Mitzva? It's אסור!!!
Ok - That is "Har HaBayIT". What about "Har HabayIS"? Or הר הבית??
Someone wrote a book trying to prove that it is a mitzva to go up to Har HaBayis. Not one mitzva - 5 separate mitzvos!! All for the price of one!!! 👍😊 Today it is a big "thing" to go there. Totally "trending".
The problem is that just about every major posek, Ashkenazi and Sfardi, white and black, democrat and republican, male and female, Jewish and non-Jewish, says that it is forbidden. The one posek that so many people rely upon [Rav Dov Lior Shlita of Chevron] says that his היתר is only for men. Women may not go up [either b/c they are נדות or other halachic considerations we won't get into here]. That doesn't stop the masses from going up anyway - and risking a חיוב כרת according to the major poskim.
The fellow who wrote the book omitted any reference to a היתר for women b/c he said that if he had written that women are permitted - he wouldn't have received numerous haskamos. So he avoided the topic - pretending that there is no difference between men and women. There is even an organization נשים למען המקדש who "paskened" that one may go up to הר הבית.
Here is his list of mitzvos one supposedly fulfills when going there:
1] לשכנו תדרשו ובאת שמה - Devarim 12:5
to his habitation you shall seek, and there you shall come. [This week's parsha]
2] The mitzva of davening to Hashem as paskened by the Rambam ['סה"מ מ"ע ה]:
הוא שצונו לעבדו, וכבר נכפל זה הצווי פעמים באמרו ועבדתם את ה' אלהיכם, ואמר ואותו תעבודו. ואע"פ שזה הצווי הוא גם כן מהצוויים הכוללים כמו שביארנו בשורש ד', הנה יש בו יחוד אחר שהוא צווי לתפלה. ולשון ספרי ולעבדו זו תפלה. ואמרו גם כן ולעבדו זו תלמוד, ובמשנתו של רבי אליעזר בנו של רבי יוסי הגלילי אמרו מנין לעיקר תפלה מצוה מהכא את ה' אלהיך תירא ואותו תעבוד, ואמרו עבדוהו בתורתו ועבדוהו במקדשו, ללכת שם להתפלל בו ונגדו כמו שבאר שלמה ע"ה. (בפרשת ואלה המשפטים, אהבה הלכות תפלה וברכת כהנים פ"א):
That is that we are commanded to serve Him. And this command is repeated several times: His saying, "And you shall serve the Lord, your God" (Exodus 23:25); and His saying, "and you shall serve Him" (Deuteronomy 13:5). And although this command is from the inclusive commands - as we explained in Principle Four (Sefer HaMitzvot, Shorashim 4) - it nevertheless has specificity, since it is the command to pray. The language of the Sifrei is, "'And to serve Him' (Deuteronomy 11:13) - that is prayer." And they also said, "'And to serve Him' - that is [Torah] study." And in the Mishnah of Rabbi Eliezer, the son of Rabbi Yose HaGlili, they said, "From where [do we know that] the essence of prayer is a commandment? From here - 'You shall fear the Lord, your God, and you shall serve Him' (Deuteronomy 6:13)." And they said, "Serve Him through His Torah; serve Him in His Temple." To go there and daven there and opposite there, as Shlomo, peace be upon him, explained. (See Parashat Mishpatim: Mishneh Torah, Prayer and the Priestly Blessing 1.)
2] The Mossad HaRav Kook Rambam based on an earlier and seemingly more correct text says ועבדו במקדשו ר"ל הכוון אליו להתפלל שם כמו שבאר שלמה ע"ה. This means that your tfillos should be directed there but not that you have to be standing there yourself. And so pasken the Tur and Shulchan Aruch [סי' צ"ה]. Besides that fact that it is not clear that if there is no Beis Hamikdash this applies [as the author himself mentioned].
3] We actually fulfill מורא מקדש when we DON'T go up. As Rav Kook writes [quoted in טוב ראי עמ"ס זבחים עמ' רפ"ט]:
"ומצינו יחש הקדושה והכבוד ע"י שלילה והרחקה וכו'...וכ"כ גדול הוא כח הזכרון של הכבוד והמורא של הקדושה, שבא ע"י השלילה וההרחקה, מתוך יראת הרוממות והכבוד, עד שהשם הקדוש בעצמו שם העצם ב"ה, הרי אסור לנו להזכיר כלל חוץ למקדש וכו'...וא"כ כל יסוד המורא משתרש בלבבנו דוקא ע"י ההתרחקות ואי-ההזכרה, שזה מורה לנו שאין אנו מוכשרים למעלה עליונה זו של הזכרת שם הקדוש, וה"נ ע"י מה שאנו נזהרים מלהתקרב בהיותנו טמאים אל המקום הקדוש הרינו מקיימים מצות מורא מקדש, והוא יותר יקר מאותה היראה הבאה דרך קירוב בעת שאין אנו מוכשרים לה".
4] לא תחנם only applies to the seven nations [according to many poskim]. Also, we captured הר הבית. It is ours. On the contrary - by only going up to a certain point we are saying that until here is ours - the rest is yours.
5] והורשתם את הארץ is a communal mitzva which we already fulfilled when we captured הר הבית in 1967.
6] His over enthusiasm for this "mitzva" made him write something so silly. We'll forgive him for that. We all say or write really stupid things at times.
An entire booklet was written as a rebuttal to the book written encouraging ascent to הר הבית [that I used when writing this post]. If you want, you can email the author and he will send it to you - stamclev@gmail.com.
So there are two basic issues:
1] There is a serious concern that one who ascends הר הבית will be cut off from Hashem in the next world. That is what כרת is. Since all that there is in the next world is Hashem - it is not worthwhile. To say the least.
2] It is a lack of Emunas Chachomim. Unless one is qualified b/c he himself is a world class posek - he can't argue with people so much bigger than him. To compound the sin, he tries to incite OTHERS to ignore the ruling of the Poskei Ha-dor. That is indeed a very grave sin.
והוא רחום יכפר עוון.
PS - There is a video of Rav Moshe Tendler ztz"l on הר הבית. So if you HAPPEN to live and Monsey and HAPPENED to have davened in his shul and he HAPPENS to be your posek - I am not talking to you.
