The recent flare-up of violence  at the Temple Mount (הר הבית, Har Habayit) reminds us yet again of the deeply religious aspects of the conflict in the Middle East. These have mostly to do, of course, with the disagreements between Jews and Muslims surrounding control over a site holy to both groups. But the word “religious” brings to mind another set of conflicts, namely the tensions, fissures, and battles that Israel’s capture of the Mount in 1967 have set off within Judaism itself. Most notably, possession of the Temple Mount has served to strengthen (or, depending on your point of view, to exacerbate) the messianic tendencies present in Zionism – in both its secular and its “religious” (Orthodox) manifestations – tendencies that have wide-ranging, deep, and potentially explosive implications for the future of the Zionist project. Tomer Persico tells the story quite nicely, and his blog is definitely worth a look.

The Temple Mount has had some fateful ramifications for Jewish law as well. In particular, it has in recent years become the cause of a major change – which one observer (see below) calls a “quiet revolution” – in the way Orthodox poskim (halakhic authorities) understand the halakhah. This blog, of course, is quite interested in the subject of halakhic change. Whether this particular change qualifies as “progressive” is another matter. But it is change, which as always teaches us something about the nature of the halakhah we study and try to live. Continue reading The Mount and the Message →