Here we are standing on a hill across from the Temple Mount, the topic of this week's blog. The view of Jerusalem today still inspires one's soul!

This week, we will be observing Tisha B’Av the day that commemorates the destruction of the first and second Temples in Jerusalem. Until this summer, when I studied about King Solomon with the Pardes Institute, I must admit that I lacked a real perspective on the Temple. I had always assumed that it was just a building …but it was more than that….it was called the House of G-d and its story is the story of the people of Israel and its relationship with G-d. It was not just a building. When the Temple was destroyed, the people were exiled from the Land. The rebuilding of the Temple was then seen as the restoration of the peoples’ relationship with G-d , not a rebuilding of only a physical entity.

Our national story actually began with the Exodus from Egypt. That’s when we gained our identity as a people that involved the presence of G-d in our midst. We went from being a nomadic people to a people with permanence in the land of Israel. Going to the Land was the goal but there was also a vision for the future. G-d would dwell among the people …there would be an ideal state that would recognize G-d’s sovereignty. The question for the nation became, “How do you maintain that vision and work towards establishing a divine connection with the people?”

During Solomon’s time, non-Jews were also able to learn about the nature of G-d because they had an open invitation to the Temple. In a sense, Judaism went public through the infrastructure of the Temple whose message was that we had to be a nation that others would look up to…so that G-d’s name would be known to all of the Goyim. The belief in G-d was not to be an intellectual acquisition, but to be shown through one’s actions. We believe we were separated from all the other nations in order to funnel the belief in G-d’s demand for tzedek and mishpat (justice and righteousness) to all of humankind. The purpose of our Temple was to encourage all individuals to be holy in their treatment of one another. The goal of Judaism is to make this world a better place, to make G-d look good through our actions. It is a universal message with the goal of having all people be monotheistic. That’s why the Temple was open to all people.

The physical structure of the Temple built by Solomon was designed to give form to our ideals. There were four parts to the Temple…1) the external courtyard where all individuals could gather to offer animal sacrifices on an altar with the help of the Levites; 2) the ulam which acted as a porch which allowed those who officiated as priests to move forward as they focused on the experience of the divine while proceeding on the journey through the building; 3) the heichal was the sanctuary that had 10 menorahs which represented the spiritual light of G-d in our souls and 12 tables for the show bread, which represented physicality. It also housed two altars, one for wine/water/flour/oil that like the soul are fundamental to life and the other for incense since everything in the world will give off a smell when burned. The message of this area was that G-d’s gifts of life provide us with physical and spiritual sustenance; and 4) the Holy of Holies, was the area that could only be entered by the Kohen Gadol, the High Priest. It contained the Ark of the Covenant because the core of our identity is contained in the text of the tablets of law and two kruvim (cherubim), one male and one female, ten cubits tall with a wingspan of 10 cubits that acted as the honor guard to the space devoted to the Glory of G-d.

The symbolism of the Temple was not random. It reminded the people of a key story in the Torah. The Torah starts with the story of the Garden of Eden, a story that ended tragically because the man and woman, Adam and Eve were allowed to eat from every tree in the garden but not from the tree of knowledge in the center of the garden. When they did so, they were driven out of the Garden and two cherubim were stationed East of the Garden to guard the way to the Tree of Life. Some say that the Temple was actually a restoration of Gan Eden created by human hands. The tree of knowledge was represented by the menorah with its trunk and branches that illuminate. It represented recognizing one’s limitations and being submissive to Divine authority. The tree of life is represented by the Holy of Holies that was guarded by the keruvim (the cherubim). If you embrace G-d’s authority and go through all the steps to get to the end of the journey, the tree of life is within your reach…the tablets of the covenant that instruct us how to live our lives…provide us with a sense of G-d’s presence in the world that sustains us both physically and spiritually.

The physical structure of the Temple was designed as a reminder about the origins of feeling at home with G-d. The goal of the Temple was to make the House of G-d our House by inviting the Divine Presence to infiltrate our lives.

The key to understanding the importance of the Temple is to recognize that it was designed to help the people of Israel relate to physical objects in a way that would act as a gateway to their encounter with something that was beyond the physical. The physical objects were designed to give expression to an existence beyond the physical dimension of life. When we mourn the destruction of the Temple we are also mourning the loss of being closer to achieving the messianic vision we have of a future when all individuals on earth will treat each other as children of one G-d. When we speak about rebuilding the Temple in our prayers, we may not be talking about a reconstruction of an actual building, but rather the virtual Temple that reminds us that G-d is with us and the world is full of G-d’s glory. Our prayers to restore the Temple can be seen as a desire to encounter G-d once again by accepting the mitzvoth which will help us reach our destination of not feeling separated from G-d.

Shabbat Shalom.