Reviving and Expanding the Holy Temple For All
Dr. Malka Z. Simkovich points out in an article in the Times of Israel, that the connection between Sukkot and Jerusalem Temple goes all the way back to the Bible’s first descriptions of the holiday in Deuteronomy chapter 16. In this chapter, God commands the Israelites to go to the Temple to celebrate the three primary Temple festivals; Pesah (one week), Shavuot (one day), and Sukkot (one week).
Deuteronomy 16 links the Temple to Sukkot more strongly than to the other two festivals by implying that the Israelites must remain in Jerusalem throughout the duration of the holiday. According to Deuteronomy 16:7, the Israelites should return to their tents on the morning following the eating of the Passover sacrifice, whereas in Deuteronomy’s proscription regarding how to celebrate the holiday of Sukkot, there is no comparable command for Israelites to return to their huts: Deuteronomy 16:15 “You shall hold a festival for YHWH your God (for) seven days, in the place that YHWH will choose; for YHWH your God will bless all your crops and all your undertakings, and you shall have nothing but joy.”
The prophet Haggai exhorts the people on the twenty-first of the seventh month (the last day of Sukkot) not to despair about the state of the Second Temple, because God promises that it will eventually become even greater than the first (Haggai 2:1-9). Like Prophet Zechariah, this passage is located within a context that is describing the ultimate restoration of the Jerusalem’s Temple’s glory during the messianic era.
In the book of 1 Maccabees, written sometime in the 2nd century BCE; and survives in the Catholic Bible collection of books known as the Apocrypha, Jonathan the Maccabee donned the priestly vestments on Sukkot upon regaining control over the Jerusalem Temple. The passage reads: 1 Maccabees 10:17 [King Alexander] wrote a letter and sent it to [Jonathan], with the following words: 10:18 ‘King Alexander to his brother Jonathan, greetings … 10:20 …we have appointed you today to be the high priest of your nation; you are to be called the king’s Friend (like Abraham the Hebrew Genesis 14;13)
And “Who is better in religion than one who submits himself to Allah while being a doer of good (deeds); and follows the religion of Abraham, inclining toward truth? And Allah took Abraham as an intimate friend.” (Qur’an 4:125) and you are to take our side and keep friendship with us.’ He also sent him a purple robe and a golden crown. 10:21 So Jonathan put on the sacred vestments in the seventh month of the 160th year, at the (Sukkot) Festival of Booths.
I would add that the Islamic 1400s we are now living in, is the age of the coming of Hazrat Mahdi and Prophet Jesus. As Prophet Micah proclaims: “In the last days the mountain of the LORD’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and peoples will stream to it. Many nations will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.
“The Torah will go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He will judge between many peoples and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor train for war anymore. Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the LORD GOD has spoken. All the nations may walk in the name of their gods, but we (Jews, Christians and Muslims) will walk in the name of the LORD our God for ever and ever.” (Prophet Micah 4:1-5)
One of the signs of the End of Days is the arrival and defeat of Gog and Magog (Ya’juj and Ma’juj or Ajuj and Majuj). Gog and Magog appear in the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Bible, and the Islamic Quran as individuals, tribes, or lands.
The Quran mentions Gog and Magog twice: “He said: “This (barrier) is a mercy from my Lord: but when the warning of my Lord comes to pass, He will reduce it to dust (and Gog and Magog—the Colonialist Empires, the Nazis, and the Communists would be released into the world); and the promise of my Lord is true.” (18:98) So Gog and Magog are destructive groups like the Colonialist Empires, Nazis, and Communists, who long before the end of days will penetrate into every part of the world.
The other mention of Gog and Magog in the Quran is: “But there is a ban on a town which We have destroyed: that they (the people of the town) shall not return (to reclaim that town as their own); until Gog and Magog are let through (the barrier), and swiftly spread out in every direction.” (21:95-96)
This verse refers to Jerusalem, destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, and only reclaimed 18 1/2 centuries later as the State of Israel’s capital, during the era of the defeat of of the Nazis, the Communists, and the Colonialist Empires, who had been Gog and Magog for generations.
Thus, humanity has so far passed through the most devastating era of human history. However, we have not yet reached the goal of the Messianic Age when “They (all nations) will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the LORD GOD has spoken.” (Prophet Micah 4:2-4)
This era will come about when Israelis and Palestinians make a long lasting two state partnership of peace; fulfilling the 2700 year old vision of Prophet Isaiah: “In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt, and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together. In that day Israel will join a three-party alliance with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing upon the heart. The LORD of Hosts will bless them saying, “Blessed be Egypt My people, Assyria My handiwork, and Israel My inheritance.” (Isaiah 19:23-5)
There is open space on the Temple Mount where a 3D digital broadcast Jewish house of worship could be rebuilt as a virtual replica like those made by the Factum Foundation, a Madrid-based nonprofit that creates high-resolution digital replicas of the world’s cultural heritage; could be built about 600 feet north of the Al-Aqsa Mosque next to the Dome of the Rock, provided Muslims would cooperate. This would fulfill Prophet Isaiah’s statement that in the early part of the Messianic Age: “Torah will be broadcast from Zion, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.” (Isaiah 2:3)
So a small Jewish broadcasting station built near the Dome of the Rock would reflect Prophet Micah prophecy: ’At the end of days the mountain of the Lord’s House will be established as chief of the mountains, and will be raised above the hills. Peoples will flow up to it. 2 Then many nations will go and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the House of the God of Jacob! Then He will direct us in His ways, and we will walk in His paths.” For Torah will be broadcast from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” (Micah 4:1-2)
Most people think this is just a dream, yet in our own generation we have seen the dramatic fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy: “I will bring your offspring from the (Middle) East and gather you from the (European) West. To the North (Russia) I will say ‘give them up’ and to the South (Ethiopia) ‘do not hold them’. Bring my sons from far away, my daughters from the end of the earth.” (Isaiah 43:5-6)
It is amazing how people adjust to living in a radically new world and forget the past. Indeed, the Prophet Isaiah himself said, “Behold, I create a new Heaven and a new Earth, and former things shall not be remembered.” (65:17) And the Jewish Nation will welcome non-Jews to become Jews as Prophet Zechariah states: “Thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘In those days ten men from every language of the nations shall grasp the sleeve of a Jewish man, saying, “Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.” (Zechariah 8:23)
Most observers agree that anyone who could arrange such Jewish-Muslim cooperation would really be the Messianic Ruler of Peace (Isaiah 9:5). Christian support for such a cooperative venture would also be very important. Anyone who can bring Jews, Christians, and Muslims together in mutual respect and cooperation would surely fulfill the greatest of all Messianic predictions: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning knives; nation shall not take up sword against nation, they shall never again teach warfare.” (Isaiah 2:4)
From the river to the sea could become an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, and not death, destruction, or hate. I say we can make it truly aspirational by making it focus on both people first; and the land second. “From the river to the sea Palestinians and Israelis should be freed of hatred and suffering by ‘a two state for two peoples sharing of the land peacefully solution.”’
