Narrated Abu Dhar: I said, “O Allah’s Messenger, which (Holy Site) mosque was first built on the surface of the earth?” He said, “Al- Masjid-ul-, Haram (in Mecca).”

I said, “Which was built next?” He replied “The mosque of Al-Aqsa ( in Jerusalem) .” (Sahih al-Bukhari 3366 In-book reference : Book 60, Hadith 45 USC-MSA web (English) reference : Vol. 4, Book 55, Hadith 585)

The Jerusalem Temple (Beit HaMikdosh) and the Ka’ba, the House of God (Baitullah) in Mecca are the two most well-known sites for monotheistic pilgrimage in the world.

The Islamic Hajj to the Ka’ba in Makka, and the Jewish Hajj to the Temple in Jerusalem, have been alternate swings of a single sacred pendulum connecting earthly humans to one monotheistic Divine source in the heavens.

The Ka’ba was the original site of the Islamic Hajj. Destroyed in the days of Noah, it was later rebuilt by Abraham and his son Ishmael. After several centuries it was desecrated by later generations of idol worshipers.

During the centuries while the Ka’ba was desecrated, Prophet Solomon built a Temple in Jerusalem for Jewish Haj on the site where Abraham bound his son Isaac as an offering to God.
Four centuries later the Temple of Solomon was destroyed in 587 BCE by the Babylonians. Then the Temple was rebuilt with the support of Cyrus the Great, King of Persia, and lasted for almost six centuries. As Philo of Alexandria (c. 20 BCE – c. 50 CE) states; Jewish pilgrims came to Jerusalem from the ends of the earth, and from all the compass points.

But with the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 CE, the pilgrimage Hajj aspect of the week-long harvest festival of Hag Sukkot, began a gradual decline in the spiritual consciousness of the Jewish People.

The first time Hag/Hajj is mentioned in the Torah is in that famous scene when Prophets: “Moses and Aaron told Pharaoh; ‘Thus says the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go into the wilderness, that they may hold a feast (Hag) for me.'” [Exodus 5:1] or better: “And afterward Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharaoh; ‘Thus says the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a Hajj/pilgrimage feast for me in the wilderness.'”

But that one-time Hajj never occurred because Pharaoh refused to free the Jewish People thus incurring Divine wrath.

The normative annual two Jewish Hajj........

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