Now that the whole world is talking about the Third Temple in Jerusalem, let’s go there.

I am a Jew, a Chabad’nik, a Rabbi, so you can trust what I’m going to share a lot more than what podcasters have tried to share in ‘my name’.

Yes, Jews believe that we will have a Third Temple, on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, in the same location where our first two Temples once stood. It’s not some secret that the Mossad is hiding, nor something that Chabad subtly pushes, and certainly not a code being signaled through patches on IDF uniforms.

It has been in the public record for thousands of years:

2800 years ago, Isaiah prophesied: “… concerning Judah and Jerusalem … at the end of the days, the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be firmly established at the top of the mountains … and many peoples shall go, and they shall say, “Come, let us go up to the Lord’s mount, to the house of the God of Jacob …”

2600 years ago, Ezekiel prophesied: “In the visions of God … He placed me on a very lofty mountain and upon it was like the building of a city from the south … And He said to me, this is the place of My throne where I shall dwell … this is the teaching of the House; Upon the top of the mountain, all its boundary round about shall be most holy…”

2000 years ago, Jewish sages composed a blessing in our daily prayer liturgy: “Return in mercy to Jerusalem Your city and dwell therein as You have promised … rebuild it, soon in our days, as an everlasting edifice … restore the service to Your Sanctuary and accept with love and favor Israel’s fire-offerings and prayer…”

1900 years ago, the Talmudic sage Rabbi Yehuda composed a prayer, which we recite several times every day: “May it be Your will, L-rd our G‑d and G‑d of our fathers, that the Holy Temple be rebuilt speedily in our days.”

So now that we’ve cleared that up, let’s continue.

What about the Al-Aqsa mosque? And the Dome of the Rock shrine? Aren’t we going to be sensitive to these holy Islamic sites? I suppose this will be a consideration, but I wonder – are they, or is anyone, sensitive to the fact that the Temple Mount was a holy site for Jews thousands of years before they conquered and built their sites?

The Muslim conquest of Jerusalem occurred in the 7th century CE. Shortly after that, they built both the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa.

Now let’s take a trip down Jewish memory lane.

The Bible is filled with references to the Temple Mount. Adam, the first created human, was created out of earth gathered from the Temple Mount. 3700 years ago, G-d told Avraham to take his son Isaac as an offering to G-d. Where? Upon the Temple Mount. 3600 years ago, when Jacob was running away from his brother Esav, he fell asleep and had a dream. In it, G-d told him: “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac; the land upon which you are lying, to you I will give it and to your seed.” Where did this occur? Yes, upon the Temple Mount.

Before entering Israel, the Bible records what G-d told the Jews (Deuteronomy 12:11): “And you shall cross the Jordan and settle in the land the Lord, your God, is giving you as an inheritance … And it will be, that the place the Lord, your God, will choose in which to establish His Name, there you shall bring your sacrifices…”

Again, that ‘place that G-d chose’, the command to build for Him a Temple, is on the Temple Mount.

About 3000 years ago, King David successfully conquered Jerusalem, fulfilling G-d’s promise, and began planning the building of the Temple. It was his son King Shlomo who built the first Temple, which stood on the Temple Mount for 410 years, until the Babylonians savagely destroyed the Temple and exiled the Jews.

About 2500 years ago, the Persian Emperor Cyrus permitted the Jews to return to Israel and build a second Temple, on the Temple Mount. This Temple stood for 420 years, until the Romans destroyed it and exiled the Jews.

If you shall ask, ‘where were the Jews since then?’ the answer is simple. We wish we could have been living as G-d had promised – as a sovereign nation in the land of Israel, with a Temple on the Temple Mount. But alas, antisemitic hatred and persecution had us destroyed and banished from the land. We never ‘left’ the land, or ‘gave away’ our G-d-given gift to anyone else.

Let’s move on. Are we going to build a Third Temple?

In 1948, we Jews finally reclaimed control over our Homeland. At least some of it. Only in 1967 did we gain control over Jerusalem’s old city and the Temple Mount. That is when this question became something realistic.

And yet, in the past 60 years, we haven’t built the Third Temple, nor are there any substantial plans or efforts to do so. Why?

Obviously, there are geopolitical considerations, which are significant but beyond the scope of this article. But let’s review the Jewish sources. We will discover that they are complex, and there are in fact many reasons why we aren’t currently making any such plans:

1. The obligation to rebuild the Temple may apply only when the majority of the Jewish nation resides in Israel. Currently, less than 50% of Jews live in Israel.

2. The obligation to rebuild the Temple may apply only when there is a Jewish king or prophet, which we don’t have nowadays.

3. We don’t even know how to construct it. Ezekiel’s prophecy outlines the blueprint of the Temple, but there are many different interpretations about how to understand these instructions.

4. One of the central items in the Temple is the altar for sacrifices. The altar must be placed in the exact spot where Adam was first formed, and where Avraham built an altar for Isaac. Nowadays, we don’t really know where this is. (When building the Second Temple, prophets came to vouch for the precise location.)

5. Even if we figured out how and where to build the Temple, we might be forbidden to enter it in our state of impurity. To become purified requires the ashes of a red heifer, which we don’t currently have.

6. The Temple will be staffed by kohanim. To be approved, a kohen will need a genealogical verification of being a direct descendant of Aaron – something most kohanim don’t have nowadays.

7. The kohanim will need to wear special clothing, and nowadays we aren’t clear about the identity of some of the materials, such as the tchelet dye, or the precious stones for the High Priest’s breastplate.

So how will the Third Temple be built?

The answer to this is not so clear.

In general, regarding all matters concerning the Jewish belief about messianic times, including universal peace, ingathering of the exiles, an end to evil, restoration of the Jewish monarchy, resurrection of the dead, and the return of worship in the holy Temple, all of these are shrouded in mystery and ambiguity. Not for a lack of certainty about them, nor are there a shortage of sources confirming them. Rather, the sources have been understood differently over the ages, and ultimately it appears that G-d deliberately wants these matters to remain enigmatic – for now.

That being said, there seems to be two general opinions about how the Temple will be built:

1. Maimonides rules that the Temple will be built by King Moshiach. In other words, we will need to wait for the arrival of Moshiach.

2. Others are of the opinion that in the Messianic era, the Temple will miraculously descend ready-built from heaven.

In summary, as much as we yearn for the building of the Third Temple, and we know that it will happen one day, we are not currently in a position to fulfill this mitzvah.

So for now, will everyone please relax, and will the conspiracists please get an education. Chabad, or other communities, are not making any such plans.

Instead, we are focused on something more important for now – to practice unconditional love, to promote acts of kindness, to teach the word of G-d, to strengthen faith and purpose, to fill the world with true peace, and to prepare humanity for Messianic times.

Our job is to build a better world. We’ll let G-d will figure out how to build the Temple.

Oh, and by the way, in that future era of universal peace, we look forward to greeting all citizens and nations of the world in our Temple. Yes, all will be welcome.

We hope and pray that we will witness this very soon.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)