It is necessary to again clarify the severe prohibition against going up to Har Habayis and the stern error and misguided thought processes of those who breach this issur.
We maintain that it is forbidden to provoke the nations. The reason we must not act in any way to bring upon us their wrath is because we are in golus and part of the decree of exile is that we are under the rule of the nations. Since this is a heavenly decree, every believing Jew must accept this decree and not strive to flout it. It goes without saying that every Jew must also pray at all times, "may our eyes behold Your return to Zion with compassion," but it is surely forbidden to take any action showing that we resist the heavenly decree preventing this from coming to pass so far.
Our National Religious brethren mistakenly see the State as "the initial sprouting of the Redemption" because of a similar phrase in the prayer written for the well-being of our State (and there are persistent claims that the author Shai Agnon is the one who added on this phrase to the prayer and not their rabbis).
This means, so to speak, that since the geula has, as it were according to them, already begun, the golus has necessarily ended and there is no obligation to act in a golus-type manner and accept the heavenly decree of Jewish subjugation to the nations of the world. One of the corollaries of this misguided outlook is that one is permitted to provoke the nations, since the decree against doing so is no longer binding. This view permits them to take actions which cause political harm to our people in Israel and place the entire nation in danger, all because they rely on a baseless premise.
Why, indeed, do they allow themselves to commit acts punishable by koreis merely in order to achieve their goal? Are they not mitzvah-observant Jews?
Our Torah leaders of the previous generation said that they believe in fourteen Principles of Faith [not Thirteen]. Their belief in Israeli nationalism is not a secular concept but an integral and fundamental part of their religion. In their eyes, this justifies and sanctifies things like the army etc. because since the State is the sprouting of the geula, everything about the State is a religious matter. This is why and how they allow themselves to interject political and national ideas in their halachic deliberations and accord them equal weight with the halachic considerations of our gedolim. With such defective reasoning, they allow themselves to rely on the minority view in a matter of koreis since the national impetus to go up to Har Habayis outweighs the pure halachic reality. One who is exposed even a little to the thought processes of our Dati-Leumi brethren in many areas cannot help seeing how this train of thought succeeded in distorting and sowing havoc by them regarding halachic ruling and even general fundamental principles of emunah.
Yeshaya referred to their ilk when he prophesied, "Who asked this of you to trample My courtyards?" The site of the Mikdosh is the resting place of the Shechinah, even in its ruined state, and it is the most conducive place in the world for a person to cleave unto Hashem - at those times when it is permissible to go there. And surely, the very converse of cleaving to Hashem is by visiting upon oneself the punishment of excommunication. And yet they go to this most sanctified place and instead of gaining closeness, they bring upon themselves the very opposite, only because their motives are askew, based in the secular rather than the holy. Based on their perverted outlook, they have injected religious motives and transformed the forbidden and profane into something sanctified. This is an absolute trampling of everything dear and sacred to the Jewish people and an abysmal error. In order to arrive at their perverted goal, they are prepared to even place the entire Jewish people in terrible danger.
