Tag Archives: Israel

Why Did I do a video on Islam and The Temple Mount

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I chose recently to make a new video (See bottom of the page) about Islam and the Temple Mount and answer the question:

“Why is the Temple Mount (Haram El Sharif) important to Muslims?” A day before I made the video the following thing happened:

I was standing in Synagogue, a guy turns around to me and asks “What do you do?”. I told him that I am a tour guide.

He says: “I hope that you’re not one of those guides who tell people that Muslims have anything here”. He went on to say that guides who do this are in fact “sellouts”, that the Temple Mount is only holy for us Jews and everyone else can get lost.

The truth is, the Temple Mount is the only place in the world that is truly holy for Jews, the place the first Temple stood, the place the Second Temple stood. Every time a Jew turns and prays it is to Jerusalem and the site of the Temple. Every Orthodox Jew prays 3 times a day for the rebuilding of the Temple. However, that is far from the “whole story” and far from what a decent tour guide who studies the texts should tell you in its entirety.

People come to Jerusalem and hire a guide to hear from an educated person the story and history of Jerusalem. If you were introducing the history of Jerusalem it would be irresponsible and really silly to leave out the various periods of Muslim rule; in total over 1000 years of rule. Did this man honestly expect me to leap from “The Romans destroyed the Temple in the year 70…. now we have a Jewish State”? Islam is a part of the history of Jerusalem, it takes a shockingly insecure person to try and ignore their history.

I accept that the Temple Mount has become entwined in the conflict between Israel and Palestine. May Israelis and Palestinians have lost family and friends. It becomes very difficult to stick to the facts or to divide cold history from our feelings and desires to protect ourselves, not to sell out, to be true to ourselves and be proud Israelis.

As a religious Jew, I have no problem with other religions finding Jerusalem to be important. I actually think that this is how a future Messianic Age will come about. As Isaiah wrote:

“For My house will be a House of Prayer for All Nations”

כי ביתי בית תפילה יקרא לכח העמים

Isaiah 56:7

Jerusalem is the center of my world and it should be the center of the world for all nations, not divide us in arguments about whose buildings should be destroyed, rather Jerusalem should unite us to better our global condition.

My 1st 100 subscribers on YouTube!

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My video ” Why Israel is Restricting access to the Temple Mount” has been so successful that I am now over the 100 subscriber mark, finally. It was a great video to make, I talk about the various reasons anybody would be restricted from visiting the Temple Mount:

Political reasons: to do with the Israel / Palestine conflict.

Legal Reasons: Tracing the history from the British Mandate and treaties made then until the present situation where The Supreme Court has given control of access via something called the “Balance formula” to the Israel Police Force.

Religious Reasons: I am part of the stream or really an “attitude” of religious Judaism that has a self-imposed restriction on entering the Temple Mount. I explain in the video why I limit myself from entering the Temple Mount and what the different Halachic positions are, meaning what are the different opinions in Jewish religious law.

But 100 subscribers isn’t enough!

I need to get to 1000 subscribers before I can monetize, due to COVID-19 I am an out-of-work tour guide, and I could do with the extra revenue from all of this extra work. One way to do this is to get to 1000 subscribers on Youtube. Don’t forget to hit the subscribe button and if you want to really help contribute using the “buy me a coffee” Ko-fi button or Patreon button below.

How to subscribe?

Hover the arrow over the blue gazelle icon (that’s the Scoutisrael icon) next to the title on the video – “Why Israel is Restricting access to the Temple Mount”, the red “subscribe” button should magically appear for you to click on!

If this fails just search for “scoutisrael” on Youtube and click on “subscribe”!

Watch and enjoy!

Building the Temple – a work in progress

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A work in Progress

A visit to the Roman Engineering exhibit at the Davidson Center

It is believed that the Herodion Temple Mount took much longer to build than Herod actually lived for. Consider how long it must have took to even build the machinery and work out the engineering to build the entire massive structure.

The Temple Mount had 140,000 square meters surface area. The Western Wall is 488 meters in length alone. The largest stone is well over 280 tonnes (some say 570 tonnes). According to the Christian Scripture it took more than 46 years to build (John 2:20).

It is highly likely that , not unlike this blog, there were many starts and stops!

Stay tuned for more interesting and entertaining blogs, podcasts and videos!

 

Bibliography for 1st 3 Podcasts and Timeline of History

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The Time of The Patriarchs

 

Bibliography

Tanach – The Jewish Bible, an anacronym of Torah (1st 5 books), Nevi’im (prophets), Ketuvim (Witings). Any Hebrew Tanach with clear print will do. preferably with all the major commentaries for this you will need:

Tanach with Mikraot Gedolot.

