The Third Temple

How Important is this Term in the Curriculum for American Classrooms?

Judaism, in both its lunar and sidereal accommodating calendar, was constructed first by oral tradition and then later written confirmation, and now calculates us to be in the year 5784, and on the day, the 25th of Tammuz-כ״ה בְּתַמּוּז תשפ״ד. As the agrarian Jews of old told time as did everyone on earth by the movement of the sun, and/or the moon, it is necessary to reconcile the differences occurring when certain important memorial dates need to be commemorated. Sunset and sunrise, moonrise and its stages of illumination, the position of the stars and the importance of the Zodiac, what time of day it is at a particular location on earth (necessary after the the destruction of the Second Temple) and which Christian calendar in history one refers to in the conversion equation. How you accommodate the differing movements of the moon against the solar movement and the planets place in the Zodiac belt….Let’s say…it’s complicated.

During the commemoration of Tamuz, where the Jews fought off the conquest of the Romans, it is this time of the battle and the ultimate destruction of the Second Temple that is noted in the prayers and teachings and commemoration. The Diaspora begins with the Temple’s destruction in the year 69 C.E. (Note that there are inconsistencies in the Christian calendar throughout history and much dispute as to meaning among the Christians). From that time forward to today, the Jews either stayed and suffered under the Roman yoke or sought a new home away from Jerusalem. In those places they built a synagogue, using a variety of architectural constructs based on local concepts and materials, and altered their language and culinary approaches as time and place also worked on the religion. Of course, Christianity’s history has the same conceits and issues, with language, translation, argument, authority and politics have altered it over the past two plus millennia. Yet, the world is now all on the Christian calendar due to this history, like it or not.

The passing on of history is both for honoring traditions and learning culture, but also for establishing practices and methods of maintaining them as closely as possible. Religion, though, is a belief system, which overlaps and sometimes comes into deep conflict with other systems. In The West-whatever that means in today’s world and which should be understood in the classroom too-the arrival of the Renaissance, with its veneration of the Greeks and Romans, is perhaps the best time to note when the Christian belief systems became confused and converted Biblical meaning and those in authority over it. What followed was the Reformation, which has been going on ever since. That the United States was formed, in real terms and with much argument, cooperation, collusion and compromise, into 13 states from the original distinct colonials arrangements, is a wonder in modern terms. The gentlemen, all white (whatever that means in today’s world) and steeped to a large degree in Enlightenment understandings and readings, came up with an initial Constitution to establish the direction the country should lead going into the future. We, in 2024, are having a very difficult time understanding and agreeing on what they had in mind for us. Oh, should I correct that date to 5784? What would that mean? Should we, then, also rebuild the Temple for a third time? Is that in keeping with the order of the world and what should be believed and hopefully transpire in the future? Oops….some conflicts here.

Since October 7th this issue has yet again been brought before the world to adjudicate and understand. As the fulcrum of the issue is the Temple, or what’s left of it, in Jerusalem. Jews may visit the site on the top platform where it once stood, but the closest they may approach to pray near its holiest section is the Western Wall. It is not permitted by agreement between Islam and Judaism (the political wing of the Israeli power at least) to pray as a Jew while visiting the Temple Mount. The Temple Mount. It is also known to the Palestinians as Haram al-Sharif (Arabic: الحرم الشريف, lit. ‘The Noble Sanctuary’), al-Aqsa Mosque compound, or simply al-Aqsa (/æl ˈæksə/; المسجد الأقصى, al-Masjid al-Aqṣā, lit. ‘The Furthest Mosque’). The world of today must not mess with this arrangement. Yet….there are those who really hope for the Third Temple to be built. 

Some of those who want the Temple rebuilt are part of Benjamin Netanyahu’s supporters. Most Haredi Jews, though, have a tenuous relationship with the government at best and it has become even more complicated since October 7th. Haredi Jews would never go to the Temple Mount, but they are in favor of the arrival of the Messiah, which is “-“‘s plan and not man’s. Their relationship with the world in most instances is often not aligned with local, or world, political ambitions. This has been the case since their inception, either centuries earlier or what many believe began in the early 20th century in its present iteration. This musing will not tackle that issue, though. But it is recommended that you understand some of the basics in this conflict.

Many in the GOP, or whatever it is in 2024, believe in the rebuilding of the Third Temple. This is what is now driving many of the voters who are being courted by the likes of Trump and Vance to come out in November in support of their ticket. Trump’s recent “gaff”, or riff or calculated radical statement about the 2024 election either being the last one ever in America, or the only one that all Evangelical Christians who ultimately wish for the Third Temple to be rebuilt need to cast and then they can sit back and revel in the world they have supported being brought into existence. What does he really mean?

November of 2024, or the 5th of Cheshvan, 5785, ה׳ בְּחֶשְׁוָן תשפ״ה, will be most consequential for all of us in America, and in the world, in fact. What is it that the Trump administration is promising? He picked J.D.Vance for some apparent and deep reason. But, what could that be? Vance is heavily involved in the 2025 Project, having a long public record, and actual writing involvement, in its genesis and publication. Trump, as he often does when he away from his base, is Doing A Little Sidestep and now claims to know very little about the project.

