When was a wee lad I learned that Jews may not go anywhere past the Kotel for fear that we would we trespassing on the Temple Mount in our permanent state of ritual impurity. This was an unchallenged assertion for most of my life. Jews simply did not enter the Temple Mount. I remember being somewhat outraged that a Jewish leader like Ariel Sharon would publicly flout Jewish law and ascend the Temple Mount.
I do remember hearing about a fringe group, led by a rabbi I knew from Monsey as a friend and advisor of my father, Rabbi Moshe Tendler ascending the Temple Mount. That was my first exposure to any Torah authority permitting Jews to go up there.
In recent years, more and more orthodox Jews have been going to the Temple Mount with rabbinic approval or rabbinic chaperones to ensure that they do not step in a place that they are not allowed to go under Jewish law. People are noticing.
The LA Times is reporting that there is some political tension that is being caused by these increased visits to the Temple Mount. Some Muslims, and apparently some members of the media, view this is a provocation designed to instigate attacks against Jews thus justifying counter-attacks by Israel. I bet there are some people who go up there as activists and hope to start up with Muslims. There are idiots everywhere. But I think it is ludicrous to propose that the increase in Temple Mount visits has anything to do with Muslims. For thousands of years, Jews have yearned to ascend the Temple Mount once again. If we have the opportunity and the halachic framework to do so, Jews will want to go. It has been a collective dream of ours to pray on the Temple Mount for two thousand years. That is why people want to go to pray on the Temple Mount. Who else is up there is completely irrelevant.
I find the suggestion that Jews are going up the Temple Mount as a provocation a serious accusation. It is an accusation that lack substance because there is a much more reasonable explanation.