The Jewish Bible: Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures — The New JPS Translation According to the Traditional Hebrew Text: Torah * Nevi’im * Kethuvim JPS Paperback – November 1, 1985

An English Translation of Rashi on the Pentateuch M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann (5 vols., London, 1929–34)

Carta Bible Atlas, Y. Aharoni, Hendrickson Publishers, 2015

Archaeological Encyclopedia of the Holy Land, A. Negev , Mackmillan, 1990 (constantly updated)

A Chronology of Israel, A Wolff, 2008

The Jewish People: Their History and Their Religion , D. Goldberg and J Rayner Penguin 1992

Biblical Archaeology Review, Ed. Herschel Shanks, 1975 – present,

The Beginnings of Israel: A Methodological Working Hypothesis, Zecharia Kallai, Israel Exploration Journal, Vol. 59, No. 2 (2009), pp. 194-203

Jar-burial Customs and the Question of Infant Sacrifice in Palestine, WH. Wood, The Biblical World, 36.4  1910

Bereishit (Genesis) Rabbah – A Hebrew midrash, a translation can be found at: http://www.sefaria.org/Bereishit_Rabbah

Midrash Tanchuma – Another Hebrew Midrash, a translation can be found at http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/mhl/mhl04.htm

 

 

 

 

Torah Portion: Vayera ‘The Terebinths of Mamre’

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“God appeared to Abraham at the Terebinths of Mamre“

(Genesis 18:23)

What’s a Terebinth?

The word in Hebrew here is ‘Alon’ which refers to Oak rather than Terebinth, which is a different kind of tree. The Picture above is of a ‘Quercus Calliprinos’ or ‘Palestine Oak’, which can be seen all over Israel.

 

Focus on Nature / Weekly Torah Portion Bereshit

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Fig tree“…They realized they were naked and they sewed together a fig leaf and made clothes” (Genesis  / Bereshit 1:7)

The picture above is a fig tree, it is very common in Israel and has the merit of being the first species of tree mentioned by name in the Bible.

 

 

 

Torah Portion: What are the Tassles on the corners of my Clothes for ?

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“You Shall Make Tassles on the Corners of your garments” (Deuteronomy 22:12)

Twice this week I was asked by a traveller on one of my tours what the funny Tassels (one of which is pictured above) was for.

Its something that I forget when guiding is that some of the basic facts about Judaism are also interesting to someone visiting Israel for the first time.

The Commandment to Wear Tsitsit

Twice in the Bible (the source above and Numbers  / Bamidbar 15:37 -41) the Jewish people are commanded to put tassels on the corner of their garments. In the instance in the book of Badmidbar / Numbers the Jewish people are told to wear distinctive blue tassels made out of a die found in the blood of a certain snail. The Rabbis interpreted that this commandment was only applicable for men and only during the day.

What’s the Reason?

According to the section in Badmidbar / Numbers  the reason that Jews wear such tassels is to be constantly reminded about the commandments and not come to err.

Being a Moral Agent in one’s personal Deeds

The next verse is the start of a law concerning marital impropriety. The juxtaposition of these two concepts teaches that one could think that one wears Tsitsit in public so a person can be easily recognised as a religious Jew and then forced to behave in a proper manner due to social pressure. This time teaches that when only the individual himself can see his Tsitsit he is forced to act in a proper manner due to the  meaning he himself places  on these tassels.

 

 

Torah Portion Ekev: A Land of Light

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Olive Trees, Haas Promenade

Olive Trees, Haas Promenade by YossiTourGuide

Olive trees on the Haas Promenade

“A Land of Wheat, of Barley, Grapes, Figs and Pomegranates, a land of  Olive Oil and honey” (Deuteronomy / Devarim  – 8:8)

This weeks portion of the Torah discusses some of the blessed qualities of the land of Israel.

There is a slight textual difficulty in that it only mentions one product of a fruit; Olives. It does not say a land of ‘Wheat Bread’ or ‘Grape wine’ or ‘Pomegranate slushies’.

What Are Olive Trees Good For ?

So one answer given by Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (10th Century Torah commentator) is to tell us that the Olive trees were used for oil. But is n’t this a bit obvious; we can get 2 things from an olive tree:

1 Olives

2 Olive Oil.

Surely we could say that about all these fruits.

Ah! but all these other fruits have multiple uses: you can have beer or bread, pomegranites, pomegranite slushies or grenadine etc. With olives thats pretty much all you get; olives and oil. Ever heard of Olive wine ? Normally (unless we’re constipated) we do n’t drink Olive Oil. All these other products are edible as well.

Its all Part of the Process

Three of the fruits have a process associated with them. Both wheat and grapes can be fermented to make bread, beer or wine, by extension all of the fruits except for Olives can be fermented but that’s fairly uncommon, people mosly ferment wheat and grapes.

Olives have a special process associated with them. Firstly they are squashed normally releasing a tiny little bit of oil. This first squeezing releases the best oil or ‘Virgin Oil’. Then the pips and skins are gather again, put in baskets and squeezed once more. Since antiquity Olives have undergone this intricate process of squeezing.

This is for collecting the virgin Oil from the first crush, the upper stone is called a memel, the lower stone is called a 'yam.

This is a re -constructed ' beam and weight' press from Tel Hatzor, the baskets of olive bits are squashed by the Kora 'beam'' to collect the lower stage of Olive Oil.

Olives: Not just for Salad Dressing – a symbol of Light

 

Olive oil was the main source of lighting in the Ancient Near East, the purpose of the process mentioned above was light. The product of Olives – oil gets a special mention because of its high value.  My teacher, Rabbi Yitzchak Hirshfeld said that Olives are a symbol of the Jewish people that they are crushed through the travails of history and continue to produce the Light of Truth, the light of the Torah.

 

 

(These words of Torah are dedicated to the speedy recovery of Zlata bat Sima, please include her in your prayers and in the memory of the seven precious souls who were killed today in Southern Israel)