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Question
What is the Temple?
by
Tzvi Freeman |
Answer:
A. The Holy Temple, a.k.a. the Beit Hamikdash (pronounced BAYt hah-MIK-dahsh),
was the football-stadium-sized, multi-level, indoor-outdoor structure
that was the nucleus of Judaism, its’ most sacred site. It stood
atop Jerusalem’s Mt. Moriah. The First Beit Hamikdash was built
by King Solomon in the year 825 BCE and destroyed by the Babylonian
king Nebuchadnezzar in the year 423 BCE. The Second Beit Hamikdash
was built in the year 355 BCE by Jewish returnees from the Persian
Exile, led by Ezra and Nechemiah. In the year 37 CE, King Herod completed
dramatic renovations to the dilapidated Temple, but marauding armies
of the Roman Empire destroyed it in 70 CE, when the current Exile—the
Roman Exile—began.
B. Very little architectural
data about the First Beit Hamikdash has survived, unlike the Second,
about which much was recorded. Both consisted of a tall, majestic,
ornate and geometric hall surrounded by sweeping, stepped courtyards
and castle-like stone walls. The outermost walls described a rectangle
from a bird’s-eye view, within which were the stepped courtyards
and the hall in the upper center. Within its wide courtyards were
vast outdoor floor spaces for the thousands of pilgrims attending
the tri-annual holiday services (Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot), a mighty
altar where thousands of animals and birds were humanely sacrificed,
and storage and staff facilities for the hundreds of on-duty Kohanim
and Levi’im. The hall housed a small incense altar, a ceremonial
bread rack, a menorah, and the Holy of Holies—the small square
room at the back of the hall formed by a wall-to-wall cloth partition,
behind which was stored the Ark of the Covenant. The Holy of Holies
was a space so ethereal that the laws of physics were suspended within
its confines. It was only entered by the High Priest, the most spiritual
human being, on Yom Kippur, the most spiritual day of the year.
C. The Temple’s centrality to Jewish existence is reflected
in the fact that many mitzvot are Temple-related: daily and weekly
sacrifices, holidays and holiday sacrifices, personal, voluntary
and obligatory sacrifices, agricultural tithes, qualifying criteria
for the Kohanim and Levi’im, Temple rituals, and the dos and
don’ts for all of the above—we’re talking around
180 mitzvot.
What was/is the significance of the Temple?
1. The Confused Temple
The problem with the word “temple” is that Indiana Jones
got to it. Today, whenever I say “temple,” I guarantee
you’ll picture jungle, torches, hieroglyphics, dark foreboding
stone entranceways; jungle, dark foreboding stone entranceways overgrown
with jungle illuminated by torches and inscribed with hieroglyphics;
jungle, terrifying supernatural forces and more jungle. And don’t
forget rats, skulls, firepits and the occasional mummy. And jungle.
2. The Real Temple
With the jungle of pop-culture temple jingoism slashed and burned
out of the way, let’s talk G-d’s take on temples. Today,
when you want spirituality, you look inside yourself or at the world
around you, and go to a rabbi to tell you what it is you’re
looking at. Spirituality is wherever you want to find it. Once upon
a time, though, spirituality was sparsely scattered here and there,
and concentrated in one physical place. When you wanted to get spiritual,
you went to that place: the Temple. The Holy Temple was the place
where G-d’s presence throughout the universe could be physically
sensed. When the Temple stood, G-d was real to everyone. You didn’t
have to look anywhere to find Him—you just traveled to Jerusalem
and connected to Him at His Temple. The Temple was a symbol of G-d:
majestic, grand and awe-inspiring because G-d is majestic, grand
and awe-inspiring. It was a shrine to G-d and all the things that
“G-d” means: responsibility, morality, ethics, love, compassion,
humility. It was a place where one found spirituality: the Kohanim
silently serving in awe of G-d beyond words, the Levi’im singing
boisterous songs of love for G-d, the pilgrims fine-tuning their
relationship with G-d, the sights, the sounds. You didn’t have
to be Jewish to go to the Temple—kings and peasants from every
country and culture traveled long distances just to experience it
all. The Temple was the single-most important structure in society,
offering structure to society. Then it got destroyed.
3. The Final Temple
With the destruction of the Second Temple, G-d changed His mode
of interaction with the universe. Until the destruction, the Temple
was the window to G-d; spirituality had a physical home in Jerusalem.
The Kohanim offered the daily sacrifices, the daily routines went
uninterrupted, daily personal prayer was redundant.
With the destruction, G-d destroyed the physical Temple and made
it a spiritual place. He took that window and placed it within us.
Instead of traveling to Jerusalem, G-d wanted us to find Him in
our inner Jerusalem. Now, our bodies are our Temples, our souls
are our windows, our minds are our Kohanim and our animal instincts
are our sacrifices. We cannot offer physical sacrifices three times
a day, but we can pray three times a day. We cannot attend Temple
services three times a day, but we can tap into our souls three
times a day. We cannot atone for our shortcomings by sacrificing
animals, but we can sacrifice our inner animals—our hormones,
our lusts, our desires, our beastly compulsions. We cannot find
G-d in Jerusalem; we must find Him in us.
This was G-d’s Master Plan. By exchanging a sweeping, dramatic
outdoor concert of public spirituality for an internal, personal,
private experience, G-d was bringing Himself even closer to humanity,
laying the groundwork for the Third and final Temple—an age
that will synthesize G-d’s presence inside our hearts and minds
and in the world around us in a totally new reality: the Era of
Moshiach.
Reprinted from AskMoses.com
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