In a recent conversation at one of our favorite neighbors, where a visiting friend who was the librarian at Radcliffe College for most of her career, we engaged in a part of our evening’s conversation talking about the 500th anniversary of the “cleansing” of Spain of infidels, This was in 1992. In 1492 Columbus was initiating the “impact” of Europe on the world of indigenous inhabitants of the New World. In this world that was to soon disappear from those inhabitants living in a land that was not called America by them. In 1492 in Spain, though, where non-Christians would be eradicated or converted, the world of Andalusia was no more. Thus ended a Golden Age.

For centuries the Andalusian Muslim overlords were accommodating to other religious concepts, or at least tolerant to a large degree of Christians and Jews in their neighborhoods. I relish a culture that accommodates, blends, asks questions and debates the meaning of everything. In those times and places where a culture allowed diverse ideas to survive in conversation, great progress was made in mathematics, in science, or in aesthetic interpretation. Even religious and political accommodations were allowed. Languages progressed in their ability to express, record and distinguish….and borrow from each other. More time in class spent explaining and understanding how these golden era functioned, and supporting the cooperative conception, would better serve society than bracketing history through defining when and where it was broken, how a new era began out of the shifting away from the previous one’s authority and paradigmatic understandings. If we all agreed on one door to go through to find the truth to settle disputes, wouldn’t that be nice. I am not sure if it will be found in the Third Temple, though.

Yet, any religion explains the meanings behind the existence we all experience, often with a beginning moment and then what transcends life into an afterlife explanation. How to manage one’s activities and decisions in this life are also clearly delineated. Most religions accept a divine intervention in our lives, or at least a nod to inspiration and offering signs for guidance from a deity or deities. These concepts do not compute in the modern, Western world of the Enlightenment and the scientific rigor expected from anyone making a claim about reality in the time since man started to question, examine, measure and define “reality”. We’ve learned so much we now admit we don’t know most of how the universe occurs and what it is and the forces that compose and drive it.

Here is where the present conflicts in our American world, and in many other nations in 2024 have within their national paradigm. Those Haredim, especially those who have settled in Israel, seek a solution that is far removed from local political involvement. Yet, the end goal of having the Third Temple constructed presents a problem. It is more of a problem, from the Haredim perspective, when a government instigates conflict and a move to resolving the al-Aqsa presence on Temple Mount. This temple is the goal, though, of many Jews on the Right, and also of conservative Christians on the Right. This group of religiously motivated individuals are willing to assist, as they regard the situation, with God’s plan toward the arrival of the Messiah and the  occasion of Armageddon. Defining the latter is a matter of much dispute.

Strangely, in the short term of 2024, we are seeing some politicians posit that this country is a Christian nation. There is a governor requiring that the Ten Commandments be posted in all classrooms. Biblical justification is utilized in the formation and agency of many laws. The reference to religious authority is not uncommon. What is the role of history in understanding and defining the advocacy of such moves? Language is of course a major factor. The ideology and contextual meaning wrought in the late 18th century writers of our Constitution must be considered. Universal truths must be pondered and methods of seeking and legislating within those boundaries are aspirations from the Constitution. Are we on the right track? Who decides? We The People? The Courts? The Legislature? The Executive?

Listen to each side in these almost 100 days. Become more familiar with the Founding Fathers. Assert your authority by voting. Prod your children to be open to learning and understanding. Remember and acknowledge those of your neighbors whose families have only arrived and became citizens since the last adjustment by LBJ in the 60s to our immigration policies. Watch the athletes on the podium wrapped in U.S.A. colors whose heritage in not WASP and perhaps is just in its young life of a first generation natural born American of only 23 or so years, whose parents arrived from another country previously holding a different passport. Look at that American smile. It was gained through many challenges, hopes, dreams and much hard work; all of which had a plausible mental picture of success in front of each athlete because of the support and belief available to a citizen of this country, even if there are many inconsistencies in the path of a citizen towards gaining success. Look at Kamala Harris.

If man is part of the building of the Third Temple, and it is not a legitimate and clear claim to an awesome power from beyond our conceptual abilities to understand grasping the tiller of the universe, the world will not handle it well. The debacles created in and by the First World War are now agreed upon by historians to be a mistake and the decisions made by its leaders misguided, naive and ultimately horrendous. Their goals were absurd and their methodology of warfare heinous and inhuman. Yet, murder they did in the millions with no clear winner, only many losers. It fed into the next societies that needed to purge the injustices and allowed horrible doors to open that ended with another unbelievable conflegration and an existential atom bomb released upon humanity to end it. Since then we have been weaving, lurching and careening between hope and despair in pushing national goals into the international arena and not considering far enough into the future with our assessments and actions, nor the universal good as part of the goal for each individual action. Individuals are again suffering from another’s narrow goals. Make sure to prepare well…and then go vote.