funny.

Geoffrey Stern (16:37.569)

high spiritual definition. The Ibn Ezra says that in general there are some places where God’s presence is more manifest than others and I would say this is not a Jewish belief. This is a belief that we inherited and that’s why I quoted before when it said that

Abraham went to Elone Mamre, to the terebinth of Mamre, there were already holy sites, Shechem, Beit El, can, Shiloh, where the traveling tabernacle landed first, before the empire was united under David, and we had only one temple, there were…

places, holy places throughout the land. And I think that’s kind of, Rabbi, that harkens back to what you said a second ago, which is there could have been many Beth-El’s, there could have been many holy places, and then when the Empire, the monarchy was united and everything was put into Jerusalem, all of those Beth-El’s became this one spot. And I think we’re visual…

Adam Mintz (17:40.166)

Right.

Geoffrey Stern (17:56.843)

We’re seeing this textually in front of our eyes.

Adam Mintz (18:00.794)

I think that’s great. Okay, that’s, that means that not, and that works, right? According to this, Ibn Ezra that works, that there might’ve been multiple places called Beth El Good.

Geoffrey Stern (18:09.355)

Good. So now we get a little bit to the problem here. Because for those who don’t agree with you, Rabbi, and think that Beth-El is an actual place on WAZE if you’re traveling, you come up with a little bit of a problem. That if you’re leaving Be’er Sheva, which is what he did, and you’re going to Haran and you go to Beth-El,

It’s a problem of how do you get back to the Har Habayit, the Makom. So one of the explanations that Rashi brings, Rabbi Eliezer said in the name of Rabbi Yossi, the son of Zimra, the ladder stood in Beersheba and the middle of its slope reached opposite the temple. They had a problem, they had a solution, but it shows you how much it was important for them

to try to make this somehow, to reconcile it with Jerusalem. It follows therefore that a ladder whose foot is in Be’er Sheva and whose top is in Bethel has the middle of the slope reaching opposite Jerusalem. And there’s another thing that he quotes from Hulin, this righteous man came to the place where I dwell, whilst from here it is evident that he had come to Lutz.

Adam Mintz (19:05.168)

reconcile the two.

Geoffrey Stern (19:30.697)

And should he depart without staying over the night? There’s another tradition. This is pretty crazy. And one of the commentaries in Psachim says, Mount Moriah was forcibly removed from its locality to come to Lutz, and that this is what is meant by the shrinking of the ground that is mentioned in the treatise.

This might be the first time we hear of of Muhammad can’t come to the mountain the mountain comes to Muhammad But you heard it first on Madlik , that Mount Moriah came to Jacob the last Solution that I like is that he actually realized that he had passed Bethel and he turned back He decided to return to go as far as Bethel where the ground shrank for him

The bottom line is we are engaged on a textual level of trying to bring Jerusalem into this picture because we know where we need to get. We need to get where this Beth-El, this holy place is associated with the Har Habayit, with Mount Moriah, with the place where ultimately the first and the second temple were built in Jerusalem.

Adam Mintz (20:49.936)

And that’s what you say is interesting. And that is they work backwards. They need to get to the place of the temple. And then he gives these explanations, even if they’re far fetched, to be able to get to that place.

Geoffrey Stern (21:03.137)

Yep. So there are other sources. Pirkei de Rab Eliezer says that you can learn that everyone who prays in Jerusalem is reckoned as though he had prayed before the throne of glory for the gate of heaven is there and it is open to hear the prayers of Israel as it is said and this is the gate of heaven. So from here we have the tradition up until today where synagogues

point towards Jerusalem and I believe in Jerusalem they point towards Har Habayit because of this verse that says This is the gate of heaven.

Adam Mintz (21:39.477)

Correct.

Adam Mintz (21:46.429)

Right. So that’s interesting. That’s a great Pirkei D’Rav Eliezer because that basically says that this story is still very much alive today and that, because of this story, we still face that place.

Geoffrey Stern (22:02.035)

up until today. And again, you know, I always like to say that for those who will argue that the Jews discovered Israel with the beginning of the Zionist movement, it is pretty clear from here that Jews not only have been saying at the end of every seder “Next Year In Jerusalem”, at the end of every wedding, they’ve been breaking a glass,

for the rebuilding of Israel and of this temple that we’re discussing. But every synagogue architecture, so now we’re talking about material evidence, you will go around the world and you will see it’s all pointing towards Jerusalem.

