The Claim of a Promised Land Andrea Steinberger, Mickey Aziz Komar

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a border dispute. It is a home-owners' quarrel over the same piece of land, and it can only be resolved through compromise. After years of effort, the outside layers of the Jewish-Arab conflict (i.e., Israel's border disputes with its neighbors) have been peeled away. Paradoxically, however, and contrary to all internal and political logic, just as the end of the conflict was in sight, the battle has become tougher than ever, broadening into a war of religion, a struggle between Jews and Muslims.

By focusing on the Temple Mount and the symbolic sacred rock at its heart, the national dispute between Israelis and Palestinians has become a religious confrontation that threatens to convulse the entire region. Water, land and the resettlement of refugees may be difficult issues, but these are things which lend themselves to division and compromise. Elevating the struggle to the symbolic plane and handing it over to religious leaders is to turn it into an apocalyptic showdown between religions which cannot be resolved. Land and water can be divided. But can a symbol?

In the ensuing religious debate, both parties have voiced a similar, but totally baseless, claim that sanctity and sovereignty are directly related. "If a place is sacred to us, then it belongs to us," is the mantra repeated by rabbis, qadis, statesmen, politicians and ignoramuses. The Chief Rabbinate, for example, swiftly declared that giving up sovereignty of the Temple Mount is a blow to all that Israel holds sacred, as if there is some axiomatic connection between sacredness and control.

Actually, it works the other way around: Holiness exists in a time, place or person that is not subject to rule. Sacred time, in terms of the halakha (Jewish law), is time where man's controlling, creative activity is brought to a halt. The sacredness of time in Jewish law is represented first and foremost by the prohibition of labor, which on the Sabbath, involves setting aside all controlling, creative pursuits. "Labor" is not only strenuous effort. A Sabbath observer can push a heavy wardrobe from one side of the room to the other without desecrating the Sabbath, but even the slightest change to the world around him would be a violation of the holy day.

The profane, by contrast, is a controlled and subjugated domain. On weekdays, man creates and seeks to control; on the Sabbath, he relates to nature as a gift. It is accepted as is, without change.

This approach to sacredness, in which sovereignty and holiness are a contradiction in terms, is shared by all manifestations of sanctity in Jewish law, great or small. We are currently in the midst of a shmitta year, during which farmers are commanded to let their fields lie fallow. According to Jewish law, the "fruits of the seventh year are sacred," and man is forbidden to "manipulate" the fruit. The fruit may be eaten, but not processed. It cannot be used by the pharmaceutical industry, for instance.

The sacred is a domain which is not directly approachable or controllable. A holy site cannot be used as a tool by human beings. One is forbidden, for instance, to cut through a synagogue in order to reach one's destination more quickly. "A man must not enter the Temple Mount with his walking stick, his shoes and his pouch, with the dust clinging to his feet, or use it as a shortcut," the Mishna tells us. The essence of sanctity, in all its halakhic variations, is separation, retreat. The object is to limit control and sovereignty.

Erecting statues

Most experts in Jewish law say that the Temple Mount itself is sacred and hence off-limits to Jews today. How can one claim ownership of a place where it is forbidden to set foot? Since the days of the Second Temple, from the Maccabis to the zealots, fierce historical battles have been waged over control of the Temple Mount compound. But these battles were related to the Jewish fight against idolatry, against imperialist Greek and Roman efforts to "erect statues in the Sanctuary."

The Muslims, as everyone knows, are not idolaters. They adhere strictly to the prohibition against pictures and graven images. Islam upholds the absolute uniqueness of God, wrote Maimonides. Yet, the ferocious struggle of each side to fly its own national flag atop the Temple Mount is a clear case of "erecting statues in the Sanctuary" and turning the holy site into a domain of manipulation in the context of a national struggle. Muslims and Jews who worship the same god have transformed the site of the Temple into an altar to Moloch, the god of human sacrifice. People who call themselves servants of God, who have monopolized religion on both sides, are prepared to sacrifice an entire generation of young people to gain control of a holy place. To these, it is said: "He who is enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord mocks at them" (Psalms 2:4).

