Are Jews allowed to walk on the Temple Mount?
...The Torah (Leviticus 19:30) further commanded a general reverence for the Temple, interpreted by the sages to include respectful behavior within permissible areas, such as not carrying a stick or wallet, wearing leather shoes or walking on the sacred territory for mundane purposes (Brachot 54a).
Medieval commentators debated whether these restrictions became dormant following the Temple’s destruction.
Rabad (12th century, Provence) contended that unlike the rest of Eretz Yisrael, which retained its sanctity, the Temple Mount was profaned by its non-Jewish conquerors (Ramban Makot 19a) and lost its sacred status (Beit Habehira 6:14). Rabbi Menahem Hameiri (Shevuot 16a) understood this position to allow for walking on the Temple Mount, and further reports that Jews have historically followed this position. Indeed, as recently noted by Gedalia Meyer and Henoch Messner (Hakirah 10), certain talmudic stories (Makot 24b) and medieval travel chronicles indicate that some Jews did ascend the Temple Mount until Muslim conquerors banned non-Muslim entrance in the 12th century.
The position, however, was opposed by Maimonides, who insisted that the entire space retains its sanctity, and further contended that, theoretically, sacrifices may continue to be offered even without the structure of the Temple... Rabbi Tzvi Kalischer, inspired by messianic aspirations, attempted to renew such activity in the 19th century (Drishat Zion). Yet his proposal was sharply dismissed...
Nonetheless, Maimonides ruling demanding continual reverence for the spot, including entry restrictions (Beit Habehira 7:7), was widely accepted by medieval (Kaftor Veferah Chapter 6) and modern (MB 561:5) authorities...
Yet the sages clearly permitted entrance into some sacred areas following appropriate ritual preparation, including immersion in a mikve (Kelim 1:8), even for people who had contracted impurity from contact with corpses (Beit Habehira 3:15). Moreover, many areas within the current rectangular Temple Mount complex, which was expanded in the Herodian era to about 150,000 square meters, clearly include sections that were not within the original Temple area, which formed a square with sides of approximately 250 meters (Midot 2:1). Maimonides himself indicates that he walked and prayed on the permissible areas when he visited Israel in 1165 (Igrot Harambam I, p. 224).
Two 16th-century scholars, Rabbis David Ibn Zimra (Shu”t Radbaz #691) and Yosef D’Trani (Maharit, Tzurat Habayit) both attempted to delineate the exact Temple location and permitted Jews to walk on certain areas of the Mount. Yet their calculations are highly disputable...[but] many scholars [did] prohibit entrance to the Temple Mount (which anyway was regularly banned by the ruling authorities)...
Others contest that this has led to a spiritual neglect of the sacred space. Most prominently, Rabbi Shlomo Goren dedicated a book, Har Habayit, to determining the permissible areas of entry. While the efforts of Rabbis Mordechai Eliahu (Techumin 3) and She’ar Yashuv Hacohen to build a synagogue on the Mount have been thwarted, other scholars, including Rabbis Nahum Rabinovitch and Haim Druckman, have recently advocated Jewish entry (with strict halachic preparation) onto areas which they claim are indisputably outside the restricted areas. Yet other religious Zionist figures, including rabbis Avraham Shapira and Shlomo Aviner, have opposed such trips...
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