So this is architectural history that shows that this did not begin in the age of colonialism. This began for thousands of years in the Jewish diaspora. People have been looking at this particular spot. So that is fascinating. So if we go on and we talk about, we’ve talked about the place.

We’ve talked about the land. We’ve talked even about the stone. Now let’s talk a little bit about what the stone was used for. And so he says, then this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, explain it as the Targum translates it, says Rashi, I shall serve the Lord upon it. This indeed he did on his return from Padan Aram.

when he said arise go up to Bethel, what is stated there and Jacob set up a pillar and he poured out a drink offering thereon. So this combination in our verse we have pouring oil on it so dedicating it. We’re gonna be coming to Chanukah soon where oil and dedication are both celebrated. But here when he came back again, they’re playing with the word Bethel because I think you would.

Geoffrey Stern (24:04.097)

Traditionally, we’d say he went to the literally to Bethel, but he came back to this place I could argue rabbi that maybe everywhere where a Jew decides to dedicate is I like that better

Adam Mintz (24:15.863)

is called Beit El. Right. See, this is interesting because the Avraham reference has Beit El before and here’s a Beit El afterwards. So, you know, it’s hard to know what it refers to, but okay, good. Right. Every place that you dedicate to God is called Beit El. We can call our cities Beit El too.

Geoffrey Stern (24:39.009)

Fantastic. So there seems to be a big controversy about how many times a place like Jerusalem is mentioned in the Koran, is mentioned in our texts. Of course, it’s mentioned many times in our Tanakh, but in our five books of Moses, which deal with creation, which deals with Exodus, not mentioned, I don’t think, even once. But the closest we get

to a mention is actually earlier in Genesis and it says, King Melchizedek of Shalem brought out bread and wine. He was a priest of God most high. He blessed him, meaning Abraham saying, blessed be Abraham of God most high, creator of heaven and earth.

and blessed be God most high who has delivered your foes into your hand and Abraham gave him a tenth of everything. So getting back to what I was saying before, which is if this in fact does relate to Shalem being Jerusalem,

I think you’ll find that in the commentaries, Rashi says bread and wine thus is done from those weary through battle. But he goes the Midrashic explanation is that he Malchitzedek thereby gave an intimation to him Abraham of the meal offering and libations which his descendants would offer there in Shalem, which is Jerusalem and that he is quoting Genesis, Rabba. So again, it’s this sense that

that even Jerusalem, there were pre-religious sanctity to it. And it would be very rare, I would argue, that we would ever build a holy place on a spot that had not previously been shown to be holy. I think that’s pretty clear here. And therefore, this tradition of claiming a holy place as one’s own, I think goes back

Geoffrey Stern (26:44.565)

to the patriarchal period. goes back into ancient history. We’ve done it. Others have certainly done it to us. But we have to recognize that if, in fact, this is a reference by Shalem to Jerusalem.

Adam Mintz (27:00.685)

Yeah, no, that’s interesting, right. And, you know, Jerusalem only becomes important in the prophets later because when the Jews entered the land of Israel, Jerusalem was not a Jewish city. King David conquered Jerusalem and then Solomon built the temple in Jerusalem. So being able to identify it with an earlier place is actually very interesting.

Geoffrey Stern (27:25.921)

So I was very curious about this knee-jerk relationship that goes back to ancient times of building one holy place on top of another. And I really do believe there are two motivations here. One is a sincere motivation of it must be a holy spot to humanity. I want to channel it towards my God. The other is not so sincere, and that is one upmanship.

That is, I conquered you, I took over your country, the first thing I need to do is put a mosque on top of your church or on top of your holy spot. I found a book that is called, it’s called The Shadow of the Church, The Building of Mosques in Early Medieval Syria. But in it, it talks about not only the Har Habayit, but also in Bethlehem.

where and this goes up until today there was a intention of the local caliph to build a mosque right over the birthplace of Jesus, so to speak, and they convinced him to do otherwise. The author then brings our story, which is

There was also a renowned place where once the magnificent temple was built close to the eastern wall. Now there is a quadrangle house of prayer of the Arab Muslims built crudely by setting planks and beams on some remains of ruins. They attend this place. He gives the full history, but the immediate thing that they did when they created the caliphate and it took over our holy land

was do what maybe every religion has done in time immemorial, is they built a mosque on top of where that holy temple was. Initially, as it says, they were just planks, and then ultimately they built it into something that we now call the third holiest place in Islam.

