‘I will make Aliyah when Moshiach arrives’ – Don’t Be So Sure!
Shmuel Sackett makes a great point:
According to the Rambam (yes, there are different opinions, but the Rambam has always been the leading source), the world will act exactly as it does now with one change: There will be 100% total peace. No wars, no anti-Semitism, no “Free Palestine” demonstrations and no NY mayors who threaten to arrest the Israeli Prime Minister. When that happens, when nobody will call your daughter a “filthy Zionist” in Columbia University… when security guards are no longer needed outside shuls and Bet Chabads around the world… when Tucker Carlson, Mel Gibson and Kanye West start loving Jews again… why would you leave your big house in Boca Raton or Monsey and move to an apartment in Ramat Bet Shemesh? Also – how much do you think your house will be worth at that time?Remember the words of the Rambam: “Olam k’minhago holech” (The world will continue according to its pattern). This means that you will have to sell your house, find a job in Israel, register your kids in school and worst of all: Learn Hebrew (oh no!!!)Or… you can choose “Option #2” which is far simpler. Stay in your present home, keep your cushy job, let your kids go to the same summer camps, fly to exotic places during “Yeshiva week” and simply book a suite at the Waldorf for Sukkot and Pesach and hop over to the Bet Ha’Mikdash, after the 10-course breakfast! Did you really think that Moshiach – the King of Israel – would change all your plans? I am afraid that the opposite might be true!It will be thanks to Moshiach that your life in the USA, Canada, UK, Australia, France etc… just got better! No more fear of walking around Europe wearing a kippa! No more hiding your Jewish star necklace in universities! Please convince me… NO!! – let me rewrite that: Please convince yourselves that when anti-Semitism is down to ZERO, you will really pack up everything and move to Israel.This is why I never push Aliyah as an answer to anti-Semitism. That is not the reason for coming home. Don’t run away from things… run towards your destiny and your Nation!
Debunking Sefer נויו של עולם by Barak Shragai (Which Argues the Mikdash Was on the South Side)
Short and sweet by Rabbi Yehuda Levi here…
Excerpt from the argument’s conclusion:
Halachically, there is only one acceptable shita: the mesorah, that the Even HaShesiya is the rock under the Dome of the Rock and the Kodesh Hakadashim stood over it. It is the shita of the Rishonim who stood on the Mount, it is the basis on which the Radbaz and the Acharonim after him paskened, and it is the only one that fits the Mishnah’s measurements on the actual terrain.
The other theories are not alternative shitos in halacha. They are suggestions based on measurements, archeology or thermal imaging that each break down against the mesorah, Chazal, or the physical terrain. None of them has any standing to be relied on lemaaseh, whether to permit walking somewhere or to determine anything else regarding the Makom Hamikdash.