Kashti quotes Picard as saying: “When you tell students that the Temple menorah is not an abstract matter, or say we need to deal with Jewish law related to the red heifer [used in ancient Temple ritual purification ceremony], that’s a stage that lays the ground for passion for the Temple. We don’t need to explicitly say we need to ‘cast out abomination’ on the Temple Mount, but the Religious Education Administration, whether consciously or not, is trying to create a view among students that we are on the verge of redemption.”
To his record, Kashti balances his story with a quote from Tomer Persico, another research fellow at the Hartman Institute, who isn’t alarmed by the new program, which he views as “an educational expression for small children of rather basic religious beliefs in Jewish tradition. There is no violent expression here toward the Temple Mount mosques.” Persico suggests the curriculum reflects the discourse within the Israeli religious community regarding the Temple Mount and the Temple, “which is currently much more popular in religious Zionism than it was 20, or even 10 years ago.”
Kashti is upset that a Religious Education Administration website recommends that teachers use videos produced by Rabbi Yisrael Ariel’s Temple Institute. The Temple Institute provides activities for kindergarten and school children around the country, as well as an exhibition in the Old City’s Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem. Kashti cites a statement from Rabbi Ariel, suggesting “There is a religious commandment to go up to the Mount at all times,” which is a minority view among halachic scholars in our time, as a reason to disqualify his organization. But the Education Ministry not only recommends Rabbi Ariel’s content, but has even paid his group $360,000 over the past five years — that’s $72,000 a year.
Aviezer Weiss, a former principal of the religious Zeitlin High School in Tel Aviv and ex-head of the Givat Washington Academic College of Education, Upper Galilee, told Kashti the program represents a turning point. While it’s true that state religious schools always discussed the Temple, “the change is … of priorities. Until now, they didn’t place the Temple at the center of the educational program, didn’t stress its importance as being equal to that of the Land of Israel. This is a new and dangerous direction. There are things that are much more important to devote our educational energy to. The Temple has no moral influence. A moral society is a prerequisite for the Temple, and that needs to be the educational emphasis.”
Perhaps a more energetic study of the value of national redemption would help create a more moral society.