Geoffrey Stern (29:35.479)

You know, I need to say that When I read the New York Times, and I love my Times, it’s part of my religion, so to speak. and when it refers to the Har Habayit, the mount that we’re talking about, it always says the third holiest place in Islam and the place of two temples in Judaism. And of course, when I hear the word two temples, I think maybe it’s Temple Sinai and Temple Immanuel.

You know to say that That it is not the The temple was the essence of our people and if you want to talk I I’m not I wouldn’t be proud to say that we have a list a hierarchy of holy places I don’t think we do have a list but there is one holy place. I think everybody can agree upon it’s called the Kodesh HaKadashim the holiest of the holy and so it is kind of fascinating this word game I would prefer if you’re

New York Times that you say it is the holiest place in Judaism and the third holiest place in Islam. What is fascinating though is that it was founded before the Kaaba in Saudi Arabia and so initially the Muslims prayed facing towards Jerusalem and then after

Adam Mintz (30:56.635)

Jerusalem.

Geoffrey Stern (30:58.763)

The Kaaba was made the first holiest place nowadays. I believe, I’m no expert in Islam, they pray facing it. So again, towards Mecca, so we have our different traditions, but it is so fascinating if we go back and we see that they have histories and they have developments. And the truth is, again, that we have more in common than…

Adam Mintz (31:06.557)

Yours, Mecca. Correct.

Geoffrey Stern (31:22.283)

we have a part in terms of how we handle these places. And we all need, I think, a little more humility in understanding the social and kind of historical activities that happen through ancient times up until today. I think I’ll end by saying, because I did say we would go up until the present, there was a thinker in modern Israel. I’ve mentioned him.

before. His name is Yeshayahu Leibovich. And when the Temple, the Six-Day War occurred in June of 67, he gave a damning speech in July of ’67 in Rehavia, the place where all the modern Orthodox Jews were. And very famously he says, I know what’s going to happen to the Kotel. It’s going to be made into a dis-kotel.

He basically said there are no holy places in Judaism to believe and act as if there were would be to practice avoda zara, idolatry. And he was very much against not only the idea of this holy place, I mean if you think about it Rabbi, in the five books of Moses we have something radical.

we have a mobile home synagogue. We don’t have that holy place. We should grab on to that a little bit more. But nonetheless, it is a holy place and if you are watching on video, you will see, you are very used to, I’m sure, seeing pictures of

whether it’s Abbas or it’s somebody from Hamas, all of them seem to have in the background a framed picture of the Mosque of Omar, the Golden Dome. We are now starting to see this is a screenshot from an interview with Moshe Feglin and you can see sure enough behind his head he put a picture of the temple to be rebuilt.

Adam Mintz (33:22.397)

So, I’ll buy it.

Geoffrey Stern (33:26.519)

And I will say, I am so fortunate to have a niece who just graduated the Army Training School. And here is a picture of her being sworn in at the Kotel. If you look to the right of her shoulder, you’ll see a soldier standing next to her holding a Tanakh.

Adam Mintz (33:35.27)

Wow.

Geoffrey Stern (33:47.229)

You are given at this swearing in ceremony, which by the way is coed. The state of Israel is now in this ceremony says we do it our way. Every soldier is given their gun and they are given their Tanakh. And they are told very beautifully, I believe, that when they take an oath to defend the state of Israel, they need to defend it, but they also have to

hold the high ethical and moral code of our Tanakh. I just, to me, that is that ladder that goes from heaven to earth. So maybe it does, Rabbi, start from this special place.

Adam Mintz (34:31.29)

Fantastic. This is really good. The second time we talked about the place, a different twist on it and it was wonderful. Okay, everyone should enjoy learning all about hamakom and Beit El and we look forward to seeing you next week. Shabbat Shalom.

Geoffrey Stern (34:44.865)

See you all then. Shabbat shalom.