Thursday, August 16, 2012

The Temple Institute: The Place Hashem Your G-d Will Choose

Can we do תפילות prayers for:

The Temple Institute?

So that through them The האור Light, רפואה The Healing and The ואהבה Love of ישועת יהוה Yeshuath YHWH may come back to הארץ The Land of Israel?

"The place Hashem your G-d will choose"
(Deuteronomy 12:11)
Av 28, 5772/August 16, 2012

For the first time since beginning the book of Deuteronomy Israel is informed of the centrality that the future Holy Temple will assume in the spiritual and daily lives of the nation. They are instructed that to the Holy Temple, and only to the Holy Temple, will they bring their offerings; that there they will celebrate the three pilgrimage festivals and that the Holy Temple will be the focus of their joy. Yet in spite of the centrality and exclusivity of the future Holy Temple Israel is not told one thing: Where the Holy Temple is to be built. "The place Hashem your G-d will choose" (Deuteronomy 12:11) and similar expressions are used so plentifully in this week's Torah reading that one could question whether this was just a big tease: Was G-d being coy? Or had G-d not "made up His mind" yet?

What does it mean that G-d will choose? G-d's will is manifest in every particle and flash of energy in the universe. Every thing and every action is an expression of G-d's will. G-d can't choose. His will is supreme. There is no good or bad, right or wrong, left or right in creation. It is simply and utterly G-d's will. Man chooses, and this is what distinguishes man from G-d. In fact, man, at the outset of his existence, chose to choose, by eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. He chose to enter a reality where choices exist to be made, where good coincides with evil, a world of joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain. And when man made this choice, which essentially separated his puny will from the all-knowing and all-informing will of G-d, he placed himself immeasurably distant from G-d. Man, diminished and vulnerable, as a result of his choosing to choose, entered the world as we know it.

As distant as man's choice had placed him from G-d, man never became totally estranged from G-d. G-d continued to pursue man, and man, or specifically, individual men, such as Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov, continued to pursue G-d. When G-d "remembered" or renewed His covenant with Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov, and brought Israel out of Egypt, the beginning of a great rendezvous had commenced. Israel would wander with G-d through the desert, He would see to their safe entry into the land and they would conquer and claim the land from its current inhabitants. And then the final act in this redemption drama would be enacted: G-d would choose the place for His Divine presence to dwell, from which the Shechinah would shine forth and fill the entire land of Israel and from there, the world. This is where the estrangement ends. This is where the distance between man and G-d, caused by man's primordial choice of partaking of the tree of knowledge, would be erased. In this place man and G-d would dwell together, occupying the same reality, expressing the same intent.

Not only could G-d not choose this place for choice does not exist in the infinite fullness of G-d's reality, but G-d had no need to choose: The place of the Holy Temple was fixed, a manifest expression of G-d's will even before the world was created. Avraham and Yitzchak knew of its location. It is there that Avraham led Yitzchak to the mountaintop altar. Yaakov knew of the location. It was there that he laid down his head to get some sleep. So why does Torah repeatedly use the expression, "The place Hashem your G-d will choose?" (ibid)

As stated above, when man first opted for a world of choice he in effect created a world that G-d couldn't fully enter. Now that G-d wants to complete the redemptive and restorative process begun while Israel was still enslaved in Egypt, He wants to fully enter this world and reunite with man. Just as man's choice diminished man's stature, G-d too must assume this attribute of tzimtzum - of self-diminshment - so that an immanent essence of His presence can be made manifest in our world. This is the significance of "The place Hashem your G-d will choose." (ibid) G-d is so serious, so determined that He will eliminate the spiritual chasm between Himself and man that He is choosing, as man did generations earlier, to make His abode in this diminished reality.

G-d met with the nation of Israel at Sinai, where His presence enveloped the mountaintop and Israel encamped at the mountain's base. And in the rarified existence of the wilderness, where Israel was fed on manna, watered from a flinty rock and led by a cloud of glory, G-d's presence dwelled nigh in the traveling Tabernacle. But now that Israel has left the desert and entered into her permanent home, G-d too, must prepare to make His permanent home in the land. By describing G-d's designation of Jerusalem as His "choice" for His Sanctuary, Torah is emphasizing His love and His commitment to Israel. Just as a person who loves another is ever ready to minimize his own needs and ego in order to accommodate and make room for the other, So too G-d's "choice" was an act of unparalleled love for Israel. And just as a person who loves another makes a life long commitment to that person, so too, G-d's "choice" was a declaration of permanence. G-d's "choice" is necessarily forever. (Would G-d choose one thing, and then choose something else instead?) But had G-d "decreed" or "commanded" that Jerusalem would be the place of His Holy Sanctuary, He would have been excluding man from assuming his role in the relationship that transpires within the Temple confines and beyond.

