Sunday, May 4, 2014

Har Tzion and the Vatican - the Backstory

Rumors of a secret government plan to relinquish properties sitting on Mt Zion, including the tomb of David HaMelech have been in an out of the news for probably at least a year now. Recently they seem to have been picking up steam and getting a lot of mention in the blogosphere as well. However many people may not be aware of just how deep the historical and spiritual roots of this controversial deal go. While the spiritual analysis is my own, the follwing historical information is based off the book "Where Heaven Touches Earth," by Dovid Rossoff. It's an incredibly well written and finely documented book of the Jewish history of Jerusalem, and I highly recommend reading it on the "inside" for the full account of this story as well as many others.

In 1898 Kaiser Wilhelm the second of Germany visted Jerusalem to great fanfare from all the city's communities - Jews, Christians, and Muslims, which involved extensive preparations that would forever change the face of Jerusalem. When entering the old city through Sha'ar Yaffo have you ever wondered why there is the actual gateway - i.e. "Jaffa Gate", but then right next to the gate it is a much larger passageway?

It turns out the Kaiser specifically wanted to ride into Jerusalem on horseback, however Ottoman law forbade anyone who wasn't a citizen of the empire from doing so through the city gates. In order to appease the Kaiser while still keeping within the letter of the law a compromise was reached whereby the city walls would be breached and the Kaiser would be able to ride his horse through the hole - thus not riding through the gate itself.

While virtually the entire Jewish community of Jerusalem, Sefardim, Chassidim and Perushim, attended the welcoming ceremony, Rav Yosef Chaim Zonnenfeld was a notable exception. He quoted a mesorah from the Gra that the Germans are descendants of Amalek and that therefore the Kaiser didn't have a din of a non-Jewish king that one should make a bracha on seeing.

During the Kaiser's visit to Eretz Yisrael the Turkish Sultan gave him a gift of property on top of Mt Zion. However, living in Germany, the Kaiser didn't have much personal use for Jerusalem real-estate so he in turn gave it over to the Catholic Church. Presumably the Church retained control of the area until the formation of the modern state of Israel... and it's a likely reason why on the face of it they desire to have it back.

I'm no professional archeologist but the idea that the room above the kever is where the "Last Supper" supposedly took place is preposterous. Even supposing such an event did occur, according to their own narrative Yashka lived at the time of the second Beit HaMikdash which was roughly two thousand years ago. Now over the ages dust and rubble and garbage accumulate up slowly raising the level of the ground - hence the need for archeological "digs." If you want to study a previous era in Israel you need to literally dig it up as the current ground level always belies past ones. An obvious example would be the Kotel. Due to the enormous size of the structure it still juts out from the ground quite a ways, however anyone who has ever gone on one of the Western Wall Tunnel Tours has seen first hand just how far down the retaining wall actually goes and just how much altitude the sands of time have covered up.

Now the building which lies upon the site of Kever David is level with the perimeter wall of the Old City - however this wall was built by the Turks long after the fall of the Roman empire which itself came about several hundred years after the destruction of the Temple. Therefore the current structure which supposedly contains the room of this famous meal must have at its earliest been built over a THOUSAND YEARS after the event was supposed to have taken place! Thus we're left with two possibilities - either the claim is entirely false or perhaps this room is the "second coming" of the original room.

Now maybe I'm just being a little overly silly and your average Catholic priest would counter that the current room is simply a maker or the original location - I can buy that. However what I have a hard time swallowing is given the relatively generous religious freedom said average Catholic priest could have praying at the site, what exactly necessitates the Church retaining official control of the site? As there's several quite large active churches in the vicinity it's not like they can claim that we're running them out of town. However looking at the story with Kaiser Wilhelm, things start to fall a bit more into place. The Catholic church is the traditional religious institution of Europe which is populated by the spiritual descendants of Eisav. Indeed according to Rav Zonnenfeld and the Vilna Gaon the Germans are the epitome of Eisav - Amalek. And here we see that an Amaleki king psychically breached the walls Jerusalem after which he handed over Kever David to the spiritual clutches of Eisav via the church. As the blemish in Jerusalem continuously gets fixed by the city growing faster and faster by the day, they wish to regain what they are losing by focusing on the tomb of David HaMelech - the very king from whose line the Mashiach will come to finally vanquish their power once and for all (perhaps vainly hoping to forestall their inevitable spiritual defeat). May it be G-d's will to save us from losing our spiritual as well as physical connection to our holy tzaddikim, and in King David's merit may his true descendant finally come for the FIRST and FINAL time to redeem us once and for all.

1 comment:

  1. Nice post, and the last paragraph is very good. Everyone wants a piece of the pie, ey? Esav isn't happy enough with Har Seir? But it's easy too easy to blame others; the Catholic Church is at least defending its own interests, which can't be said for the Knesset.

    Some relevant verses:

    Genesis 36:8 - "And Esau dwelt in the mountain-land of Seir - Esav is Edom."

    Deuteronomy 2:2-6 - "And the Lord spoke to me (Moses), saying, ‘You have circled this mountain long enough. Now turn north, and command the people, saying, “You will pass through the territory of your brothers the sons of Esav who live in Seir; and they will be afraid of you. So be very careful; do not provoke them, for I will not give you any of their land, even as little as a footstep because I have given Mount Seir to Esau as a possession."

    Ezekiel 35:1-15 - "Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying: 'Son of man, set thy face against mount Seir, and prophesy against it..."


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