May I Speak to My Chosen People? |
I speak as an outsider.
A wandering Jewess.
One who belongs everywhere and nowhere at once.
One who did not grow up wrapped in certainty, but in questions.
And yet — Jeremiah lives in my bones.
So I ask, humbly but unapologetically:
May I speak to my chosen people?
And may I dare call the State of Israel the Third Temple?
Before some jump at my throat, bear with me.
In classical Jewish theology, the Third Temple is clearly defined:
a physical Beit HaMikdash,
built on Har HaBayit,
with renewed sacrificial service,
and bound to messianic redemption.
By that definition — and I say this plainly — the State of Israel is not the Third Temple.
But Judaism has never been a faith of stone alone.
When the First Temple fell, we did not disappear.
When the Second Temple burned, we did not dissolve into history.
We adapted — not by abandoning holiness, but by carrying it.
At Yavneh, Torah became a portable sanctuary.
The Jewish home became a mikdash me’at, a small temple.
Jerusalem remained our spiritual axis — even when it stood in ruins.
Judaism learned how to survive without walls, without altars, without........