John Schindler 1: Putin, Gorenberg, Jerusalem

As Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav says:

Wherever I go, I go to Jerusalem.

— and we can zoom further in:

As the navel is set in the centre of the human body,

so is the land of Israel the navel of the world…

situated in the centre of the world,

and Jerusalem in the centre of the land of Israel,

and the sanctuary in the centre of Jerusalem,

and the holy place in the centre of the sanctuary,

and the ark in the centre of the holy place,

and the foundation stone before the holy place,

because from it the world was founded…

**

Given the centrality of the Temple Mount, then, what are the prospects should someone, not unlike Adam Everett Livvix perhaps, motivated by desire to see the Temple rebuilt and Moshiach or Christ make his presence felt, attempt to destroy the mosques atop the Mount — as has already been attempted more than once?

Jeffrey Goldberg‘s interview with Gershon Salomon, leader of the Temple Mount Faithful movement, published in the New York Times just before the turn of the millennium, included this fascinating and to my mind alarming exchange:

I ask him how he would feel if someone blew up the Dome of the Rock.

“The question is, Why did they build their mosque on our holy mountain, anyway? Who gave them permission? God didn’t.”

Would you be saddened if the destruction of the Dome of the Rock led to war?

“I don’t think it will come to that. The Muslims know in their heart that this belongs to us.”

“But what if it did lead to war?”

Salomon smiled. “The Temple will be a reality. God has promised it.”

But what about war?

“O.K.,” he said impatiently, “so we’ll have a war.”

**

Quite how far into the parallelism between the Temple Mount and Ukraine Putin wants to go is an unknown — but my sense is that John Schindler would come closer to the answer than most.

This was the first of three posts.

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