By Rabbi Yair Hoffman for Jewishlink.news Ben Gvir is certainly a controversial figure.  On the one hand he has had some very positive effects that strengthen the idea that the land of Eretz Yisroel is the homeland of the Jews. On the other hand, as the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel has just pointed out, his actions have had a devastating effect upon Jewish people violating the sanctity of Har haBayis. According to the Jerusalem Post, this past Motzai Shabbos, the Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef condemned National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s visits to the Temple Mount. He said, “There’s one minister in the government, I don’t want to say his name, he’s not worthy of having his name mentioned here.. He enters the Temple Mount publicly, sins and causes others to sin. Because of him people falter and enter the Temple Mount.” Most major poskim forbid walking on Har HaBayit nowadays. Those rabbanim who permit it, have some questionable suppositions.   We will point them out later in this article. But everyone will admit that there are thousands of people now, who are not careful to adhere to the guidelines that the permissive Rabbis give.  An analogy might be in order here. In the early 1970’s, the visitor’s platform above the Grand Canyon had a fence that was slightly elevated above the ground.  It began about 8 inches above the ground.  A family had brought their short family dog along with them.  The dog escaped the grasp of the family member holding it and ran around the platform, oblivious to the fact that the fence did not guard it from falling off the cliff and plummeting to certain death. That day, virtually every visitor to that Grand Canyon platform made their best effort to catch that dog.  Alas, save for the lone voice of Rabbi Yitzchok Yoseph, the majority of our public are not as concerned as those people at the vistor’s platform over a half century ago. Those Rabbis who permit going onto Har haBayis, draw a distinction between the current area of the Temple Mount and the dimensions of Har HaBayit discussed in the mishnah in Midos (2:1). the mishnah tells us that Har HaBayit is 500 amos by 500 amos. The current area of Har HaBayit is 1,601 feet by 1,542 feet. On the north—south side, it is less (1,033 and 919 feet). THE QUESTIONABLE SUPPOSITIONS The first supposition that those who permit it make, is that the current state of Har HaBayit is that it is double the size of what is mentioned in the mishnah. There are two problems with this. First, Torah sources sometimes round off or approximate measurements. The number 500 by 500 is very likely an approximation. The second problem is that we do not know the exact dimensions of an amah. Some say it is 18 inches; others say 21.25 inches or 23 inches; and a good argument can be made that it is less than 18 inches as well. The second supposition made by those who permit entry onto Har HaBayit is that Rashi’s p’shat in the Gemara in Yevamos (7b) is in error. We contend, however, that Rashi’s p’shat is the authoritative understanding of the underlying issue, and has been the normative halachah for many centuries. But let’s give […]

The post The Chief Rabbi of Israel versus Ben Gvir appeared first on The Yeshiva World.