Rabbi Tendler Defends Temple Mount Ascent,Elliot Resnick, <i>Jewish Press Staff Reporter</i>

"The rabbanim are not talking halacha," Rabbi Moshe Tendler told The Jewish Press. "They're issuing a political statement."

Last week two leading haredi rabbis, Rabbi Shalom Elyashiv and Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, and former Sephardic chief rabbi Rav Ovadia Yosef, sent a letter to Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovich - who is in charge of the Western Wall area - asking him to reaffirm a 40-year-old ban on Jewish entry to the Temple Mount. The move came a month after Israel's Haaretz newspaper published photographs of Rabbi Tendler atop the Temple Mount, which set off a storm in the haredi community. Rabbi Tendler, a Yeshiva University rosh yeshiva and biology professor, is the son-in-law of the late Rav Moshe Feinstein, the leading American halachic decisor of his time.

"As time passed," the three rabbis wrote, "we have lost knowledge of the precise location of the Temple, and anyone entering the Temple Mount is liable to unwittingly enter the area of the Temple and the Holy of Holies."

Rabbi Kanievsky added that "entrance to the Temple Mount, and the defilement of the Holy of Holies, is more severe than any of the violations in the Torah."

Rabbi Tendler (foreground left) and Temple Institute founder Rabbi Yisrael Ariel (right) atop the Temple Mount.

However, Rabbi Tendler argues that "everybody, certainly every rosh yeshiva and every talmid chacham, knows exactly" where a Jew may walk on the Temple Mount thanks to the research of such rabbis as the late Rabbis Shlomo Goren (former Israeli chief rabbi) and Yechiel Michel Tikochinsky.

The letter's expression, "We have lost knowledge," Rabbi Tendler said, refers to the "99 percent of tourists" who walk in forbidden areas. "I wouldn't accuse the rabbanim of talking halacha," he said, "because then I'd have to accuse them of being am haratzim [ignoramuses]. The rabbanim, baruch Hashem, are talmidei chachamim and know exactly what I know I believe they're just backing up a government position."

In recent years an increasing number of rabbis have ascended the Temple Mount, including Kiryat Shmona Chief Rabbi Tzephania Drori, Ma'aleh Adumim rosh yeshiva Rabbi Nachum Rabinovich, and Rabbi Dov Kook, who is married to Rav Elyashiv's granddaughter.

The Yesha Rabbinical Council, headed by Rav Dov Lior of Kiryat Arba, published a ruling several years ago calling for Jewish ascension to the Temple Mount. "By refraining from ascending," the ruling read, "we are thereby declaring to the world as if we, God forbid, have no part in the Mountain of God - and we thus strengthen the Arabs' feeling that the Temple Mount is theirs."

Rabbi Tendler said he has been ascending the Temple Mount for close to a decade. As per Jewish law, he immerses in a mikveh the day before his visit and does not carry a wallet or wear leather shoes while on the Mount.

Read Comments (9)

Thank you Rabbi Tendler
Date 08:09, 09-4, 08

Klal Yisrael owes a huge debt of gratitude to R. Tendler for not only saying, but also doing, the right thing.

The arguments stating that "we just don't know the location of Beit HaMikdash" are so weak they are almost not worth addressing. I have even heard that people doubt the authenticity of the Rambam's aliyah to Har HaBayit and subsequent seudot mitzvah. Of course we know where the Even Shetiyah is - smack dab in the middle of the temporary structure with the shiny roof.

My bracha to all of Klal Yisrael is that we should be zoche to have such leaders as R. Tendler who know the difference between a mitzvah d'oraita and a klutz kashe.

See you up there, B"H, today(?).....are you ready???

shame on you, tendler
Date 08:09, 09-4, 08

what a terrible chutzpa to claim that the greatest talmidei chachomim have issued a "political statement"! a political statement is his ascending the temple mount for no purpose.

Bad Move
Date 11:09, 09-4, 08

What a shame for Rabbi Tendler to talk that way about Gedolei Yisroel. If you don't agree, fine! Don't come across that way to our Gedolei Yisroel and make it seem like all of their words are "political"! I think he could have found a better way than to use such harming words.

