הרב אבי גרוסמן Rabbi Avi Grossman

Rabbi Avi Grossman Defends the Temple Mount Youth

Concerning Rabbi Neiger’s claim here:

שורה תחתונה אתם עושים עשרות מאמרים לחזק את הטענה שהרמב”ם נכנס להר הבית, אבל זורקים את שאר ההלכות ל’פח’ ומה בכלל הרמב”ם אם הי’ רוצה להנחיל הלכה כזאת לרבים הי’ כבר מציין אותה כ’מצוה’ או לשון ‘ציווי’… ועדיין לא מצאתי דבר כזה ברמב”ם, כי ברור לרמב”ם ‘ירידית הדורות’ ובטח קבוצת נערים מהציונות הדתית ששאר המצות הם ‘זורקים’ כפי שרואים את ההתנהגות של אותם הנכנסים להר הבית כ’מעשה נערות’
While it is sadly true that we do have a significant and loud group of perhaps slightly uneducated and unsophisticated youths within the practical movement to open the Temple Mount to even more Jewish worship, they are certainly not the majority, and more importantly, the movement is led by none other than great, contemporary scholars who are THE most familiar with Maimonides’s writings. It is beyond clear that Maimonides was referring to the Temple in his letter.
Also concerning those youths, we must also remember that even if they are immature and/or unlearned, they are fighting K’lal Yisrael’s war on multiple fronts. They are the only ones brazen and bold enough to stand up to the government’s ongoing regime of preventing the settlement of the land of Israel, and the government’s blatant misuse of the criminal justice (sic) system against our most dedicated and patriotic citizens. I know their ring leaders personally, and they are kind, gentle, and idealistic. They are the cream of our youth, and their mesirut nefesh for the mitzvot the rest of us neglect puts us to shame.

re: Bald Monkeys Aren’t ‘Nazirites’

Regarding yesterday’s remark that bald monkeys aren’t “Nazirites” (נזירים)! — secular Hebrew to the contrary notwithstanding.

Rabbi Avi Grossman writes in:

Adderebba.

Not only is it clear that the Hebrew nazir is one who abstains from wine and grape juice (״מיין ושכר יזיר״) nothing like the Christian concept of an ascetic monk, our nazirim did not take on the ridiculous, unnatural, and perverse practice of celibacy, and more importantly, just like the word for abstention, yazzir, is of the root nun-zayin-reish in the hif’il conjugation, the simple segolate-noun form of the word, neizer, a type of crown, is specifically referring to the nazirite’s long hair. Intentionally removing all of the hair of one’s head is the opposite of being a nazirite.

(Avoiding contact with the dead is not referred to with the same term, and is instead referred to as it is with regard to priests – avoidance of ritual contamination. See also my earlier essay about how nazirisim is basically a means of opening the priesthood and its attendant higher sanctity to those who are disqualified from the actual priesthood.)

Maimonides’s Code: The Temple Mount is THE Temple!

Rabbi Avi Grossman, in response to Rabbi Brand’s series of proofs השם ‘מקדש’ כולל את הר הבית:

Rabbi Brand does not need to bring examples about how the Temple Mount is THE Temple; Maimonides’s code is just so chock full of them:

ו,א  המקדש כולו לא היה במישור, אלא במעלה ההר:  כשאדם נכנס משער מזרחי של הר הבית, מהלך עד סוף החיל בשווה; ועולה מן החיל לעזרת הנשים בשתים עשרה מעלות, רום כל מעלה חצי אמה ושלחה חצי אמה.
Here he describes the various ascensions in the Temple, and notice he’s talking about the topography of the mount.
ז,ו  [ז] אף על פי שהמקדש היום חרב בעוונותינו, חייב אדם במוראו כמו שהיה נוהג בו בבניינו — לא ייכנס אלא למקום שמותר להיכנס לשם, ולא יישב בעזרה, ולא יקל ראשו כנגד שער המזרח:  שנאמר “את שבתותיי תשמורו, ומקדשי תיראו” (ויקרא יט,ל; ויקרא כו,ב) — מה שמירת שבת לעולם, אף מורא מקדש לעולם, שאף על פי שחרב, בקדושתו עומד.
And here he describes how one should only enter the areas of the miqdash (even today) which are permitted to him, i.e. The Temple Mount up until the hel.
The distinction is made right at the beginning of the halachot: the entire Mount is the Temple, except that everything from the inner courtyard and inward is the “iqqar,” i.e. the barest minimum as it was in the Tabernacle.
In a forthcoming article I offer that even at Shiloh and Nov, there were additional structures and areas adjacent to the Tabernacle courtyard that served the Tabernacle.