In this week’s parsha we find the commandment to build the Beit HaMikdash (Shemot 25:8). If you were to ask someone “On a scale of 1-10, how much of your daily energy is devoted to the Beit HaMikdash?” you would probably get varying answers.
If you were to ask someone like Eliezer Meir Saidel from the Showbread Institute, Karnei Shomron, Israel who is involved in intense research into the Menachot and the Lechem HaPanim, the answer would probably be in the 8-9 range. If you asked HaRav Yisrael Ariel, head of the Temple Institute in Jerusalem, the answer would be between 9-10.
You are probably saying to yourself “OK, but these are the ‘meshugeners’ – that is their life, their job. Obviously – they will be on the top end of the scale. I’m a regular person just struggling to be a good Jew, to keep the mitzvot as best I can, to be a good person, to help others, to study as much Torah as I can, while supporting my family, running a home …. Not everyone is intended to be actively involved in the Beit Mikdash’!”
In this shiur I would like to present an enormous chiddush – “The 3rd Beit HaMikdash is not going to be rebuilt at some unknown point in the future by someone else. It is going to be rebuilt today, by you!”
If that sounds a little far-fetched, then the next statement is really going to blow you away – “We all already have the 3rd Beit Mikdash, we just don’t realize it, because we do not think of it in that way.’
Allow me to run through a typical day in your life (taking Friday as an example), from a completely different perspective and you will soon understand what I mean.
What time do you wake up in the morning? 3,000 years ago, there was a central municipal “alarm clock” for the entire city of Jerusalem – the humungous golden doors of the Heichal of the Beit HaMikdash – that were designed specifically that when they were opened, they made an enormous CLANG that was so loud, it reverberated throughout the city and woke everyone up, just before the first glimpse of the sun on the horizon, when the Avodah began. If you wake up any time before or around 6:43 a.m. (Netz Hachama – in NYC), you are already with the Beit HaMikdash “program” (if you wake up later than that, you may want to reconsider trying to “get-with-the-program”).
What is the first thing you do when you wake up? Recite Modeh Ani and wash your hands three times on each hand, right? Then the morning “toilette” and again washing, twice on each hand. So far – your daily routine is 1:1 to that of the Kohanim in the Beit HaMikdash 3,000 years ago (back then, the morning “toilette” was down the stairs of the Beit HaMoked, a building just north of the Mizbeach).
Then dressing. You already have your kippah on (Migba’at) from when you woke up. Now, add to that the underclothes (Michnas), tzitzit, the “over clothes,” shirt, pants (Ketonet), socks and shoes (OK, the Kohanim back then were barefoot, but never mind), the belt holding your pants up (Avnet).
You arrive at shul for Shacharit. Wash hands before entering the main sanctuary (Kiyor) (you already washed your feet last night when you showered). You enter the shul with a sense of awe, reciting Mah Tovu, entering and approaching your seat from the right side. tallit, tefillin. (The Kohanim back then in the Mikdash were exempt from tefillin on the arm, but it is a debate whether they wore tefillin on the head or not [Zevachin 19a, Erchin 3b]. Yisraelim/Levi’im most likely wore tefillin all day, for sure in the Beit Mikdash [Bava Batra 60b]).
You recite Korbanot, the Tamid, the Ketoret. The rest of the tefillah, including repeatedly bowing down in the Amidah, Birkat Kohanim (in Israel), Shir Shel Yom.
Back home for breakfast and then beginning to prepare for Shabbat. Help your wife bake/buy the challahs (Lechem HaPanim). Prepare the cholent and the other meals (Korbanot). The fragrances of delicious Shabbat cooking waft through the house and the neighborhood (Ketoret). Set the table (Shulchan). The husband prepares the wicks for the Shabbat candles (Hatavat HaNeirot). Showering for Shabbat (Kiyor). Everyone dresses in Shabbat clothes (Bigdei Kehuna). The wife lights the candles (Menorah).
Shabbat day tefillot (Musafin). Birkat Kohanim (in Israel). Kiddush (Nisuch HaYayin). Mizmor le’Yom ha’Shabbat, Anim Zemirot (Levite choir). Eating Lechem Mishne (Lechem HaPanim). Shabbat meals (eating Korbanot). Zemirot (more Levite choir). Divrei Torah. Mincha (afternoon Tamid).
What I have described above is a typical Friday/Shabbat in a Jewish home – TODAY! I added in brackets the very same things that paralleled it in the Beit HaMikdash 3,000 years ago.
The only factor missing from our current, regular, daily lives that we had 3,000 years ago when Beit HaMikdash existed is – the association!
The reality of the Beit HaMikdash is very much alive and pulsating in our modern Jewish lives, we just don’t acknowledge it as such. To us, it is just the “normal Jewish routine.”
We are already living our lives according to the reality of the Beit HaMikdash! The 3rd Beit HaMikdash has already been rebuilt! It is there in our shuls and in our homes, we just don’t see it, our eyes and minds are focused on other things. All it takes is a tiny shift of mindset, an opening of the eyes, a directing of the thoughts – to make the Beit HaMikdash a reality. It doesn’t require much change in our routine. All it requires is the association and the recognition. It is a tiny thing but it transforms our reality.
The purpose of the Beit HaMikdash was not to erect a fancy building with gold and splendor. It was to create a framework, the infrastructure in which HaKadosh Baruch Hu’s Shechina can dwell – within ourselves.
Parshat HaShavua Trivia Question: What was the function of the Menakiyot on the Shulchan?
Answer to Last Shiur’s Trivia Question: How do we know that reparations for making someone blind are monetary? Rashi (Shemot 21:24) quotes the Gemara (Bava Kama 84) which says so. The letters of ayin (eye) are ayin yud nun. The letters following each of these are peh caf samech – which make the word “kesef” – money.