The Reconquest of Har HaBayit
by R. Gidon Rothstein
20 Iyyar: R. Moshe Feinstein Unwittingly Anticipating the Reconquest of Har HaBayit
I assume we all know the routine, that I search a particular date in my Bar-Ilan CD-Rom, then pick the most apt one of the responsa that comes up. Searching for 20 Iyyar, I found Iggerot Moshe Kodashim ve-Taharot 2;1, dated 20 Iyyar 5767. Which is striking because the responsum was written on May 30, 1967, six days before the start of the Six-Day War, when the Temple Mount was recaptured, and discusses issues of the Beit HaMikdash.
Sadly, the promise of that moment has not yet been fully realized, but as we review R. Feinstein’s ideas, we’ll put ourselves in the frame of mind where the restoration of the Beit HaMikdash is part of what we are thinking of as we recall the miracles of those days.
The Need for Boundary Markers
The responsum is a letter to a R. Yehudah Leib HaKohen, who had published notes on Rambam’s Hilchot Beit HaBechirah (Laws of the Select House, Rambam’s term for the Beit HaMikdash); to show his appreciation of his taking up a topic too often neglected, R. Feinstein furthers the conversation a bit.
In 1;7, Rambam ruled that the Beit HaMikdash would have marker points separating the area for ordinary Jews from the ezrat kohanim, where priests could go. Kessef Mishneh cited Middot 2;6 as the source, since it speaks of beams of wood extending from the walls to separate the sections of the courtyard. R. Feinstein’s correspondent wondered at that, noting that Rambam accepted the view of R. Elazar b. Azaryah, that the priests’ section was two and a half amot (around four feet) higher than the rest, which would seem to be enough of a marker.
Chazon Ish in fact said that’s what Rambam meant, that the boundary was the steps up from one section to the other, not the roshei paspesin, the beams, the Mishnah mentioned.
Differences in Height, with Steps, Don’t Clarify Sanctity
R. Feinstein does not like this idea (watching R. Feinstein disagree with Chazon Ish without much compunction is a reminder that Chazon Ish was only seventeen years older. In intellectual terms, they were basically contemporaries, which is why Chazon Ish’s ideas would be interesting to R. Feinstein, but not necessarily carry the aura they do for those of us in later generations), since Rambam’s words “osin gevulin¸ they make borders,” implies something done specifically to indicate the new sanctity. Yet the construction of the Beit HaMikdash does not indicate anything else—there was a ceremony, with thanksgiving offerings, to establish the sanctity of the city, and a ceremony, with leftover flour offerings, to establish the sanctity of the courtyard, but none to differentiate these sanctities.
In addition, steps can confuse us as to where the sanctity changes. The twelve steps from the outside of the courtyard (the cheil, the area surrounding the courtyard) to the courtyard itself (the part known as ezrat nashim, where women and men could go), and the fifteen more steps to the ezrat Yisrael (where only men went) were all still part of the sanctity of the area at the bottom of those steps.
In the ezrat kohanim, the steps were already at that higher level of sanctity. Given that steps could not be a clear sign as to where sanctity changed, R. Feinstein suggests, Rambam required markers. That’s even true, he notes, for the separation of the ezrat kohanim from the area of the altar (and north and south of it), even though there’s no specific change of sanctity (or rules of entry) from one to the other. Since the ezrat kohanim goes only until the altar, it needs to be differentiated from the mizbeach, the altar.
(He then briefly suggests ways in which the ezrat kohanim is different from the area of the mizbeach, such as if it’s preferable to slaughter close to the altar even those sacrifices that may be slaughtered throughout the Azarah, the courtyard of the Temple. For all that Rashi seems to think so, Rambam doesn’t mention it. In addition, since the altar’s place is specifically set, the ezrat kohanim is an area where it clearly cannot be built. In either of those senses, the two areas are halachically distinct, explaining the need for borders to delineate which was which).
How Do We Set the Height of the Mikdash?
R. Feinstein’s correspondent had also been troubled by Rambam’s writing, 1;11, that the best performance of the commandment to build the Temple (among other factors) is to build it as high as that community can make it (which is both a financial and architectural question). This seems strange, because I Divrei HaYamim 28;19 speaks of the structure and design of the Mikdash as having been ha-kol bichtav mi-yad Hashem, all written from Hashem. The Gemara, in several places, seems to assume that that means one cannot change the form or shape of the Mikdash without direct guidance from a prophet, speaking in Hashem’s Name.
