Cities - Jerusalem - The Temple

If you want to know what was so special about the Jewish Holy Temple (after all, these days there are a lot of nice buildings around, much bigger and fancier than the Temple), so then we’ll have to go into a bit of explanation. These days, if we grasp anything G-dly or spiritual, we do so indirectly. In fact, this is what Jewish meditation is all about. We don’t find anybody saying these days, “I saw G-d,” and if we do, we have to start wondering about their emotional state. What we do find is that people instinctively experience the “hand of G-d”, or what is technically called “Divine Providence.” That is, many people find that there’s a guiding hand in their lives, that things are not just functioning according to the law of entropy, or random disorder. However, they only experience the effects, or actions of the spiritual factor, rather than spirituality, or G-dliness itself. They sense that the One Above has a lot to do with their lives, but they don’t literally see G-dliness. In Kaballistic and Chassidic thought, this is called “hearing,” since one who hears something doesn’t necessarily hear it from the source. Presently, this is the main activity of Jewish meditation. What was originally said can be transmitted from one person to another, over a period of hours, days, or years, to the point that the original event becomes unclear. Such is the nature of “hearing” - it is indirect.

Where and when did we experience direct apprehension of G-dliness? In the Holy Temple. The commandment of going to the Temple, which the Jews were supposed to do three times a year, is called re’iya, or "seeing." The Jews were supposed to go to the Temple in order to see G-dliness. The level of spirituality that was on display was openly miraculous, and it imparted inspiration for the entire year. In fact, as the Jews went to see, so were they shown. Whatever spiritual levels they attained by “hearing,” – by meditation on G-d’s creation before they came to the Temple – so they "saw" when they arrived at the Temple. When one sees, one grasps the essence. One doesn’t make a mistake about what he sees, because the impression is direct and unequivocal. (That is why witnesses are acceptable in court, whereas hearsay is not). It can change the person, because, unlike hearing, seeing pervades the person’s entire being and transforms his outlook. Hearing enables a person to know of something else, indirectly, but seeing allows him to grasp the essence of the object. The greatness of the Temple lay in that it enabled people to not only “know of the existence” of G-d through His actions and creations, but it allowed them to “grasp His essence” by seeing the open miracles on display in the Temple.

All of this should give you some idea of the greatness of the Temple, as well as the magnitude of the calamity which befell the Jewish people when the Temple was destroyed. Greater than the physical destruction, suffering and dispersal of the Jews to every corner of the world was the spiritual decline which they underwent. No longer could they “see” G-dliness," now they could only “hear.” Not only that, but they couldn’t practice Judaism in their own land, Israel, which is spiritually conducive to Jewish meditation and “seeing” G-dliness. They had to make do with practicing Judaism in far off lands not at all friendly to Judaism. No wonder that the religious Jew in exile always pined and prayed for the return to Israel and rebuilding of the Temple.

So, since we have now returned, then why haven’t we rebuilt the Temple, and why are we not even allowed up on the Temple Mount, according to Jewish law? A good part of the answer is political, obviously. Since Arab Moslems have established edifices on the Temple Mount, it’s not feasible to replace them with the appropriate Jewish buildings. But, more important than that are the spiritual reasons. Even when the Temple was built and standing in the time of King Solomon, a Jew had to be ritually pure before he could enter the Temple compound. He had to rid himself of the impurity associated with death, something with which all of us have contact. The process of ritual purification is no longer possible, because at the moment we don’t have the necessary materials (the ashes of the red heifer). But even when we did have them, not every person who underwent the purification process could enter every part of the Temple compound. Specifically, the area known as the “Kodesh” was reserved for the priests (the Cohanim) whose job it was to offer the sacrifices on the altar. (The Hebrew word for sacrifice, korban, is from the root lekarev, meaning to draw near. The sacrifices helped draw the Jewish people closer to G-d). Since we don’t know exactly where this area was, the rabbis have made it forbidden to enter the entire compound. Rather than endanger ourselves by treading on holy ground in an impure state, we stay away from the whole area until such time as we are able to be ritually pure and know well the geography of the compound.