A new 17-minute video has been released an ascent to the Temple Mount led by Rabbi Moshe Dovid Tendler, son-in-law of the famed late Torah sage, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein.
Rabbi Tendler, who leads the Community Synagogue of Monsey and is a professor of Jewish Medical Ethics and biology at New York's Yeshiva College, led a small group of Jews up to the Temple Mount together with Temple Institute Director Yehudah Glick on January 19, 2009.
The small gathering, which ascended the Mount after first making the appropriate preparations as prescribed in Jewish law, recited special prayers during their visit to the site. The video shows Rabbi Tendler walking around the mount and speaking words of Torah throughout.
Rabbi Tendler also explained that some of the stones used by Arabs in paving the plaza that today also serves the Al Aksa Mosque were taken from Jewish homes.
Bending down, he gently brushed away the dirt from one of the blocks, revealing the cavity wherein once nestled the holy scroll of a mezuzah -- the Jewish prayers that are written on special parchment and posted on the entryway to each room in every Jewish home in accordance with the Torah commandment to "post them on the doorposts of your house and upon your gates, that ye shall remember and do all My commandments and be holy unto your G-d."
Gesturing toward the bare, elongated hole, Rabbi Tendler told the group, "You see? There once was a mezuzah here. This was taken from a Jewish home. And they used it to pave the road."
Rabbi Tendler contends that his father-in-law, the famous Halachic-decisor Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, was well aware of his custom to go up on the mount and never dissuaded Tendler from doing so. A copy of a responsa issued by Rabbi Feinstein affirming the halachic right of Jews to go up the the Mount can be found on the Temple Institute site. More video teachings about the Temple Mount can be found here.