R. Moshe calls it a great question, and wonders at Rambam’s commentators not noticing it. He suggests that in that first chapter, Rambam was recording those laws that are me-akev, that are what renders the Temple invalid unless it happens, and what is le-mitzvah, what is preferable but, if missing, can still leave a well-constructed and functioning Mikdash. In that framework, the only necessities are a three-sectioned structure, with a Holy of Holies, a Kodesh, and an Ulam, an antechamber.
That a prophet told the Jews to build upper levels, with rooms for various uses, and that it therefore had to be built that way, stems from the different obligation to obey the commands of prophets. In terms of height, Torah law would prefer the community build as tall as possible, even as the obligation to listen to a prophet meant that they had to do what that prophet said (sixty amah in the first Temple, a hundred in the second), no less and no more, even though there’s a mitzvah min hamuvchar, a more perfect mitzvah, to do as much as the community can.
R. Feinstein seems to sense the oddity of this claim—in what sense does a theoretical obligation matter, if the prophet’s going to tell them how high to build it—so he offers a couple of ways in which the distinction matters. First, it’s important to know the difference between eternal Torah law and the command of a prophet, specific to that time.
[A point worth elaborating: while all sorts of commands obligate us, their source affects how we react to them—when a prophet acts extraordinarily, s/he doesn’t reveal much about Judaism per se, just that a prophet may violate Torah law for a specific purpose. Torah law, on the other hand, teach us lessons Hashem found timeless and universal, and therefore offers avenues to general understanding of Hashem’s values. That the building of Temples is guided by prophets is an important and interesting idea, but the details of that will be relevant to that building, not for all time. That the ideal is building it as high as possible is, as Torah law, more essential to understanding Temple construction].
The distinction also matters for what we cannot accept even once done. If the prophet said to build it x high, and they don’t, the structure is still valid (because what they’ve violated is the obligation to listen to a prophet, not a rule of Mikdash construction).
R. Feinstein points out another example of this, the mizbeach, the altar. Early in chapter 2, Rambam speaks of the measurements of the altar as being very specific, not to be changed at all; but then, in halachah 17, he noted that those measurements aren’t me-akev, that as long as the altar is no smaller than the one in the desert, it’s acceptable. For R. Feinstein, that’s because that minimum size is Biblical law, the measurements he spoke of as not to be changed were those set by the prophets of each time.
[If I were having a conversation with him, I’d wonder how he knows Rambam accepted the idea of hakol bichtav, that a prophet always told us how to build the Temple; while the Gemara says it many times, Rambam does not, as far as I found. The halachah about the altar that R. Feinstein noted appears in Zevachim 62a, and explicitly differentiates what’s me-akev from what’s not, without referencing the idea of hakol bichtav, although it does appear earlier on that daf.].
R. Feinstein acknowledges there’s still what to question/work on here, but leaves it there. As will we.
Steps to the Mizbe’ach
The last point R. Feinstein takes up is his correspondent’s suggestion that Rambam in 1;17 meant to prohibit even building steps to the altar; Shmot 20;23 speaks only of not going up to the altar on steps, so how does Rambam know the prohibition includes building such steps? R. Feinstein agrees that the source is, once again, hakol bichtav, the obligation to follow a prophet’s orders.
To answer his correspondent’s wondering why Rambam cited a different verse (lo ta’aleh be-ma’alot, Shmot 20;23), R. Feinstein says that that verse makes it clear there’s no need for stairs; that’s how we no no prophet would ever speak of stairs, which is why building such stairs would violate hakol bichtav [I would wonder how R. Feinstein knows that a prophet might not command building decorative stairs, just as he could imagine people choosing to build such stairs].
In closing, I recognize that this discussion might seem esoteric to some of us, since any near-term restoration of the Beit HaMikdash would seem to require miraculous divine intervention. I have two points in reply: first, the fact that these laws seem so distant as to be irrelevant is for us to resist, not accept. Periodically, dipping our toes into these waters will remind us that there are areas of halachah we need to be more familiar with, and will move us a step or two along towards greater comfort.
Second, and more the real reason I was drawn to this responsum, just as R. Feinstein likely did not imagine that the Old City and Har HaBayit would be restored to Jewish control so soon after he wrote this responsum, we can hope that in reviewing it, we, too, will see a great advance along the road to the full restoration of the Beit HaMikdash.