Miller's Musings Parshas Shoftim: Ditch the Deadweight

At first glance building houses or planting trees on top of the Temple Mount doesn’t seem too dreadful.   If there is room on the extant landscape, why not use it for something productive rather than letting it go to waste? Utilising some prime real estate is surely not an act that needs prohibiting.   Nevertheless, according to our commentators, this is exactly what is being forbidden in our Parsha.  One can understand the need to protect the sanctity of the place where the Beis Hamikdosh once stood, but is there anything really so harmful in constructing a house or allowing a tree to grow there?

The holiness of the Beis Hamikdosh is something we find difficult, if not impossible, to truly fathom.  It was a place through which all spiritual energies from Hashem flowed and from which all Hashem’s benevolence to the world emanated.  For a site of such prominence and tremendous sacredness it was not enough to only condemn usage that would by its definition desecrate this holy location, but even those uses that would seemingly have a more neutral quality had also to be kept distant from it in order to uphold its status.  To create anything on this hallowed ground that did not further the pursuit of glorifying Hashem’s Name, would in itself be an act of sacrilege against the site of the resting place of Hashem’s Shechina.  Perhaps this is why even these seemingly non-detrimental actions were not permitted in this place. 

Amongst the many opportunities that we can involve ourselves with throughout our lives, there are those that are clearly of a spiritually destructive nature and there are those that do not necessarily lend themselves toward either a positive or negative quality.  In many cases it may be totally justifiable to partake of these ‘parve’ entities, yet there may be times that require greater sensitivity and a more refined choice of what we allow ourselves to participate in.  Places of holiness, times of increased sanctity and spiritual acts may necessitate us to think more carefully about what we have with us.  Even things that may not by definition be deleterious to our neshomo, may be inappropriate when we are striving for the highest levels of spiritual heights.  Throughout Ellul when we are given the potential to create a new us and undergo a rebirth, becoming whatever we strive to be, perhaps we can think more deeply about what part of our lives further our goals and which add nothing to our pursuit of greatness. 

May our Shabbos be full of only that which makes it sublime. 

לעילוי נשמת לאה בת אברהם