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The Foundation Stone (), or the Noble Rock () is the rock at the center of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. It is also known as the Pierced Stone, because it has a small hole on the southeastern corner that enters a cavern beneath the rock, known as the Well of Souls.
Traditional Jewish sources mention the stone as the place from which the creation of the world began. Classical Jewish sources also identify its location with that of the Holy of Holies.Mishnah Yoma 5:2.
Early Muslim writings argue that the Dome of the Rock, completed in 691, is the site of the Holy of Holies and therefore the location of the Foundation Stone. The history by the 9th-century writer al-Tabari has Kaʿb al-Aḥbār, a Jewish convert to Islam, asking the caliph Umar to build a mosque over the rock, to which Umar responds, "O Ka'b, you are imitating the Jewish religion!" Al-Tabari then identifies the rock with the place where the Romans had "buried the temple () at the time of the sons of Israel." The History of al-Tabari, vol. XII, Albany, New York: State University of New York Press 2007, pp. 194–195. Pirqe de-Rabbi Eliezer (9th century) also wrote: "Rabbi Ishmael said: In the future, the sons of Ishmael (the Arabs) will do fifteen things in the Land of Israel... They will fence in the breaches of the walls of the Temple and construct a building on the site of the sanctuary."
Jewish sources have debated the precise location of the rock. Benjamin of Tudela wrote () that the site was in front of the Dome, on the site of the Western Wall.The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela: Travels in the Middle Ages; (English translation originally published by Joseph Simon/Pangloss Press in 1993, ). The Travels of Petachia of Ratisbon,A. Benisch, Travels of Petachia of Ratisbon (with English translation), London, England, 1856. pp. 60–61. , and Travels of a Student of the Nachmanides () state that "on the Temple Mount stands a beautiful sanctuary which an Arab king built long ago, over the place of the Temple sanctuary and courtyard." Obadiah Bartenura says in a 1488 letter from Jerusalem that "I sought the Foundation Stone which the former place of the Ark of the Covenant, and many told me that it is beneath a tall and beautiful dome which the Arabs built in the Temple, but the space beneath this dome is secured, such that no man may come to it, viz. to the place of the Foundation Stone, for the dome is very large."Avraham Ya'ari, Igrot Eretz Yisrael, Ramat Gan 1971. p. 134. David ben Solomon ibn Abi Zimra was convinced () that "under the dome on – there is the Foundation Stone, undoubtedly – which the Arabs call ".
Other sources, operating under the belief that the Southern Wall of the Temple Mount as it stood in their time was the Southern Wall of the Biblical era, argued that the measurements given in the Talmud do not reconcile.Rav Ishtori Haparchi (14th Century), Kaftor VeFerach, Provence, France. The Holy of Holies ends up being too far north and they therefore locate the Foundation Stone as being directly opposite the current exposed section of the Western Wall, where no building currently stands. This is the view of Isaac Luria Emek HaMelech, Preface, paragraph 9. and the Maharsha,Maharsha, end of Makkot. who state the prophecy that "Zion will become a ploughed field" indicates that no dwelling will be established there until the time of the Redemption. It therefore follows that the footprint of the Temple courtyard and Holy of Holies is situated in the unbuilt area between the Dome of the Rock and Qibli Mosque.
Some believe the position is north of the Dome of the Rock, opposite the Gate of Mercy, which Immanuel Hai RicchiImmanuel Hai Ricchi, Aderet Eliyahu. identifies as the Shushan Gate mentioned in the Talmud. This gate was described as being opposite the opening of the sanctuary.
Modern Jewish academics list four possible locations of the Foundation Stone:
Archaeologist Leen Ritmeyer reported that there are sections of the rock cut completely flat, which north-to-south have a width of 6 ,Leen Ritmeyer, The Quest (2006), pp. 263–268. precisely the width that the Mishnah credits to the wall of the Holy of Holies.Tractate Middot 4.7. According to Ritmeyer, a rectangular rock-cutting he discovered on the Foundation Stone marks the location where the Ark of the Covenant stood within the Holy of Holies. Ritmeier's analysis was welcomed among biblical archeologists; however, scholars stated that this theory cannot be actually verified.
The rock has several artificial cuts in its surface generally attributed to the Crusades, whose frequent damage to the rock was so severe that the Christian kings of Jerusalem placed a protective marble slab over the rock. The marble slab was removed after Jerusalem had been taken over by Saladin in 1187.
