The secretary of Rabbi Avadia Joseph, the head of the Shas Party in Israel, blocked efforts of the Temple Mount Coalition to end a 42 years old impasse concerning the right of Jews to conduct religious rituals on the Temple Mount. Since 1967, when the Temple Mount was conquered by Israel, leaders of Israel's religious parties have maintained that Jews should not be allowed on the Temple Mount. Their stance is based on the beliefs that Jews do not know the exact location of the earlier Jewish temples and that most Jews are in a state of ritual impurity known as "death uncleanliness."
While organizations dedicated to rebuilding the Temple have been advancing claims for over 40 years that Jews should be allowed up on the Temple Mount, recently a new dimension has been added to their claims. Last summer the Temple Institute build an altar, capable of being used in Temple Mount sacrifice. Based on a well know loophole in Jewish law, unclean Priests are allowed to offer certain types of sacrifices on the Temple Mount, when the whole community is unclean. This class of sacrifices includes communal sacrifices which are supposed to be brought at a set time. Presumably, since the time for these offerings is set, they must be brought whether the community is clean or unclean.
Today, the Director of People for a Bill to Build the Bet Hamikdash, PBBBH went to the Jerusalem synagogue of Rabbi Avadia Joseph to request a blessing from the Rav for a project seeking to locate the exact spot of the altar on the Temple Mount, so that Jewish priests can bring these types of sacrifices, which suspend the laws of impurity.
Rav Joseph is so busy as head of the Shas party, that he generally only takes blessing requests second hand through the secretary who meets people at the door. When the Director of PBBBH requested a blessing for the project from the secretary, he was turned down immediately. The secretary bluntly said the Rav did not approve of Jews going up on the Temple Mount. . The Representative of the Temple organization tried to explain that this request was different than earlier requests. He understood that the Rav didn't want unclean Jews entering areas of the ancient Temple, however, in this case, since the Temple Mount organizations are engaged in a project, which according to Jewish law, sets aside the laws of uncleanliness, the previous concerns of the Rav shouldn't apply here. The secretary apparently didn’t understand the subtlety, and the discussion ended without a logical resolution.
While the impasse wasn't resolved today, the Director of PBBBH plans to wait a while and then reapply for the blessing. At the next request he will ask the secretary to clarify the reasons for the Rav's opposition to Jews going up on the Temple Mount. If indeed, the Rav is concerned about violations of the Biblical laws of uncleanliness, then the representative is ready to point out that that concern shouldn't apply to this project, which even based on ancient religious tradition, thrusts away the laws of ritual impurity.
