The Problem with Sifting Through Temple Mount Rubble
Excerpt from Rabbi Yirmiyohu Kaganoff:
The Moslem construction is without any permits and is illegal. However, the Israeli authorities refuse to interfere, citing concerns about violence! One of the Waqf’s goals is to obliterate any remnants of the Batei HaMikdash from the Har HaBayis so that they can persist with their lie that Jews never lived in Israel and that the Batei HaMikdash never existed. The Waqf has removed hundreds of truckloads of “debris” from the Har HaBayis, which they dumped in the Kidron Valley and other sites around Yerushalayim.
With the help of volunteers, Israeli archeologists are painstakingly sifting through the rubble removed from the Har HaBayis, to look for artifacts. (Thus, there is no halachic concern of ascending onto the Har HaBayis.) One of these volunteers asked me whether one may participate in this work, citing the following potential shaylos:
1. Is there a halachic concern that someone may be using property of the Beis HaMikdash for one’s own benefit, which violates a Torah prohibition called me’ilah.
2. Since we are all tamei, is there concern that one might be contaminating (i.e., making tamei) property or the stones of the Beis HaMikdash?
3. What are we required to do with stones or earth that were originally part of the Beis HaMikdash or the Har HaBayis?
4. The remnants being unearthed include bone fragments, some of them human. This leads to two specific questions: (a) May a kohen work in this project? (b) Is there a halachic concern of mistreating the dead since these human remains will not be buried afterwards, but will be stored and used for scientific research and study?
5. Some artifacts that surface are clearly from what were once idols. Is there a halachic requirement to destroy them? Is it the finder’s responsibility to destroy them, which the archeologists do not permit?