Rabbi Yehudah Glick, a former Likud Member of Knesset and long-time Temple Mount activist, will be tapping into this Biblical power on Thursday by holding “a universal prayer from the Temple Mount for the well-being of humanity.”
The prayer event will be broadcast live on Thursday, March 19, at 1 PM Israel time (GMT+2)via the Facebook page of the Shalom Jerusalem Foundation.
Rabbi Glick cited the Biblical precedent for this prayer event.
Hear the supplication of your servant and of your people Israel when they pray toward this place. Hear from heaven, your dwelling place, and when you hear, forgive…When famine or plague comes to the land…whatever disaster or disease may come and when a prayer or plea is made by anyone among your people Israel – being aware of the afflictions of their own hearts, and spreading out their hands toward this temple – then hear from heaven, your dwelling place. Forgive and act; deal with everyone according to all they do, since you know their hearts (for you alone know every human heart)” I Kings 8
“I personally go up to pray every Tuesday but now, when the entire world needs the special power of prayer that comes from the Temple Mount, we all need to become even stronger in this regard,” Rabbi Glick told Breaking Israel News. “This is the original purpose of the Temple Mount from the days of King David when he first purchased the site: to pray for Israel and the world, to heal everyone’s body and soul.”
Rabbi Glick emphasized that the current crisis is far more than just a health issue.
“This is a financial crisis, global and individual. Businesses are collapsing and people are losing their jobs. Families are being stressed. Marital relationships as well. There are even suicides. We need to pray for all of this, to cry out to God. So many systems are going through a re-shuffling.”
“Hashem may be expressing his dissatisfaction with the world and expects each and every one of us to reevaluate our relationship with him and with each other. This is an opportunity for the world and for individuals to unite and that has always been the central function of Jerusalem, whose name means peace.”
Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount is a relatively new phenomenon. It was legally mandated in a 2015 Jerusalem magistrate court decision but a clause in the ruling permitted the police to enforce the law based on security considerations. For the last four years, the Israeli police have cited Palestinian Islamic violence as a reason to prevent Jews from praying at the site. After two Palestinian terrorists launched an armed attack from inside the Temple Mount compound, the police began distancing Waqf guards from Jewish visitors. The Waqf policy of only allowing Muslim prayer on the site, responding to such attempts with violence, is racist and in contravention of international law. It is currently being contested in the Israeli courts.
Trump’s recently proposed Deal of the Century puts theTemple Mount under Israeli sovereignty, stating, “People of every faith should be permitted to pray on the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif, in a manner that is fully respectful to their religion, taking into account the times of each religion’s prayers and holidays, as well as other religious factors.”
