6. Ascending Har HaBayis today. Unfortunately, there is a small group of people – some with big kippos, and even some who look chareidi or chassidish – who permit themselves to come closer than they should and go up onto Har HaBayis itself. Perhaps it is due to their great yearning to daven as close as possible to the Kodesh HaKodashim, but more so, to show ownership and control of the site and not yield it to the descendants of Yishmael.
7. Har HaBayis is a place where tamei people may not enter. In some areas, it is an issur kareis, as will be explained. Those who do so violate serious issur of “מקדשי תיראו ” and others, and show disregard for the words of most like all, the poskim of this generation and the previous one, who forbid going up to Har HaBayis. They belittle and show contempt for even their rabbanim, cause fights and quarrels, incite the nations of the world, and endanger their own lives and more important, the lives of Klal Yisroel, which they certainly have no permission to do. They forget altogether that we are still in golus and have not yet been zocheh to the building of the Beis HaMikdash or even the beginning of the Geula.
8. Har Sinai. At the time of Matan Torah, there was also a desire to ascend the mountain, a place of gilui Shechina and the giving of the Torah from Hashem Himself. Nevertheless, the Torah set borders and warned that Klal Yisroel could only go until the foot of the mountain. As the posuk says (יתרו י''ט, י''ב ), “והגבלת את העם סביב לאמר השמרו לכם עלות בהר ונגוע בקצהו כל הנוגע בהר מות יומת.” Moshe established boundaries as a sign not to go past the border (רש''י שם ). We learn from here that even yearning has a limit when established by the Torah and Chachomim.
9. To understand the principles behind the halachos, we will present some background so that the general public understands the issur. [It is not to convince those who go up not to do so, as they are rebellious and do not listen to Chachomim in any case; their personal and nationalistic idealism is more important than keeping Torah and mitzvos.] We are only doing this so the tzibbur will know the primary issues; to get a glimpse of halachos that aren’t so commonly encountered; and to amass more knowledge of Torah. We daven that learning these halachos, along with tefilla, will inspire a sincere desire to enter Har HaBayis in a permissible manner according to our holy Torah, with the coming of Moshiach and the building of the Beis HaMikdash. Then and only then will we ascend, see, and prostrate ourselves there.
