Dayeinu - banah lanu es Beis haBechira

1. My wife raised a question on the haggadah I have not yet found an answer to (just when you think you've exhausted all the questions to ask and all the answers to give!)  At the end of Dayeinu we thank Hashem for "BANAH lanu es Beis haBechira," building the Beit haMikdash.  What does this line mean?  The Mikdash is something we built.  It's a mitzvah incumbent upon us to do.  True, we had siyata d'Shemaya, but that's true of everything that we do.  How does this fit with the list of overt miracles and other gifts from Hashem that took no effort on our part listed in Dayeinu?

Parenthetically, see Shibolei haLeket or Yaavetz and you will see (as R' Kasher points out in his Haggadah Shleima) that there is an additional stanza at the end of Dayeinu that we don't have -- one line thanking Hashem for the Mishkan, and then another line to thank Hashem for the Mikdash itself.

2. The decision by Naftali Bennett to bar Jews from the Har haBayit for the duration of Ramadan strikes me as wrongheaded.  A basic functions of any liberal  government is to ensure freedom of worship for its citizens.  If Israel cannot do that, it has de facto ceded sovereignty over of Har HaBayit to the Waqf and set a terrible precedent.  Even if one takes the position that al pi halacha no one should ascend Har haBayit, that does not mean we should allow it to become and enemy fortress right in the heart of our capital city.  Of course I am not there and it's not me who has to face the rioters, so maybe I should not have a say in the matter, but my my feeling is that when it comes to places like Har HaBayit, the State is in effect acting as custodian on behalf of world Jewry, not just its local citizens, and so we all have a say, for whatever our 2 cents are worth. 

3. Interesting article in WSJ written by a psychologist reports (sorry, subscription required to get to the link):  

The answer to whether religion improves morality doesn’t come down to a simple yes or no. That’s because when it comes to morality, the power of religion is more in the doing than in the believing. Studies of religion and health show that identifying with a religion—saying you believe in God or going to worship once a year on Easter or Yom Kippur—means very little. Epidemiological research shows that it is people who live their faith, regularly going to services and engaging in their religion’s rituals, who tend to live longer, healthier and happier lives.