How apt that the place that G-d would "choose" would be the very same place where man had been created, and the very same place where man made his first choice which set in motion the entire history of our ever evolving relationship with G-d. In Hebrew the Holy Temple is often referred to as Beit Habechirah - The Chosen House. G-d has indeed chosen it and it is the place of the ultimate choice for good and for harmony between man and between G-d. It is the place where man's choice and G-d's choice are one and man and G-d can dwell together side by side.

The place of the Holy Temple is still G-d's chosen place. Israel liberated this sacred turf in the 1967 Six Day War. But liberating it alone does not return to this place its rightful glory. It remains to this day for Israel to make the right choice, the only choice: to shed her fear and trepidation and her ego, to choose love, to choose G-d's choice, and to reunite with His Divine presence in the rebuilt Holy Temple.

Tune in to this week's Temple Talk, as Rabbi Chaim Rabbi Richman and Yitzchak Reuven ruminate on the distance from Teheran to the Temple Mount and reflect upon today's battle being waged between the Cult of Death vs. the Celebration of Life.

The last edition of Temple Talk for this closing month of Menachem Av focuses on the confluence of the headlines with the themes of this week's Torah portion, parashat Re'eh. The Torah exhorts us to 'see' the difference between a life of blessing or conversely, that of curse. The choice, as usual, is ours... and we also choose our fate: how we succeed both as individuals and as a nation, how the other nations perceive us, whether or not we will be going to war - all is connected to the introduction we receive in this week's parasha to "the Place that I will Choose." Yitzchak Reuven and Rabbi Richman, together with all of Am Yisrael, also choose that place! Unfortunately, not only are Jews disallowed from praying there for fear of inciting the Muslims - but now even the immortal, historic words "The Temple Mount is in Our Hands" have been deemed illegal! Which way are we heading? Only the coming month of Elul, the special time of spiritual reckoning and re-calibration, knows for sure...

A Tale of Two Heroes: EXCLUSIVE: Hamas terror "hero" feted on Temple Mount, while real Six Day War hero, Rabbi Yisrael Ariel still banned for "crime" of prayer. Here’s a tale of two heroes that’s a study in the irony of the State of Israel’s bizarre relationship with the Temple Mount. To read more click here.

General Mordechai 'Motta' Gur of blessed memory at the Temple Institute: A rare photo of Gen. Mordechai 'Motta' Gur of blessed memory on a private visit to the Temple Institute in its former location, circa early 1990's. Gen. Gur was the commander of the paratrooper brigade that liberated the Temple Mount and unified Jerusalem in the 1967 Six Day War. Temple Institute founder Rabbi Yisrael Ariel served under the General's command and participated in that battle. The two remained lifelong friends. Motta Gur's historic statement, "The Temple Mount is in our Hands," was broadcast from the scene on June 7th 1967. Those words which electrified the nation of Israel have become immortal. This past week, the Israel Police deemed use of the statement at a rally to protest Temple Mount desecration by the Islamic Wakf as "incitement." What would Motta Gur think? To see the full-sized photograph, please click here.

Mom, Apple Pie and the Temple Mount: For those who might have thought that the incident of Palestinian flag-flying over the nation’s holiest site qualified as incitement against the State of Israel, now we know better: the Israel Police have determined that the use of General Motta Gur’s time-honored, cherished slogan, “The Temple Mount is In Our Hands,” constitutes incitement against Arabs and can lead to violence. For full story, please click here.

The Children Are Ready: Forever Young! This video has already been viewed by over 350,000 profoundly effected people. It is a simple story of youth and innocence and vision. It is the story of us all. Click here to view.

We will begin posting new Return of Prophecy teachings by Rabbi Avraham Sutton in the upcoming weeks. Meanwhile, we invite you take the time to catch up on earlier teachings that you might have missed. Click here to see the entire archived collection of Return of Prophecy teachings.

Israel is given a choice and a challenge: Choose to rid the land of idolatrous practices and choose to live each moment in G-d's presence, and G-d will abide in His chosen place, from which will shine forth His Holy Shechinah. Click here to view Rabbi Richman's teaching on parashat Re'eh (Deuteronomy 11:26-16:17).