Thank you for the picture, it illustrates my point. If you have been to the temple mount you should have taken a tour and listened to what you were told rather than looking at everything through the hazy glasses of your own opinion.
Herod built up the temple mount into a huge platform - you can see that level in the picture. The temple building and annexes sat on top - see picture - when the temple was destroyed all the buidings were demolished
but the table top was left. This is the temple mount today. The western
retaining wall is the thing you visited.
All the other retaining walls exist also.
It is an interesting story WHY the temple was pulled apart stone by stone especially considering the Roman officer originally ordered it to be preserved - I will let someone else tell you about that (or you could have listened to the tour guide)
You bought into the false fulfilment of prophecy by the the tin hat Titus.
Table top that was left? When you go to build a temple, what do you build first? The foundation of course. Now you want to exclude the most important part of the structure, it's very foundation. Christ was very emphatic when He sai d:
See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.
Haggai 2:18 (King James Version)
18Consider now from this day and upward, from the four and twentieth day of the ninth month, even from the day that the foundation of the LORD's temple was laid, consider it.
Zechariah 8:9 (King James Version)
9Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Let your hands be strong, ye that hear in these days these words by the mouth of the prophets, which were in the day that the foundation of the house of the LORD of hosts was laid, that the temple might be built.
Also you speak in ignorance of the western wall.
Quote:
In Judaism, the Western Wall is venerated as the sole remnant of the
Holy Temple. It has become a place of pilgrimage for Jews, as it is the closest permitted accessible site to the holiest spot in Judaism, namely the
Even ha-shetiya or
Foundation Stone, which lies on the Temple Mount. According to one rabbinic opinion, Jews may not set foot upon the Temple Mount and doing so is a sin punishable by
Kareth. While almost all historians and archaeologists and most rabbinical authorities believe that the rocky outcrop in the
Dome of the Rock is the Foundation Stone,
[59] some rabbis say it is located directly opposite the exposed section of the Western Wall, near the El-kas fountain.
[60] This spot was the site of the
Holy of Holies when the Temple stood.
Jewish tradition teaches that the Western Wall was built by
King David and that the wall we see today is built upon his foundations, which date from the time of the
First Temple.
[61] Jewish midrashic texts compiled in
Late Antiquity refer to a western wall of the Temple which “would never be destroyed.”
[3] Some scholars were of the opinion that this referred to a wall of the Temple itself which has long since vanished. Others believed that the wall still stood and was actually a surviving wall of the Temple courtyard. However, today there is no doubt that the wall is the western retaining wall of the Temple Mount and the Midrash refers to the Temple in its broader sense, that is, the Temple Mount.
[12] Jewish sources teach that when Roman Emperor
Vespasian ordered the destruction of the Temple, he ordered Pangar, Duke of Arabia, to destroy the Western Wall. Pangar however could not destroy the wall because of God's promise that the Wall will never be destroyed. When asked by Titus why he did not destroy it, Pangar replied that it would stand as a reminder of what Titus had conquered. He was duly executed.
[62] There is a tradition that states that when water starts trickling through the stones of the Wall, it is a signal of the advent of the Messiah.
[63][64]
Rabbi
Zvi Hirsch Kaindenover discusses the mystical aspect of the Hebrew word
kotel when discussing the significance of praying against a wall. He cites the Zohar which writes that the word
kotel, meaning wall, is made up of two parts: "Ko", which has the numerical value of God’s name, and "Tel", meaning mount, which refers to the Temple and its Western Wall.
[65]
Jewish sources, including the
Zohar, write that the
Divine Presence rests upon the Western Wall.
[66] The Midrash quotes a fourth century scholar: “Rav Acha said that the Divine Presence has never moved away from the Western Wall”.
[67] 18th century scholar
Jonathan Eybeschutz writes that “after the destruction of the Temple, God removed His Presence from His sanctuary and placed it upon the Western Wall where it remains in its holiness and honour”.
[68] It is told that great Jewish sages, including
Isaac Luria and the
Radvaz, experienced a revelation of the Divine Presence at the wall.
[69]
