Through tours, lectures and other educational projects, LaMikdash is bringing the Temple Mount back into the national conciousness of the Jewish people. The organization seeks to educate and energize the Jewish masses to reconnect with their holiest site by bringing them up to the Temple Mount itself.
Are we on that level?
Submitted by Yoel on Tue, 02/17/2009 - 01:52
The question often arises, "Are we on that level?". I doubt that those who pose this question would ask the same of the mitzvah of tefillin or kriat shema. Mitzvot are not for Jews to decide when they are ready.
Getting the Jewish people to understand this is an altogether different matter. The concept of Temple Judaism and sacrifice are so foreign to today's Jew that he can't relate in any practical way to the very thing he prays for daily.
Attempting to somehow meld todays Judaism with the Temple is like plugging a 110V appliance into a 220V socket. The two just can't work together.
Maybe, just maybe, before we start building an altar, we should reacquaint Israel with things like Shechitah (ritual slaughter). Shechitah is, today, foreign territory for most people. It shouldn't be that way. I wonder how many Jews have ever seen the meat they eat slaughtered in front of them?
This ignorance of what shechitah is and how to know if it is being done properly, has led to the Monsey fiasco in which many hundreds of Jews were eating totally treif chickens. It has also led to the immense desecration of G-d's name at the agriprocessors plant in Iowa. What goes on in the kosher slaughterhouses of South America is even more gruesome, yet as long as the meat is on the shelf, no one seems to care how it got there.
So you see, not only does this "devolution" of Judaism leave us more distant and disconnected from the ideas of sacrifice and Temple worship, it also leads to gross violations of G-d's law.
The way I see it, we have 3 options:
1. Make excuses and pretend there's no problem.
2. Stop eating meat.
3. Shecht your own meat or eat only from a shochet and farm you are familiar with.
Option 3 is not as difficult as it may seem. Shechitah and treifot are halachot and part of our Torah, right? We should be familiar with them, right?
Learn shechitah, not only will you be reconnecting with the idea of korbanot, but you'll have fresher, cheaper meat and you'll have no halachic or ethical misgivings when you put it on your table.
Yoel Keren