Page 38 - Satan in the Sanctuary

40 Satan in the Sanctuary

policy today, some devout Jews are pressing for the right to
offer their prayers directly into God's ear, as it were, at the
very site of the ancient sanctuary.
This would seem to be a logical first step toward Temple
construction. A reasonable scenario might be the following:
(1) prayer on the mount on an individual and unorganized
basis; (2) organized prayer on the mount, supported by
larger numbers of worshipers; (3) sacrificial worship on the
mount; and finally, (4) the building of the Temple to house
the worship.
But obviously this would be a difficult procedure to follow,
with many pitfalls. Indeed, the very first step, the praying on
the mount, has been met by outraged rebuffs from all sides.
The rabbinic community, the Israeli establishment (who
want to maintain a low profile about Temple Mount affairs in
these times), and, predictably, the Muslims have all reacted
with alarm. To the rabbis, Jewish prayer on the mount,
which is not properly outfitted with the Temple, is invalid
worship; to the Israeli secular establishment it amounts to a
provocation of the Arabs; to the Muslims it represents en-
croachment of the most heinous kind, a usurping of an
Islamic holy site.
The movement for communicating with God at His chosen
place has not been very popular, to say the least. "There is
no new thing under the sun" (Eccles 1:9).

A MOMENTOUS DECISION
As it happened, a small prayer meeting in mid-1975
started a major Middle East crisis. A group of sincere but
nonconforming Jewish worshipers elected to go up the hill
to the summit of Mount Moriah and to pray virtually in the
shadow of the Muslim holy places.
Those faithful who gathered to pray at the Western Wall