Global warming aside, Noach needed to know when to leave the ark. He sent a raven, a dove, and then another dove. Finally, he was convinced that it was safe to leave the ark. Yet, we find that Noach did not leave the ark until such time as God commanded him explicitly. The question is obvious. If you know you aren’t going to leave the ark until God tells you, why would you send out weather scouts?
An answer is that Noach was never going to leave the ark based on what his eyes saw. He was completely governed by what God told and promised him. He waited for Hashem’s command but was active before that.
We find similarly that King David was informed by Nathan the prophet, that King David would not build the next temple and yet the Midrash tells us in numerous places that David continued his efforts to build that which he was not going to end up completing.
While the world bleats about Al Aqsa we know that there is a temple that needs to be rebuilt. We may not be the ones to build it, but it does not absolve us (like Noach or King David) from making all efforts to doing so. Apart from doing God’s will there is a practical thing that every Jew should be doing: simply, scream from the roof tops
“Liars, liars, liars. This is the TEMPLE mount. Al Aqsa is a latter manifestation of a foreign religion.”
There is no room in a democracy for a system called “status quo” that says only a Muslim can pray there. If YOUR competent Orthodox Rabbi permits you go to certain spots near the Temple Mount, why does the State of Israel FORBID you to pray?
This, my friends is what is called diaspora WITHIN Israel.
Good Shabbos, and may the Temple be speedily re-dedicated in our time.
pitputim 