…This claim to our Temple Mount smacks of the Biblical episode in which the Philistines stole the Ark of the Covenant in the belief they had acquired some kind of magical instrument which empowered whoever wielded it. Like the English legend of Excalibur, the stone in the sword. Or like Arabs with their “genie in a bottle,” a power they could use.

Those stupid Philistines did not understand that the Ark contained nothing but words etched in stone, a kind of digest of thousands more words having to do with belief and 613 commandments to perform. The Ark contained no magic wand but the tablets and their words and a direction toward further study and performance and effort. Nothing magical about that at all…