This Says It All

Be sure and click on photo for full size.

Mosque vs. Temple

An open letter to Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf

In case you don’t know, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is the leading figure behind the Cordoba House (the "Ground Zero mosque"), now renamed to the Park51. (Cordoba, in reference to the Spanish city of Córdoba, a Christian city which was conquered by the Moors and became a Muslim caliphate.) The Mosque and cultural center is planned to be built 2 blocks from Ground Zero.

Cordoba House's proposed location has triggered an intense national controversy. Polls showed that a majority of Americans (a margin of 54%–20%) opposed the building of Cordoba House on that site, as did most people from New York State (61%–26%) and New York City (52%–31%); in Manhattan, 46% supported the project while 36% were opposed^[1].

Dear Imam Rauf,

I wholeheartedly support your building the Mosque 2 blocks from Ground Zero. I’m sorry you were not able to find a location even closer so that you would be afforded a better opportunity for Muslims to demonstrate peaceful Islamic values.

However, you should be aware that there is a cost associated with building your Mosque near to what is considered a sacred site, where 3000 people were murdered. To demonstrate your peaceful Islamic values to a world skeptic of these values, Muslims should, in turn, vacate one of there sacred sites.

For Muslims to build their Mosque near Ground Zero they should return The Dome of the Rock, and the ground upon which it stands, to the Jewish people.

If you look at the line of history you will see that the Jews have a longstanding claim to the Temple Mount which is where the First and Second Temples stood. Solomon, King of Israel, who ruled between about 971 – 931 Before Common Era (BCE) is credited with being the builder of the First Temple in Jerusalem. Babylonians attacked and burned the Temple in 586 BCE. Construction of the Second Temple, began in 538 BCE, and was dedicated 23 years later. The Second Temple was destroyed by The Roman army in 70 CE. For over the next 600 years the Temple Mount was not used as a site with any significant religiosity.

Mohammed, from about 570/571 - 632 CE, the founder of the religion of Islam, did not live to see the Dome of the Rock even begin construction. In fact he did not even live to see Jerusalem conquered by the Rashidun Caliphate army in 637 CE. The Dome of the Rock, for those who don’t know, is an Islamic shrine and major landmark located on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. It was completed in 691-692, making it the oldest existing Islamic building in the world^[2]. Jews prayed on the Temple Mount before there was the Dome, before there was Islam. Jews continue today to pray at the Western Wall, the western retaining wall of the Temple Mount, the one that was closest to the Holy of Holies when the Temple stood.

Therefore my dear Imam, there is no reason for Muslims to keep the Dome of the Rock since Mohammed really had nothing to do with it. After all, isn’t it just another Mosque?

Shalom,

Steve

[1] Wikipedia/Cordoba House http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordoba_House

[2] Wikipedia/Dome of the Rock http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dome_of_the_Rock

A Prayer for Yom HaShoah - Holocaust Remembrance Day

At our Synagogue, Congregation Agudas Achim, in Austin, Texas, we have a program where each Shabbat morning a member of the congregation gives an original prayer. The following is a prayer I composed for Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, which this year was April 11, 2010.

=========================================

God, where were you during the Holocaust? How could you let this happen, God?

How many thousands of times have these questions been asked over the past 65 years?

But God was there during the Holocaust. He was at the Extermination Camps: Auschwitz, Belzec, Treblinka, giving his people strength to face family separation and death. God was at the Concentration Camps: Bergen-Belsen, Dachau, Theresienstadt, giving his people strength to survive one more day, helping them to keep faith in their religion, teaching their children love of Torah.

God was in the Warsaw Ghetto giving courage to the few poorly armed Jews, who in April and May of 1943, stood up to the German army. And he gave courage to Oskar Schindler of Germany, Victor Kugler of the Netherlands, Sempo Sugihara of Japan and over 22,000 Righteous Among the Nations from 44 countries, non-Jews, who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.

God continues to give courage to those survivors, dwindling now in number, to rebuild their lives. God helped us build Holocaust memorials and museums in places like Poland, Germany, France, America, and Israel, that they may serve as a reminder of man’s inhumanity to man, that they will stand in the face of those who deny the Holocaust.

Tomorrow is Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. As we gather around the world and read lists of the 5,693,851 Jews who perished let us also hold in our hearts those 6 to 12 million others who were slaughtered in the Nazi holocaust: Ukrainians, Poles, and Russians; Gypsies, Mentally/Physically Disabled, and Homosexuals; Clergy, Political Prisoners, and Countless Others. Our voice must speak for them too.


Blessed art thou oh Lord our God, King of the universe, who gives his children strength and courage to his people.

Amen

=========================================