The Radical Fringe That Is Ben Gvir

Ben Gvir Visiting Har HaBasyis last year on Tisha B'Av (TOI)

Ben Gvir has a point. It is absurd for the Israeli government to forbid Jews from praying at their holiest site, the Temple Mount  (Har HaBayis) while allowing Arabs to pray there at any time they wish for as long as they want. But there is a reason for that ‘absurdity’. In fact there is more than one reason for it.  

The first reason is that it incites Arab anger which has sparked many violent Palestinian riots. Riots wherein Jews got hurt. And it also feeds the hatred that already exists that helps spur attacks like the one that happened on October 7^th.

Please do not misunderstand. In no way am I saying that Ben Gvir is responsible for what happened on that day. It surely would have happened anyway. Even if not a single Jew ever went up there since Israel recaptured it in 67. What I am saying is that it is like pouring gasoline on already existing fire.

Supporters of - and apologists for - Ben Gvir defend him by saying things like ‘They hate us anyway.’ Or ‘They attack is anyway.’ So it doesn’t really make any difference if we go up there or not. Why should we be denied the sublime experience of praying on the holiest site in the world? That’s like saying that poking a beehive doesn’t matter because bees will come out and sting us anyway. Why should we deny ourselves the honey? 

Anyone willing to go out and test that theory? I didn’t think so.

There is another reason not to go up to the Temple Mount. The ground up there is considered holy -  requiring a level of spiritual purity to alight it unavailable to us today. It is considered a serious violation of a Torah commandment to go up to the Temple Mount in the spiritual impurity that all of us are assumed to  be in today.

So how can the kind of Jew who values prayer so highly violate a commandment like that? They will point to certain religious Zionist rabbis that have identified portions of that area that do not require sipritual purity - and limit their prayer to those areas.

But even if their assessment of those areas is accurate, the opinion of most Poskim is that, nonetheless  it is forbidden to go up there and that we shouldn't be playing games. Most prominant among them are Charedi Poskim. Which is why the following happened: 

Religious leaders lined up on Wednesday to condemn National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s declaration on Tuesday that it was his “policy” to allow Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount, with Orthodox rabbis affirming the traditional Jewish legal ruling that Jews may not even enter the holy site.

Five prominent Jerusalem-based rabbis publicly reiterated the traditional ruling against prayer at the site, with a filmed statement by Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, the previous chief Sephardic rabbi, as well as statements from Rabbis Avigdor Nebenzahl, Shmuel Betzalel, Simcha Rabinowitz, and David Cohen. 

It should not go unnoticed that their call was aired with Arabic subtitles on an Arabic website. And that this was done at the request of Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Leon and security officials. It should also not go unnoticed that among these five prominent rabbis was Rabbi Avigdor Nebenzahl, one of the most widely respected rabbis in Israel.  The former chief rabbi, Yitzhak Yosef added the following: 

“Don’t view the ministers in question as representing the People of Israel. They don’t.” Addressing “the nations of the world,” he added: “Please calm things down. We all believe in one God, want peace between the nations. We mustn’t let radical fringes lead us.”

I could not agree more. It’s too bad that Netanyahu needs him in his coalition. But there have been stranger bedfellows in governing coalitions before. Like the last one that included the Arab parties. I guess selling your soul to the devil is how power politics works in the State of Israel