When the Temple stood on Mount Moriah, Judaism was complete. The Temple wasn’t merely a building—it was God’s dwelling place on earth. For 2,000 years, we Jews have lived in a state of spiritual amputation, practicing what can only be called a “shadow Judaism.” Without the Temple, we exist at arm’s length from God, cut off from the direct communion with the Divine that our ancestors experienced. Three times daily, we turn toward Jerusalem and plead, “May it be Your will that the Temple be rebuilt speedily in our days.”
Yet for many Christians who support Israel, this aspect of our faith remains puzzling. Why do we yearn so desperately for the restoration of ancient rituals involving animal sacrifices? Isn’t such a practice primitive and outdated in our modern world? Can ancient Temple worship truly have relevance in our contemporary reality?
This question troubled Rabbi Haim Hirschenson during the early 1920s. As the British established their control over Palestine following World War I, the Balfour Declaration and the League of Nations Mandate had formally recognized the Jewish right to a homeland. Sensing a historic opportunity, Rabbi Hirschenson wrote to the revered Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook with a bold proposal: Jews should immediately demand the Temple’s rebuilding—but without animal sacrifices, which “enlightened culture would find difficult to accept as such a primitive form of worship.” The Temple could serve, he suggested, merely as a national monument, a symbol of Jewish sovereignty without the blood and fire of actual sacrifices.
Rabbi Kook’s response reveals a vision far more revolutionary than Hirschenson’s modernist compromise. He wrote: “Regarding sacrifices, it is more correct to believe that everything will be restored and cleansed with God’s help when salvation comes. Prophecy and the Holy Spirit will return to Israel as foretold, and we should not be overly influenced by European cultural ideas.”
Rabbi Kook understood the core issue: The Temple doesn’t fit our current consciousness because it’s not supposed to. The Temple represents a direct meeting place between heaven and earth—something entirely unnatural in our unredeemed world.
This incompatibility between the Temple’s holiness and the world’s spiritual state explains why the Temple was destroyed twice. The Sages teach that the First Temple was destroyed because of idolatry, murder, and sexual immorality, while the Second Temple fell because of baseless hatred. But on a deeper level, both destructions reflect that the Temple was a concentration of divine presence that the world was not ready to sustain. Like a foreign organ rejected by the body, the Temple’s intense holiness could not be integrated into a world that operated according to entirely different principles – a world that wasn’t ready for it.
Rabbi Kook’s genius lay in recognizing that the solution wasn’t to water down Temple worship to match our fallen world. Instead, he foresaw a transformation of global consciousness: “Currently, the world does not understand why sacrifices are needed. But don’t worry—when the time comes, the world will actually demand that we make sacrifices, though that time has not yet arrived.”
This wasn’t mere wishful thinking. It was a recognition that the awkwardness we feel toward Temple worship is evidence of our spiritual distance from God, not evidence that Temple worship itself is antiquated.
The prophet Zechariah gives us a vivid picture of how this transformation will unfold:
In Temple times, only certain vessels were holy enough to be used in sacred service, and only the High Priest wore a golden headplate inscribed with “HOLY TO THE LORD.” But Zechariah reveals that in the Messianic era, when the Third Temple will stand, this holiness will extend outward. Even horse bells—mundane objects used for commerce and transportation—will bear the same inscription as the High Priest’s headplate. Every cooking pot in Jerusalem, not just the special ones in the Temple, will be elevated to the status of sacred altar vessels.
The Sages expand on this vision, teaching that “Jerusalem’s future will be to extend to the gates of Damascus” and “the Land of Israel will spread throughout the world.” This doesn’t mean a physical expansion but rather the spread of holiness from its concentrated center outward, encompassing more and more of reality.
The first two Temples were destroyed because they were foreign implants, a concentrated point of holiness in a world that rejected that holiness. But when the world ultimately rises to the level of the Temple, this foreignness will disappear, and the Temple will stand eternally.
Rabbi Kook saw no need to apologize for animal sacrifices. Rather, he understood that sacrifices possess “an inner holy naturalness that cannot yet be fully revealed.” In the redeemed world, we won’t abandon sacrifices—we’ll finally understand their deeper meaning and necessity. The problem isn’t with the Temple—it’s with us. We don’t need a modernized Temple; we need a Temple that will transform us by elevating our consciousness beyond the secular assumptions of our age.
After two millennia of separation and often hostile relations, Jews and Christians now stand together in defense of biblical truth and the Land of Israel. This unprecedented unity isn’t just political—it’s prophetic. The walls that have divided us for centuries are crumbling precisely as we approach the Messianic era that Rabbi Kook described.
This is why the work of Israel365 is so vital at this moment. Just as Rabbi Kook understood that the Temple’s rebuilding requires a transformation of consciousness, our work today involves changing hearts and minds about Israel’s biblical significance. Through Hebrew Bible education, advocacy for Israel’s sovereignty over its biblical heartland, and practical support for Israeli families, we’re helping prepare the ground for the final redemption.
When you support our annual campaign, you’re advancing this consciousness-raising work. You’re helping more Christians discover the Hebrew roots of their faith, more lawmakers recognize the biblical mandate for Israel’s undivided land, and more Israelis receive the practical support they need during these challenging times.
In Rabbi Kook’s day, the idea of rebuilding the Temple with its sacrifices seemed hopelessly outdated. Today, the idea of biblical faith guiding world affairs seems equally impossible to many. But those with eyes to see recognize that God’s promises are unfolding before us, and the Temple’s restoration—complete with its sacrificial service—is approaching.
Will you be part of this restoration? Will you help build the consciousness that welcomes the Temple’s return? Donate today to Israel365’s Annual Campaign and join this historic movement of redemption that’s preparing the world for the Temple’s return.