Measuring the flat surface as the position of the southern wall of a square enclosure, the west and north sides of which are formed by the low clean-cut scarp at these edges of the rock, at the position of the hypothetical centre is a rectangular cut in the rock that is about 2.5 cubits (min. 120.4 cm SI) long and 1.5 cubits (min. 72.24 cm SI) wide, which are the dimensions of the Ark of the Covenant (according to the Book of Exodus).
The MishnahMishnah, Yoma 5:3. gives the height of the rock as three thumb-breadths (min. 6 cm SI) above the ground. RadbazRadbaz, Responsa 639. discusses the apparent contradiction of the Mishnah's measurements and the actual measurement of the rock within the Dome he estimates as a "height of two men" above the ground. He concluded that many changes in the natural configuration of the Temple Mount have taken place which can be attributed to excavations made by the various occupiers of Jerusalem since the Second Temple construction.
An early Christians source noting Jewish attachment to the rock may be found in the Itinerarium Burdigalense, written between 333 and 334 CE when Jerusalem was under Roman Empire rule, which describes a "perforated stone to which the Jews come every year and anoint it, bewail themselves with groans, rend their garments, and so depart."
According to the sages of the Talmud,Tractate Yoma 54b. it was from this rock that the world was created, itself being the first part of the Earth to come into existence.Vayechi 1:231. According to the Talmud, it was close to the Foundation Stone, on the site of the altar, that God gathered the earth that was formed into Adam. It was on this rock that Adam—and later Cain and Abel and Noah—offered sacrifices to God. Jewish sources identify this rock as the place of the Binding of Isaac mentioned in the Bible, where Abraham fulfilled God's test to see if he would be willing to sacrifice his son. The mountain is identified as Moriah in Genesis 22. It is also identified as the rock upon which Jacob dreamt about angels ascending and descending on a ladder and consequently consecrating and offering a sacrifice upon.Rashi, Genesis 28:11.
The Roman-era midrash Tosefta Yoma 2:12; Jerusalem Talmud Yoma 5:3; Talmud Yoma 54b; PdRK 26:4; Leviticus Rabbah 20:4. sums up the centrality of and holiness of the site in Judaism:
When, according to the Bible, King David purchased a threshing floor owned by Araunah the Jebusite,, it is believed that it was upon this rock that he offered the sacrifice mentioned in the verse. He wanted to construct a permanent temple there, but as his hands were "bloodied", he was forbidden to do so himself. The task was left to his son Solomon, who completed the Temple in .
Toledot Yeshu reports that "It was called Shetiyya because God placed it there (שת אותה יה; cf. Zohar, Vayechi 43), and this is the stone which Jacob libated with wine. On it were written the letters of the Shem HaMephorash, and anyone who knew them could perform magic to his heart's desire. The Sages feared lest youths obtain the Name and destroy the world, so they set two iron hounds at the gate, which would bark at any comer to cause him to forget what he had learned. But Jesus wrote the Name on parchment, cut open his thigh, and hid it beneath his skin. The dogs barked at him and caused him to forget the Name, but later he retrieved the parchment from his thigh and relearned it." In the words of the , "The world was not created until God took a stone called and threw it into the depths where it was fixed from above till below, and from it the world expanded. It is the centre point of the world and on this spot stood the Holy of Holies."
Citing this, the Mishnah Berurah, 551:7, 8. rules that not only are women not to prepare or attach warp threads to a weaving loom, but it is forbidden for anyone to make, buy or wear new clothes or shoes from the beginning of the week in which Tisha B'Av falls until after the fast, and that people should ideally not do so from the beginning of Av. This period is known as The Nine Days.
In further commemoration of the Foundation Stone, it is also forbidden to eat meat or drink wine from the beginning of the week in which Tisha B'av falls until after the fast. Some have the custom to refrain from these foodstuffs from Rosh Chodesh Av, while others do so from the Seventeenth of Tammuz.This is derived from the fact that another version of the same piece of Talmud reads: "למישתייה חמרא" "(to refrain) from drinking wine". This follows the version recorded by Hai Gaon. It is brought down by the Kolbo, Halakha Tisha B'Av, and Machzor Vitri 263.
During Sukkot, the following references to the Foundation Stone are mentioned in the Hoshanot recital:
Tawfiq Canaan, in 1922, recorded a local tradition that describes four living waters flowing from under the rock. To the south: Hammam esh-Shifa, to the east: Siloam, to the north: 'En Haddji and En Qashleh, and to the west: Hammam es-Sultan.
Beneath the Foundation Stone is a cavern known as the Well of Souls. It is sometimes thought of as the traditional hiding place of the Ark of the Covenant.
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