The Beit Ha'Miqdash

The Beit Ha'Miqdash

There are some 18 commandments in this section of the Torah, all having to do with the Temple, and the Levi'im. 18 is the equivalent of the Hebrew word Chai חי (life), comprised of the letters Chet (8) and Yod (10). Here are the 18 commandments:

To skip the Scriptures, click here...but why would you want to?

Sh’mot 25:8
⁸They shall make a Sanctuary for Me¹ — so that I may dwell among them —
Vayikra 19:30
³⁰My Sabbaths shall you observe and my sanctuary shall you revere — I am HASHEM .
(It is very interesting how God includes observance of Sabbath in the same sentence with reverence to His sanctuary. ^ak)

Commandment 315
B’midbar 18:3
³They shall safeguard your charge and the charge of the entire tent — but to the holy vessels and to the Altar they shall not approach, that they not die — they as well as you. ⁴They (the Levi) shall be joined to you and safeguard the charge of the Tent of Meeting fro the entire service of the Tent, and an alien shall not approach you.

Commandment 314
B’midbar 18:23
²³The Levi himself shall perform the service of the Tent of Meeting, and they shall bear their iniquity, an eternal decree for your generations; and among the Children of Israel they shall not inherit a heritage.

Sh’mot 30:19
¹⁹From it, Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands together with their feet.

Sh’mot 27:21
²¹In the Tent of Meeting, outside the Partition that is near the Testimonial-tablets, Aaron and his sons shall arrange it from evening until morning, before HASHEM, an eternal decree for their generations, from the Children of Israel.

B’midbar 6:22-27
    ²²HASHEM spoke to Moses, saying, ²³“Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying: ‘So shall you bless the Children of Israel, saying to them:
²⁴May HASHEM bless you and safeguard you;
²⁵May HASHEM illuminate His countenance for you and be gracious to you.
²⁶May HASHEM lift His countenance to you and establish peace for you.’
²⁷Let them place My Name upon the Children of Israel.”

Sh’mot 25:30
³⁰On the Table shall you place the show-bread before Me, always.

Sh’mot 30:7
⁷Upon it shall Aaron bring the spice incense up in smoke, every morning, when he cleans the lamps he shall bring it up in smoke.

Vayikra 6:2-3(9-10)
²⁽⁹⁾Command Aaron and his sons, saying, ‘This is the law of the Olah-Offering: It is an Olah-Offering [that stays] on the flame, on the Altar, all night until the morning, and the fire on the Altar should be aflame on it. ³⁽¹⁰⁾The Kohen shall don his fitted linen Tunic, and he shall don linen breeches on his flesh; he shall separate the ash of what the fire consumed of the Olah-Offering on the Altar, and place it next to the Altar.’

Commandment 326
B’midbar 5:1-3
     ¹HASHEM spoke to Moses, saying: ²Command the Children of Israel that they shall expel from the camp everyone with tzara'at, everyone who has had a zav-emission, and everyone contaminated by a human corpse.

Commandment 327
³Male and female alike shall you expel, to the outside of the camp shall you expel them, so that they should not contaminate their camps, among which I dwell.

Vayikra 21:8
     ⁸You shall sanctify him, for he offers the food of your God; he shall remain holy to you, for holy am I, HASHEM , Who sanctifies you.

Sh’mot 28:2
²You shall make vestments of sanctity for Aaron your brother, for glory and splendor.

Commandment 312
B’midbar 7:9
⁹And to the sons of Kohath he did not give; since the sacred service was upon them, they carried on the shoulder.

Commandment 307
Sh’mot 30:31
³¹You shall speak to the Children of Israel, saying: ‘This shall remain for Me oil of sacred anointment for your generations.’

Commandment 317
D’varim 18:6-8
     ⁶When the Levi will come from one of your cities, from all of Israel, where he sojourns, and he comes with all the desire of his soul to the place that HASHEM will choose, ⁷then he shall minister in the name of HASHEM , his God like all of his brethren, the Levi, who stand there before HASHEM . ⁸Portion for portion shall they eat, except for what was transacted by the forefathers.

Vayikra 21:1-3
   ¹HASHEM said to Moses: “Say to the Kohen'im, the sons of Aaron, and tell them: Each of you shall not contaminate himself to a [dead] person among the people, ²except for the relative who is closest to him, to his mother and to his father, to his son, to his daughter, and to his brother; ³and to his virgin sister who is close to him, who has not been wed to a man; to her shall he contaminate himself.

For the people of Yisra'el, when the Kohen would perform any of the duties above, a carefully positioned watcher would alert a man called the Shaliach Tzibbur, who would give a signal to the congregants (The Kohen would, for some of these duties, be out of the sight of the congregation). The people would respond "Omeyn!", and it was considered the same as if the entire congregation had fulfilled the mitzvot's obligations. This has, of course, Messianic overtones (see the article The High Priest).

Should you try to build a Temple, or Tabernacle? NO! The command is that the building is to be placed where HASHEM has chosen for his Name to dwell, and that back in Sh’mu’el Rishon was chosen as Jerusalem.