Bloodshed in a sacred place is nothing new. Sanctity has a way of attracting forces of corruption and impurity. In the Tosefta appended to the Talmudic tractate of "Yoma," we are told of an incident that took place toward the end of the Second Temple period: In the midst of a competition to determine who would perform a certain Temple rite, one of the priests stabs a fellow priest to death.

"Once there were two priests who were about to score a tie while racing up the ramp. One of them pushed the other so that he lost by four cubits. [The loser] seized a knife and plunged it into [his opponent's] heart. Rabbi Zadok stood on the steps to the hall and said: 'If someone slain is found lying in the open, the identity of the slayer not being known, your elders and officials shall go out and measure the distances from the corpse to the nearby towns' [Deut. 21:1-3].

"Let us measure and see which the heifer should be brought for: the sanctuary or the courtyard? And then, they all wept. Along came the father of the young man and said: 'Brothers, I am your atonement. My son is still convulsing. The knife is not defiled.' This teaches us that the impurity of a knife was a graver matter to the Israelites than bloodshed. It is also said: 'Moreover, Manasseh put so many innocent persons to death that he filled Jerusalem [with blood] from end to end [II Kings 21:16].' Hence, we learn that when blood is spilled, the Shechina disappears and the Temple is defiled."

At the Temple, as a contest is being held for the right to carry out a ritual, a hot-headed priest stabs his competitor. Rabbi Zadok, who happens to be present, turns to the people and painfully refers them to the atonement laws in Deuteronomy which require the breaking of a heifer's neck. The Bible describes a case in which a murdered man is found outside the city.

Saving the knife

The elders of the city closest to where the corpse is found, responsible for the safety of wayfarers traveling on the city outskirts, are told to bring a heifer and atone for their sin with the words: "Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it done." But because this incident happened inside the Temple, Rabbi Zadok asks whether responsibility for bringing the heifer falls on the sanctuary or the courtyard, both of which are close to the murder site. The people burst into tears when they realize what a grave matter this is.

Atonement is possible as long as the Temple's sanctity is preserved. But how can there be atonement when the Temple itself has been defiled?

The matter does not end with Rabbi Zadok's shocking remarks. As the rabbi and the people are grieving over the murder, the father of the dead priest hurries over and exclaims with relief: "My son is still convulsing. The knife is not defiled." The knife used as the murder weapon happened to be a holy implement used in Temple rites, and as we all know, contact with the dead is a source of impurity.

Unlike Rabbi Zadok, the priest's father is not concerned about the defilement of the Temple, or even his son's life. What interests him is whether or not the knife has become impure. If his son is not yet dead, the knife can be saved.

To the narrator, the conduct of the murdered priest's father is not unusual. With his swift and critical response, he encapsulates the whole cultural situation on the eve of the Temple's destruction: "This teaches us that the impurity of a knife was a graver matter to the Israelites than bloodshed." This caustic remark on the prevailing mood during the late Second Temple period offers a profound insight into what might have led to the destruction of the Temple and the breakdown of Jewish society.

In recent months, when blood has flowed freely on the Temple Mount and both sides have shown a willingness to sacrifice the young people of Israel and Palestine on the altar of Moloch, Jewish and Muslim spiritual leaders should harken to the words of the Tosefta. To those who claim ownership over the Temple Mount and dream of spending their lives in the House of God, let it be known that the Shechina, the holy spirit, has abandoned that blood-soaked place. God doesn't live there anymore.

To end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a number of tough but legitimate questions must be asked. Are the Palestinians serious in their desire for peace? What are Israel's defense needs and how do they fit in with a respectable sovereign territory for the Palestinians? Is a Jewish democratic state possible with the demographic outlook being what it is today?

And then we have the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount, which is related to the sensitive issue of the Palestinians recognizing the national and historical rights of the Jewish people and guaranteeing access to the Jewish holy places. The debate over these issues is important and legitimate, but those who insist on basing the argument for sovereignty on the tradition of sacredness are desecrating that which is holy.

© copyright 2001 Ha'aretz - reprinted with permission