On Wednesday 31st March at 10:00 AM, The Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement, with others, will perform a Pesach sacrifice. We are doing our best to persuade the Israeli authorities to allow us to do it on the Temple Mount despite the Arab opposition which, unfortunately, still controls the Temple Mount even though the sovereignty of the Temple Mount is in Israel hands.
The Pesach sacrifice has a special and very deep significance in the life of Israel over the past 3300 years since the exodus from Egypt. It is not regular sacrifice of forgiveness but a national and redemptional sacrifice. This unique sacrifice goes back to the deepest national and spiritual roots of Israel. In the Biblical times, when the Temple existed, this sacrifice had to be performed according to the Word of G-d only on the Temple Mount by the priests. Every family brought their sacrifice to the priests and, after it was sacrificed on the altar they ate it together as a family on the Temple Mount or in Jerusalem. According to the Word of G-d it could not be eaten outside of the Temple Mount and Jerusalem. In Deuteronomy, the G-d of Israel commanded the children of Israel: "Observe the month of Abib, and keep the Passover to the Lord your God; for in the month of Abib the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt by night. You shall therefore sacrifice the Passover to the Lord your God, of the flock and the herd, in the place which the Lord shall choose to place his name there. You shall eat no leavened bread with it; seven days shall you eat unleavened bread with it, the bread of affliction; for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste; that you may remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life. And there shall be no leavened bread seen with you in all your border seven days; neither shall there any thing of the meat, which you sacrificed the first day at the evening, remain all night until the morning. You may not sacrifice the Passover inside any of your gates, which the Lord your God gives you; But at the place which the Lord your God shall choose to place his name in, there you shall sacrifice the Passover at the evening, at the going down of the sun, in the season when you came out of Egypt. And you shall roast and eat it in the place which the Lord your God shall choose; and you shall turn in the morning, and go to your tents. Six days you shall eat unleavened bread; and on the seventh day shall be a solemn assembly to the Lord your God; you shall do no work in it. Seven weeks shall you count; begin to number the seven weeks from such time as you begin to put the sickle to the grain. And you shall keep the Feast of Weeks to the Lord your God with a tribute of a freewill offering of your hand, which you shall give according as the Lord your God has blessed you. And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you, and your son, and your daughter, and your manservant, and your maidservant, and the Levite who is inside your gates, and the stranger, and the orphan, and the widow, who are among you, in the place which the Lord your God has chosen to place his name there. And you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt; and you shall observe and do these statutes." (Deuteronomy 16:1-12)
According to the Word of G-d, this sacrifice has to be performed in the afternoon of the day prior to the first evening of Pesach and must be eaten before midnight. No bone of the sacrifice may be broken. It has to be cooked over fire in a special way where the sacrifice may not touch any part of the oven, only the spit. The first evening of Pesach is dedicated, as in Biblical times, to eat the sacrifice in a family meal when they sit around the table and tell the story of the exodus from Egypt. Special prayers for this unique holy day are also said. At midnight a special glass of wine is poured and the door is opened for the coming of the prophet Elijah who will bring the news of the coming of Mashiach ben David and the redemption of Israel. Over the last 3300 years, the evening of the Pesach Seder was the most exciting in the life of Israel. The Seder, the sacrifice and the festival of Pesach symbolise the deep link and covenant between the G-d of Israel and the people of Israel, and the godly redemption and miracles which G-d preformed in the past, and present and will again do in the future.
