Yes, Jews believe the Temple will one day be rebuilt – but contrary to viral conspiracies, Jewish tradition says we’re nowhere near building it now.
Now that the whole world is talking about the Third Temple in Jerusalem, let’s go there. I am a Jew, a Chabad follower, and a rabbi, so you can trust what I’m about to share a lot more than the conspiracy theories podcasters have tried to share in my name.
First, the old news:
Yes, Jews believe that we will have a Third Temple, on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, in the same location where our first two Temples once stood. It’s not some secret that the Mossad is hiding, nor something that Chabad subtly pushes, and it’s certainly not a code being signaled through patches on IDF uniforms.
It has been in the public record for thousands of years:
2,800 years ago, Isaiah prophesied: “… concerning Judah and Jerusalem … at the end of the days, the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be firmly established at the top of the mountains … and many peoples shall go, and they shall say, ‘Come, let us go up to the Lord’s mount, to the house of the God of Jacob …’” (Isaiah 2:2)
2,600 years ago, Ezekiel prophesied: “In the visions of God … He placed me on a very lofty mountain and upon it was like the building of a city from the south … And He said to me, ‘This is the place of My throne where I shall dwell … this is the teaching of the House; Upon the top of the mountain, all its boundary round about shall be most holy…’” (Ezekiel 40:2)
2,000 years ago, Jewish sages composed a blessing that is recited in our daily prayer liturgy: “Return in mercy to Jerusalem Your city and dwell therein as You have promised … rebuild it, soon in our days, as an everlasting edifice … restore the service to Your Sanctuary and accept with love and favor Israel’s fire-offerings and prayer…”
1,900 years ago, the Talmudic sage Rabbi Yehuda composed a prayer that we recite several times every day: “May it be Your will, L-rd our G‑d and G‑d of our fathers, that the Holy Temple be rebuilt speedily in our days.”
So now that we’ve cleared that up, let’s continue.
What about the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock shrine? Aren’t we going to be sensitive to these holy Islamic sites? This is an important consideration, but I wonder – is anyone sensitive to the fact that the Temple Mount was a holy site for Jews thousands of years before Muslims conquered and built their sites?
The Muslim conquest of Jerusalem occurred in the 7th century CE. Shortly after that, they built both the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa on the Temple Mount, the site where the two Jewish Temples had stood.
Now let’s take a trip down Jewish memory lane.
The Bible is filled with references to the Temple Mount. Adam, the first human, was created out of earth gathered from the Temple Mount. 3,700 years ago, G-d told Avraham to offer his son Isaac to Him. Where? Upon the Temple Mount. 3,600 years ago, when Jacob was running away from his brother Esav, he fell asleep and had a dream. In it, G-d told him: “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac; the land upon which you are lying, to you I will give it and to your seed.” Where did this occur? Yes, upon the Temple Mount.
Before entering Israel, the Bible records what G-d told the Jewish people (Deuteronomy 12:11): “And you shall cross the Jordan and settle in the land the Lord, your God, is giving you as an inheritance … And it will be, that the place the Lord, your God, will choose in which to establish His Name, there you shall bring your sacrifices…”
Again, that “place that G-d chose” – the place where we were commanded to build a Temple – is the Temple Mount.
About 3,000 years ago, King David successfully conquered Jerusalem, fulfilling G-d’s promise and beginning preparations for the Temple. It was his son King Shlomo who built the first Temple, which stood on the Temple Mount for 410 years, until the Babylonians savagely destroyed the Temple and exiled the Jews.
About 2,500 years ago, the Persian Emperor Cyrus permitted the Jews to return to Israel and build a second Temple, on the Temple Mount. This Temple stood for 420 years, until the Romans destroyed it and exiled the Jews.
If you ask where the Jews have been since then, the answer is simple. We wish we could have been living as G-d had promised – as a sovereign nation in the land of Israel, with a Temple on the Temple Mount. But alas, antisemitic hatred and persecution led to our destruction and banishment from the land. We never “left” the land or “gave away” our G-d-given gift to anyone else.