Ascending Har Ha Bais
Date 05:09, 09-5, 08

I have received a statement from a Rabbi who seems theoretically willing to allow ascent. In practice, however, he forbids ascent because most of those who do go up do not observe proper halachic rules.

you mechutziv!!!
Date 07:09, 09-7, 08

if Rav Elyashiz and Rav Kanievsky say to do something you listen!!! how dare you ascend the temple mount
Rosenfeld, Yehoshua

All are politicos
Date 03:09, 09-7, 08

I will heartily agree with Rabbi Tendler, that these "Gedolim" are politicians, making their statements to back up the Zionist Government's political decisions. While Tendler did not state it, I think the reason these Gedolim politicians do this is crustal clear. More shekels into the coffers of their currupt institutions.

But to Tendler too I have a question. What was the purpose of his entry to the Har HaBayith? Was it to do a mitzva? Not at all! His too was a political statement: "See everybody, here I am, Moses Tendler, a Gadol Hador, of sufficient position and prestige that I can thumb my nose at the other Gedolim."

Large numbers of rabbanim and observant jews ascend the Temple Mount, to places where there is no question that it is permitted. They do so without the fanfare and posturing of the likes of Tendler. Tendler's antics are likely to accomplish nothing more than to make it more difficult for religious Jews to continue doing so. If sufficient pressure is put on Rabinovitch, he will simply have the police lock the Jews out.

Gershon Eliyahu Kepipesiom

Rabbi ascends Temple Mount
Date 03:09, 09-7, 08

I believe Jews should ascend the Temple Mount only when the
Moshiach arrives!

Mayer Korchin
Canton, Oh

political doesn't need to be such a bad word
Date 02:09, 09-11, 08

Why is it such a lack of kavod to say that poskim have political considerations. When Rav Lior says that we should go up to show the arabs our connectedness thats also a valid political consideration. Since when do we ignore the political implications of a psak halacha. Even though the rabbanim mentioned the sfekot halachically, that most certainly sat along with the concerns that layman who don't know or care about the proper preparations will start to go up to the temple mount. We call that a syag, which is a normal and necessary part of halacha. Not such a hutzpa by Rav Tendler, but non ''halachik'' considerations are also an important part of the halacha decision process of torah leaders. ezra shapiro

Mima Nafshach
Date 02:09, 09-8, 09

I have no clue as far as the Halacha of mounting Har Habayis is concerned, but you bet if I had to trust the great Gedolim who assered it or the biology professor Tendler who allowed it, I would throw my lot in with the Gedolim and not with Tendler.

It is a simple Mima Nafshach; If the Gedolim of the calibre of Rav Elyashiv and Rav Chaim assered it on a true Halachic basis, who would dare contravening them on an Issur Kares, where your entire Olam Habo is flushed down the toilet? But if (and a very big if) they issued this psak for the sake of distancing the knowledgeable average Jewish tourist from inadvertently trespassing such a horrendous sin (as the biology professor claims), then why does Tendler very publicly ascend the mount, intentionally encouraging so many ignorant tourists, who may otherwise have refrained from doing so to transgress this awful sin?

The Gemoro states clearly, "Kol Haposel B'mumo Posel" (anyone who denigrates another person - defames him with his own shortcomings). Tendler, who ascends a mount which even he will forcibly admit that many consider a Kares prohibition, would have to have an absolutely compelling logical motivation to do so, which he never even made an effort to supply. Clearly, he enjoys the camera, news headlines and "politics" as he so happily spat in the direction of our great Jewish leaders, who have no other interest in life than Torah learning.

May Hashem have Rachmonus on this poor mans soul. He has possibly transgressed a Kares, and scorned the greatest Talmidei Chachomim, two deeds which are clearly specified as causing a person to lose his entire Olam Habo, and he shows no remorse.

Yitzchak Lewenstein
Johannesburg, South Africa