There is a great parsha paper that gets distributed in shuls in Israel. It is called Torah Tidbits. It is full of all sorts of interesting articles and features. One of these articles is a weekly piece by Catriel Sugarman on some aspect of the Temple service or the physical construction of the Temple. The piece he writes is generally fascinating and very informative of events and processes we (many of us) have little understanding of.

In this week's article, Sugarman did something a little different. He gave us some of his background as to having grown up Conservative. He described the Conservative belief that there will not be a future Temple, rather the study of the subject is solely for the past, and not for any future relevance.

I was not aware of that belief among the Conservative, so that was an eye opener. He discusses how the Conservative edited the text of various prayers to indicate that belief that there will not be a future temple. He then presented a question he received by email and asked what the readers think about it.

I am reprinting the letter here:

Dear Rabbi (sic) Sugarman,

I am an ideological Conservative Jew and as you know, we do not believe that the temple will return. I download your column weekly from the OU website because the whole subject of the temple has always fascinated me, BUT ONLY AS A PART OF OUR PAST AND NOT AS A PART OF OUR FUTURE.î

Excuse me for saying it but I think the Orthodox movement is, for the most part, intellectually dishonest with itself and others on a central question of belief. This is the area of your expertise, the Temple, animal sacrifices and their reinstatement. The truth? How many Orthodox Jews in the 21st century really want these things?

Let's be for real. You pray three times a day for G-d to restore them to the Jewish people, but do you really want them? Do you really want to slaughter sheep and bullocks and goats by the tens of thousands, toss their blood on the altar, and burn their bodies? Do you really want to tie a red string around the neck of a goat and push it over a cliff so the sins of Israel will be forgiven?

I will not go so far as to call you hypocritical, but I honesty can't believe you people are serious...

Naomi

This is what I sent Catriel Sugarman by email...

Dear Catriel,

I read all your articles with great interest. This week's article was especially intriguing because of it touching on whether we really want the mikdash we daven for, and the future we daven for, or whether we are simply paying lip service but do not really want such change.

I have discussed the topic a number of times with people. I have found that in Israel there are more people who really want the mikdash and the mashiach and all the changes that will ensue because of them than there are in the Diaspora. Yet, even in Israel it is still a minority of the people.

I have asked why more people do not put on the tcheilet (for example). The halachic risk is negligible, and the halachic gain is great (if it is correct than one is fulfilling the mitzva d'oraisa properly). The response I was given is that the frum community generally pushes away anything that has a taste of being messianic.
For some reason, whenever something is deemed as having a messianic flavor, people push it away and reject it. The Rav who told me that also suggested the reason to be because of our long history with false Messiahs. He suggested that any time something quasi-messianic comes along, we automatically reject it because of our bad history with false messiahs.

That being said, I think most people (again, most people is most in the Diaspora and most in Israel as well, but the percentages in Israel will be lower) do not really want that changes that will happen. I suspect a lot of it has to do with fear of the unknown. People worry they will have to give up the luxuries they are used to and their lifestyles. We do not really know what the future will be like when mashiach comes, at best we make suggestions and guesses, so we have a bit of fear of the unknown.

I recently heard a story about a class in a frum school. The teacher asked the students to raise their hand if they want mashiach to come. Everybody raised their hands. The teacher said to keep their hands up. The teacher then asked if they know they have to move to Israel when mashiach comes do they still want mashiach. A few hands went down. The teacher proceeded to mention a few things that will likely change and little by little all the hands went down.

So in general, I believe, most of us do not want mashiach to come or the mikdash to be built. We want to keep our fancy cars, our fancy lifestyles and we do not want anything that might harm them.

That being said I think in Israel there are more people who do want it. I think people who make aliyah clearly want it, at least to a certain extent. They have already shown their willingness to give things up for what they believe. There are people in the general community (settlers, general frum, etc.) who really do want it. But still, even in Israel it is a minority.

What do you think? Do we really want the Beis Hamikdash to be rebuilt? Do we await the return of the korbanos? Do we really want mashiach?
Or are we just paying lip service but don't really look forward to that day?

What do you think? The comments section is open for discussion. And tell us what you really think - do you really want Mashiach or not. Do you really want the mikdash or not. Comment anonymously, if you must.

Ynet has posted an article by Yehuda Litani in which he says the excavations nearby and the renovations on the ramp of the Mugrabim Gate will lead to bloodshed and are not worth it. He wants Israel to abandon the renovations and excavations.

And this is after Israel has already given tacit permission to the Arabs to add a new minaret on the Mount while rejecting the Jews requests to build a synogague. They won't even let us do badly needed renovations and historical excavations.

Litani says, "We don't have to demonstrate our sovereignty over every inch of united Jerusalem in every case. At this time, which isn't easy for Israel and features immediate dangers, ranging from Hizbullah in Lebanon to the Iranian nuclear threat, we don't need this confrontation, which will give the Palestinians a reason to end their own bloody clashes and unite against Israel."

He might be right. There are possible scenarios in which it might just not be worth our "provoking" the peace loving Arabs to violence. After all, while sad that innocents are getting killed, it is better that they are killing each other in Gaza City rather than killing Jews or forcing us to kill them. A provocation by Israel could change all that. It could unite the various factions among the PA Arabs and get them to stop fighting with each other and start fighting with us again. Nobody wants that.

He might be right. But not when it comes to the Temple Mount. It is bad enough that the Arabs have acting control over the Mount and we Jews have to be debased and humiliated any time we want to go to visit the Mount with body searches for religious material and not being allowed to pray on the Mount.

They use our democratic society against us. We democratically have to give them control over anything they claim they are sensitive to. We democratically have to give them rights and freedoms in the name of peace and justice. Yet when they are in control of something they show us no liberties and offer us no rights and freedoms.

We have given them practical control over the Temple Mount. Do they let us have our religious freedoms and pray there, in the sight that is holiest to Judaism? No. Despite the fact that it is sovereign Israeli territory, we allow the Arabs enough control that they disallow jews to pray there. Freedom and liberty seems to only run one way when it comes to the Arabs.

Now Litani says we should not even demonstrate the slight amount of control we do have? If we let them hold the Mount hostage in this ridiculous baseless fashion and give in to their threats of violence, what would he say we should demonstrate our sovereignity over? only when they come looking for Lod and Ramle? Tel Aviv? Haifa? When will it be ok to demonstrate our sovereignity?

This is similar to the schoolyard bully who beats up the nerdy kid for his lunch money. He keeps on doing it for more and more power and money, until the kid realizes he has to stand up for himself. When he finally gets the courage to fight back, that is when the bully leaves him alone.

My three year old daught got a new book recently. It is a book about a kid who has low self esteem and is picked on by the other kids. A new kid moves into the neighborhood and the kid oozes with self esteem and immediately has all the other kids respect. The low self esteem kid asks him how he can be "strong" like him. His response is not to let them pick on you. When they tell you to do something, if you do not want to do it say no. Stand up for yourself. He says they will leave you alone if you just say no. It is not muscles that make you strong, rather the confidence and will to stand up for yourself.

It is time we stopped giving in to every threat the Arabs throw at us. It is time we stood up to them and told them we will not take it from them anymore. Let them show us how civilized they can be.

Even Judge Cheshin said yesterday (referring to the new Justice Minister who advocates changing the judicial system), "This is my house and I will cut off the hand of anybody who threatens it."

(HatTip: Yeranen Yaakov and LazerBeam)