Ok. Great. But I'm not a Levi, much less a Kohen. There is no Temple, no altar, no brass laver, no Holy place and definitely no Holy of Holies. So what's the point? How does this affect me as a believer? How then are these commandments fulfilled? Where is the place that God has placed His Name? If this place of worship exists, for what are we looking?

We have to begin answering these questions by asking a question (sounds like a typical Jew right?). Has God ever been without an altar? Our answers come from the Torah and the B'rit Chadashah. Let's start with a little history of altars.

B’reshit 4:3 B’reshit B’reshit B’reshit B’reshit

B’reshit e 26:25 B’reshit 33:20 B’reshit 35:1-7

Now let's look at the original instructions to Moshe. Vayikra chapters 25 through 40 cover the pattern for the design and construction the Tabernacle, the furnishings of the Tabernacle, the garments for the Kohen and the consecration of the Kohen. Three times Moshe is given the admonition to construct the Tabernacle according to the pattern show him:

Sh’mot 25:9
⁹like everything that I show you, the form of the Tabernacle and the form of all its vessels; and so shall you do.
Sh’mot 25:40
⁴⁰See and make, according to their form that you are shown on the mountain.

Sh’mot 26:30
³⁰You shall erect the Tabernacle according to it manner, as you will have been shown on the mountain.

Stephen spoke of the Tabernacle thus:

Acts 7:44-47
⁴⁴Our fathers had the Tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, as He appointed, instructing Moshe to make it according to the pattern that he had seen, ⁴⁵which our fathers, having received it in turn, also brought with Y’hoshua into the land possessed by the goyim, whom God drove out before the face of our fathers until the days of David,⁴⁶who found favor before God and asked to find a dwelling for the God of Jacob.⁴⁷But Sh'lomo built Him a house.

M’lakhim Rishon chapters 5 through 9 and Divrei-HaYamim Shanee chapters 1 through 7 describe a great portion of the Temple constructed by Sh'lomo. We are confronted with the fact that there is a less detailed account of the construction of the Temple than that of the Tabernacle. This lack of detail is because much of the furniture follows the pattern given to Moshe and exact details are not necessary because once the pattern of God has been given it need not be repeated.

Jewish life in Biblical times was centered around the Temple, beginning with Sh'lomo, and ending in 70 CE, when it was destroyed. We see in the TaNaKh that even in the Babylonian captivity, the Jewish people were focused on their Temple. Between the efforts of Zerubabbel, Ezra, and Nechemyah, the second Temple was built (although later, Herod would of course try to enlarge it and make it more magnificent). So what do we do about a place to worship? Our favorite Rabbi, Sha'ul, makes some very interesting observations about the Temple of God:

Corinthians Rishon 3:16
¹⁶Do you not know that you are the Temple of God and the Ruach [Spirit] of God dwells in you?¹⁷If anyone defiles the Temple of God, God will destroy him. For the Temple of God is holy, which you are.
Corinthians Rishon 6:19
¹⁹Or do you not know that your body is the Temple of the Ruach Ha'Kodesh who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?

Corinthians Rishon 9:13
¹³Do you not know that those who minister the holy things eat of the things of the Temple, and those who serve at the altar partake of the offerings of the altar?

Corinthians Shanee 6:16-18
¹⁶And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said:

unto you and you will be a people unto Me. Vayikra^{26:12; Yirme’yahu 32:38;
Yechezk’el 37:27}

^{17Therefore

“Come out from among them And be separate, says
HASHEM
. Do not touch what
is unclean, And I will receive you.” ^{Yesha’yahu 52:11;
Yechezk’el
20:34, 41}

¹⁸“I will be a Father to you, and you shall
be My sons and daughters, says HASHEM
Almighty.” ^{Sh’mu’el Shanee 7:14}}

If WE are the Temple of God then some interesting aspects of Scripture come into play. The worship that takes place inside our Temple must also be in accordance to the pattern shown Moshe.

A question you might be asking by now would be "What about all those sacrifices? Are we still supposed to do them? If so, How?" Some would tell you that these fall under the category of not being able to keep without the Beit Ha'Miqdash. How do we get that?

Vayikra 17:8-9
⁸And to them you shall say: Any man of the House of Israel of the proselyte who shall dwell among you who will offer up an Olah-Offering or a feast-offering,⁹and he will not bring it to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting to perform service to HASHEM — that man shall be cut off from the midst of his people.’
Commandment 369
D’varim 12:11
¹¹It shall be that the place where HASHEM, your God, will choose to rest His Name — there shall you bring everything that I command you: your Olah-Offerings and your feast-offerings, your tithes and what you raise up with your hands, and the choicest of your vow offerings that you will vow to HASHEM .

The following pages concern the sacrifices and offerings, all of which cannot be done without the Beit Ha'Miqdash (or can they?). So we await again the rebuilding of the Temple, that we may share in its mitzvot by assenting, "Omeyn." Baruch Haba B'shem HASHEM (Blessed is He Who comes in the Name of HASHEM )!

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¹ The Sanctuary was to be a structure for Me, i.e. dedicated to God's service (Rashi). Elegant synagogues are meaningless unless they are built for the sake of God.