For any government trolls or Shabak monitoring this post, I do not support the blowing up of anything.

With that out of the way, here’s the next installment of Adventures with Yishmael on Har Habayit.

Version 1 is here. Version 2 here.

Anyway, this week was Chol HaMoed Sukkot, the middle of the “Feast of Tabernacles” though I still have no idea what the hell a “Tabernacle” is. It sounds like a more scientific name for a bucket of chum. I woke up at 4:15am, meeting Feiglin and his driver to do the Mikveh thing where I baptized myself, so to speak, if we’re going to use the vulgar tongue here. After doing the whole prep the night before, cutting nails, shaving, flossing, pumicing (is that a word?), etc.

We went to the Kotel for davening where about 30 people joined us. The Kotel is one of Feiglin’s least favorite places, but he went anyway. It was a good davening.

This was the 5th day of Sukkot. For the previous 4 days the Arabs were rioting on the Temple Mount with explody type stuff and rocks. The police did nothing. Then on the 5th day, when everyone knew Moshe was going up, the police went up early and locked all the Arabs inside the Mosque with all their bombs and ammunition before they could do anything.

Here’s the video.

We went up in two groups. Five of us – Moshe, Shai Malka, Michael Fuah, me and another activist – went up first since we were going all the way to the center. Well, not all the way but up to the Dome of the Rock m’Din Kibbush, meaning the only way we are allowed there halachically is that we are under the pretext of conquering the area from the Arabs by treading on it, demonstrating ownership. Once the Temple is rebuilt I will certainly not be allowed to go there. So I guess I thank the Waqf for giving me the pretext to tread where I otherwise dare not.

I remember thinking up there, back to when I was just a kid in Miami, then a college guy at Brandeis, having studied at a bunch of Yeshivas surrounded by Jews and Rabbis all my life, how the heck I of all people ended up as one of the absolute few willing, as a “religious” Jew who does believe that one gets Karet for going up to the Dome of the Rock under normal circumstances, how I ended up here, at the center of the universe, with the future Prime Minister, with the mind of a libertarian anarcho capitalist, when nobody else surrounding me all my life did.

Anyway, it was a weird feeling.

But as for the place itself, here’s the funny part. Aside from the periodic massive explosions emanating from the Al Aqsa Mosque behind us, a building we have absolutely no interest in whatsoever, the place was completely dead quiet. No screaming women, nobody bothering us, nothing.

Why the explosions coming from the Mosque? Because the Arabs decided that even though they were barricaded in the place, they were going to set off their bombs anyway. If that sounds a bit nutty, it is, because when you’re locked inside a “holy” building, you don’t really want to set off bombs. It doesn’t really make any sense.

So while the Muslims were busy blowing up Al Aqsa with whatever riot accouterments they brought with them, we peacefully treaded up to the Holy of Holies and back out. That was about it. At some point the Arabs locked in the Mosque ran out of things to explode so the massive booms stopped.

The booms were loud enough to shake the air a bit, and that was at a long distance from the Al Aqsa itself. I can only imagine how deafeningly loud the explosions were to the weird – and now probably deaf and stumbling from blown out inner ears – people setting off the bombs from inside.

What the hell is wrong with these crazy people? I understand you don’t want us walking around. But why in the name of Allah would you set off bombs in your own Mosque when you’re barricaded in there? 

Well, maybe they really are that stupid.

I remember also thinking that the root kuf tzadi – קצ as in Al Aqsa, along with meaning “end” also means “gross” or “revolting” and “sickening”. As in ותאמר רבקה אל יצחק קצתי בחיי מפני בנות חת.

Let me put this clearly for any Arabs reading this. We don’t want your mosque. I suggest you stop blowing it up if you want to keep davening there.

Anyway, good Yom Tov everyone. We’re now two blood moons down, two to go.