Sefer HaChinuch, the Book of Mitzvah Education, teaches us that it is a positive mitzvah to build a House for the sake of God, which means that we will offer sacrifices there to Him and there will be where B’nai Yisrael ascend on the Shalosh Regalim (Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot) each year.

Sefer HaChinuch continues: The building of the Beit HaMikdash is in order to prepare our hearts for the worship of God, not because God needs to dwell in a house of human beings and come under the shelter of their roof…For heaven and the heavens cannot contain Him…It was all meant for making our physical selves worthy. For the physical self becomes qualified through its actions. As good actions are multiplied and as they are continued with great perseverance, the thoughts of the heart become purified, cleansed and refined.

Even though we unfortunately don’t have the Beit HaMikdash right now, we must remember this message. We must do good deeds, perform the mitzvoth and bring ourselves closer to God. We must do what we can to protect our holy sites.

Although the holiness of Har HaBayit, the Temple Mount in its state of ruin is not to be compared to its holiness in its inhabited condition, in the mean time we must appreciate the fact that we have the State of Israel and the opportunity to visit many holy sites which we were only able to access after the Six Day War in 1967.

May we be worthy of seeing the Beit HaMikdash rebuilt speedily in our days!