Let’s move on. Are we going to build a Third Temple?
In 1948, we Jews finally reclaimed control over our homeland – or at least some of it. Only in 1967 did we gain control over Jerusalem’s Old City and the Temple Mount. That is when this question became realistic.
And yet, in the past 60 years, we haven’t built the Third Temple, nor are there any substantial plans or efforts to do so. Why?
Obviously, there are geopolitical considerations, which are significant, but my focus is on what the Jewish sources say. Contrary to what many assume, and as my colleague Rabbi Y. Shurpin explains so well on Chabad.org, Jewish tradition does not say we should simply start building a Temple tomorrow. In fact, a close examination of the sources reveals several major obstacles:
1. The obligation to rebuild the Temple is understood by many to apply only when the majority of the Jewish nation resides in Israel. Currently, less than 50% of Jews live in Israel.
2. The obligation to rebuild the Temple is understood by many to apply only when there is a Jewish king or prophet, which we don’t have nowadays.
3. We don’t even know how to construct it. Ezekiel’s prophecy outlines the blueprint of the Temple, but there are many different interpretations about how to understand these instructions.
4. One of the central items in the Temple is the altar for sacrifices. Our sages teach that the altar must be placed in the exact spot where Adam was first formed, and where Avraham built an altar for Isaac. Today, we don’t really know where this is. (When building the Second Temple, prophets came to vouch for the precise location.)
5. Even if we figured out how and where to build the Temple, we might be forbidden to enter it in our state of impurity. To become purified requires the ashes of a red heifer, which we don’t currently have.
6. The Temple will be staffed by “kohanim” – descendants of the biblical priest class. To be appointed, a kohen will need a genealogical verification of being a direct descendant of Aaron – something most kohanim don’t have nowadays.
7. The kohanim will need to wear special clothing, and today we aren’t clear about the identity of some of the materials, such as the techelet dye or the precious stones for the High Priest’s breastplate.
So how will the Third Temple be built?
The answer to this is not so clear.
In general, regarding all matters concerning the Jewish belief about messianic times, including universal peace, ingathering of the exiles, an end to evil, restoration of the Jewish monarchy, resurrection of the dead, and the return of worship in the holy Temple, all of these are shrouded in mystery and ambiguity. Not for lack of certainty about them, nor for a shortage of sources confirming them. Rather, these sources have been understood differently over the ages, and ultimately it appears that G-d deliberately wants these matters to remain enigmatic – for now.
That being said, there seem to be two general opinions about how the Temple will be built:
1. Maimonides rules that the Temple will be built by King Moshiach. In other words, we will need to wait for the arrival of Moshiach.
2. Others are of the opinion that in the Messianic era, the Temple will miraculously descend ready-built from heaven.
The bottom line:
In summary, as much as we yearn for the building of the Third Temple, and we know that it will happen one day, we are not currently in a position to fulfill this Jewish religious commandment.
So, for now, will everyone please relax, and will the conspiracists please educate themselves. Neither Chabad nor any other community with influence is making any such plans.
Instead, as per a core teaching of the Chabad-Lubavitcher Rebbe, we are focused on something more important for now: To practice unconditional love, to promote acts of kindness, to teach the word of G-d, to strengthen faith and purpose, to fill the world with true peace, and to prepare humanity for Messianic times.
Our job is to build a better world. We’ll let G-d figure out how to build the Temple. Because the Temple will not appear when the Jewish People become powerful enough to build it. It will appear when humanity becomes spiritual enough to receive it.
Oh, and by the way, in that future era of universal peace, we look forward to greeting all citizens and nations of the world in our Temple. Yes, all will be welcome.
We hope and pray that we will witness this very soon.
The blogs: Eliezer Wolf
06/03/2026 by THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
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