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Home -- Content: Series 7 (Laws) -- Translation: English -- Book: 1 (Tora) -- Part: 2 (Negative) -- Prohibition: 78 -- Text
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The Sharia of Moses in the TORA
Part 2 - The 365 Prohibitions of the Tora

78 - ANY UNCLEAN PERSON ENTERING THE CAMP OF THE LEVITES*

* The equivalent of the camp of the Levites in later generations is the Temple Mount.

Deuteronomy 23:10 -- “If there is any man among you who becomes unclean by some occurrence in the night, then he shall go outside the camp; he shall not come inside the camp.”

One who is unclean by reason of contact with a dead body is not barred under the terms of this commandment, whilst a leprous person is further barred even from the Camp of the Israelites (i.e. from the entire city of Jerusalem, as well as from all walled cities of the Land of Israel).*

* Mishneh Torah, Abodah, Hilchoth Biath ha-Mikdash III, 2- 4

Since Jewish law considers the holiness of the Sanctuary and its courts as enduring forever, although they are desolate, we are forbidden even today to enter the Temple Mount.* The approach to the Wailing Wall is from the opposite end of the mountain upon which the Temple stood. Maimonides states the reason cogently when he says: “The holiness of the Sanctuary and of Jerusalem stems from the presence of the Divine Glory, and the Divine Glory has never been removed therefrom. Thus it has been said, I will lay your cities waste and bring your sanctuaries to desolation (Leviticus 26:31), upon which the sages commented: although they are desolate, they retain their sanctity.”**

* See Sefer ha-Chinuch, Comm. 565
** Abodah, Hilchoth Beth ha-Bechirah VI, 16

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