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on Should we be Actively Building the Beit HaMikdash?
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Rabbi Shlomo Aviner Therefore, even though, with God’s So we have to wait.
help, we have merited a government
which has the status of kingship to Even when King David wished to build
fter the incredible victory a certain extent, it is definitely not a the Temple, God told him that the time
in the Six-Day War in complete kingship, and so we need to had not yet arrived. God told him: Now
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A 1967, our Rabbi, Rabbi focus all of our energy in this direction. is the time of wars. Now is the time of
Zvi Yehuda HaKohen Kook, would building up the kingdom. The time for
emphasize Maimonides’ words at the However, there is something else that building the Temple will come later –
beginning of the Laws of Kings, that the we should do to advance the building through your son Solomon.
establishment of the Kingship of Israel of the Beit HaMikdash. Maimonides
precedes the building of the Temple, wrote in Hilchot Beit HaBechira (6:6), The halachic delay tells us that the time
and that our current mission is not that the holiness of the Land of Israel is has not yet arrived. We have a lot of
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work ahead of us. When the Six-Day
established through conquest, whereas
to build the Temple but to build the
" is determined by way of the Divine for his top students recommenced, he
the holiness of the site of the Temple
War ended and Rav Tzvi Yehuda’s class
Kingship of Israel.
Presence.
humbly asked, “What should we learn
now?” One student suggested, “Perhaps
Every mitzvah
And how do we cause the Divine
the laws of the Temple?” Our master
warmly grasped that student’s hand and
Presence to come to rest on that site?
of every Jew
and love. In the Amidah prayer, one of
have a lot more to learn about the laws
throughout Through Torah and Mitzvot, kindness said to him, “Before we learn that we
the blessings is “God builds Jerusalem,”
of kings and their wars.”
the world and in which “Jerusalem” is referring to the Nevertheless, throughout history the Jews
Temple and “builds” is in the present
throughout the tense. Yet how is God building it? We have expressed a longing for the Temple
and the Temple Mount, and every prayer
don’t see anything happening right now.
generations Surely we should be saying, “He will ends with: “May it be God’s will that the
Temple should be rebuilt speedily in our days.”
build it”?
builds Jerusalem, We should derive strength and courage
and when a We do not see because we are looking from this burning longing to add one
through our limited, mortal eyes.
more mitzvah, more Torah learning, more
certain amount Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook kindness and more holiness.
explained that every mitzvah of every Jew
is reached, the throughout the world and throughout the One by one, mitzvah by mitzvah, kindness
by kindness, the Temple will be rebuilt.
generations builds Jerusalem, and when
Temple will a certain amount is reached, the Temple
actually be will actually be constructed. A particularly 1 government was elected by a majority, it contains some of the
Rav Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook explains that since the
important mitzvah is groundless love, as in
constructed Rav Kook’s famous words that the Third obligations of kingship but none of the privileges.
Temple will be built through groundless
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If we are unable to build the Temple for halachic reasons, it is a
love (Orot HaKodesh 3:324). sign that God does not yet want us to do so.

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