Rabbi Signaling Return Of Messiah?
Pastor Dale Morgan
Rabbi Signaling Return Of Messiah?*
May 24th, 2007 8:22 AM
Rabbi warns against going to Temple Mount
By Nadav Shragai
Former chief rabbi Avraham Shapira, head of Mercaz Harav yeshiva, said
yesterday that Jews are prohibited from going to the Temple Mount.
Shapira's statement came after a pamphlet issued by religious-Zionist
rabbis calling on people to go to the Temple Mount, and doing so
themselves earlier this week in what has been called a historical change
in their stand.
Shapira (along with Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu) is considered a leading
figure in the religious-Zionist movement. He made the statements at the
traditional rally in honor of Jerusalem Day at the yeshiva. Rabbi Dov
Lior, the head of the West Bank rabbinic committee and the chief rabbi
of Kiryat Arba, who was among those who visited the Temple Mount with
the group this week, was seated next to him.
Rabbi Zalman Melamed, the head of the Beit El Yeshiva and a leader among
West Bank rabbis, said, "Next year we will all go up freely to the
Temple, which will be built, with the ashes of the red heifer, without
disagreement and without questions."
Until a few years ago, most rabbis prohibited Jews from going to the
Temple Mount because no one knows for sure the exact location of the
Holy of Holies, and the concern that today's Jews, considered "impure"
by Jewish law, would enter prohibited zones.
However, as a result of the strengthening Palestinian presence on the
Mount, religious-Zionist rabbis have been pressured in recent years to
permit visits to some parts of it. The committee of West Bank rabbis
allowed ascent to the Mount a few years ago.
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