In Exodus and Numbers, the G-d of Israel explains the unique significance and importance of the Passover festival to the people of Israel and those who joined themselves to them: "And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall be to you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for a house; And if the household is too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it according to the number of the souls; according to every man's eating shall you make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year; you shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats; And you shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month; and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, in which they shall eat it. And they shall eat the meat in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. Eat it not raw, nor boil with water, but roast it with fire; its head with its legs, and with its inner parts. And you shall let nothing of it remain until the morning; and that which remains of it until the morning you shall burn with fire. And thus shall you eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in haste; it is the Lord's Passover." (Exodus 12:1-11) "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the people of Israel, saying, If any man of you or of your posterity shall be unclean because of a dead body, or is in a journey far away, he shall still keep the Passover to the Lord. The fourteenth day of the second month at evening they shall keep it, and eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. They shall leave none of it to the morning, nor break any bone of it; according to all the ordinances of the Passover they shall keep it. But the man who is clean, and is not in a journey, and refrains from keeping the Passover, that same soul shall be cut off from among his people; because he brought not the offering of the Lord in his appointed season, that man shall bear his sin. And if a stranger shall sojourn among you, and will keep the Passover to the Lord; according to the ordinance of the Passover, and according to its prescribed ordinance, so shall he do; you shall have one ordinance, for the stranger, and for him who was born in the land". (Numbers 9:9-14)
In the Biblical times, it was one of the most beautiful sites and events to see the multitudes of Israelites who made the pilgrimage up to Jerusalem, walking up to the Temple Mount to make the sacrifice and then the groups eating together around the Seder table with thanks to G-d , joy, songs and prayers. Jerusalem was filled with people who came from all parts of Israel and gave, not only the feeling that we are no longer slaves, but a free nation under the G-d of Israel Who redeemed us, but also put the Temple, the Temple Mount and Jerusalem in the focus of the life of Israel. They gave Jerusalem the meaning of being the very holy capital of Israel and the center of the earth where the G-d of Israel and the Universe dwells. This together with the other pilgrim festivals and the complete dedication of Israel to the Temple and Jerusalem, made Jerusalem the focus, not only of Israel, but of all the earth according to the Word of G-d. It was a message to everyone in the world that Jerusalem and the Temple Mount are the heart and soul and the beloved focus of their land and life. Millions of Israelites sacrificed their lives for their beloved Temple and Jerusalem. More than any time in the past, this will be the message to all to all the nations and powers that again want to take the Temple Mount and the eternal capital of Israel, Jerusalem, away from us.
This will be the third year that we are performing the Pesach sacrifice. If we are again forbidden to perform the sacrifice on the Temple Mount where it should be done, we shall do it on a hill in front of the Holy of Holies and, as according to the Word of G-d it has to be done on the Temple Mount,. we will only perform a symbolic sacrifice. We will perform the sacrifice very carefully according to the biblical law but not on an altar. We have decided to perform this sacrifice because in this way we want to say to G-d, to Israel and to everyone in the world that the time of redemption has come to Israel and that the Temple Mount has to immediately be again the place for the Temple of G-d alone and no more a place of pagan foreign worship and that the government of Israel has to overcome her weakness, trust in G-d's end- time promises, remove the pagan shrines from Mt.Moriah and rebuild the Temple. We feel that this is the will and commandment of G-d to our generation and that this is the right time. This symbolic sacrifice will also symbolise the hopes, desires and efforts of Israel to redeem the people and land of Israel in our lifetime.
We also feel to renew our commitment to the worship and Laws as they were in the Biblical times with a special meaning of the prophetic end-times in which we are now living in Israel. The message will be that Israel should not, and cannot, be another regular materialistic nation in the world but "a holy nation, a kingdom of priests, and a treasure above all the nations." (Ex 19:5-6) We shall make the commandment of G-d and the hope and desire of thousands of years a reality in our lifetime in Israel and then all over the world. With these messages the Pesach sacrifice will be performed this year and everyone who has the Word and love of the G-d of Israel is their hearts, is invited to be a part of this most exciting event in the life of modern Israel. We are opening the door to a unique godly event that soon we will see performed on the right place on the Temple Mount that all of us shall soon see rebuilt. We shall not stop our struggle, campaign and efforts to make this exciting day a reality in our lifetime. Everyone is called to be a part of it and G-d is with us.