After 33 months of closure to Jewish worshipers, it was reported yesterday that several groups of Jews had been granted permission to enter Judaism's holiest site, the Temple Mount. GSS chief Avi Dichter told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee today that this was done in partial coordination with the Moslem Waqf, which administrates the Mount, and that there is no security constraints on the ascent of Jews to the holy site.
Moshe Yogev, treasurer of the Amanah settlement organization and one to whom the issue of entry to the Mount is close to his heart, was one of those who entered this week. He told Arutz-7 today that individuals are not yet permitted, the Waqf did not make any trouble, and "we entered only certain locations, wearing non-leather shoes, and only after having immersed in a ritual bath - all in accordance with Jewish Law."
Yogev said that the late Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren, who was Chief Rabbi of the IDF during the Six Day War, "told us that during the war, he took all the keys of the Mount and went around to the various gates, hanging signs saying that this was a holy Jewish site, just as he did in Rachel's Tomb. His intention was that just as Rachel's Tomb became a site that only Jews frequented, the same should be with the Temple Mount as well... But just like King Chizkiyahu (Hezekiah) during First Temple times, about whom our Sages said that he could have been the Messiah had he recited thanksgiving prayers when required, we too apparently did not appreciate what we were given, and lost an opportunity to reclaim the site of the Temple...
"We hope that very soon, individual Jews will once again be allowed to ascend to the Temple Mount. We should realize that when we talk about fulfilling the 613 Torah commandments, 38% of them are connected with the Temple and cannot be fulfilled when it is not built. We therefore hope and pray that we will soon merit to be able to truly fulfill all 613 commandments, and that along the way, we be allowed to pray there - whether in the open areas that are currently permitted under Jewish Law, or in a regular synagogue on the site. Just as we do not disturb the Moslems from praying in the [neighboring] Al-Aksa mosque, so too we should be able to pray without disturbance opposite the site of our Holy Temple."