Dedication of Beit HaMikdash

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  1. Eliyahu on Mount Carmel (Part 5)

    Eliyahu's Prayer (Part 2)

    Rabbi Elchanan Samet

    The challenge at Mount Carmel has both a universal significance in determining the true God, a national significance in redefining the national character in the face of foreign influences and Eliyahu’s role in this struggle. Both significances are manifested in Eliyahu’s dual prayer and both are interconnected. The fire falling from the heavens is reminiscent of the fire in the dedication of the Mishkan in the desert and the dedication of Shlomo’s Beit HaMikdash.

  2. Eliyahu on Mount Carmel (Part 5)

    Eliyahu's Prayer (Part 4)

    Rabbi Elchanan Samet

    Content, style and structure come together to emphasize that the verse describing the descent of the fire of God to Eliyahu’s Altar is the climax of the gathering at Mount Carmel.

  3. The Dedication of the Mikdash

    Rabbi Alex Israel

    The Dedication of the Mikdash, the dedication of the Mishkan and Matan Torah at Sinai, the three foundational national events of collective revelation are linked together. This chapter raise several issues rearding the Mikdash:

    • The Mikdash as a place of prayer and a  conduit for all prayer, from near or far 
    • Is the Mikdash a place for God or a place for man?
    • The place of the non-Jew in the Mikdash

    The dedication concludes with God's promise that his sanctity dwelling in the Mikdash is conditional on keeping the Mitzvot. 

  4. The Rise of King Hizkiyahu

    Rabbi Alex Israel

    King Hizkiyahu heralds an exciting period in the kingdom of Yehuda. He is devoted to God and responsive to His prophet. During his reign, Hizkiyahu leads Israel in a religious renaissance and seeks to heal the rift between the kingdom of Israel in the north and the kingdom of Yehuda in the south in the observation of a national Pessah. He repudiates idolatry and dishonors his father Ahaz at his burial to send a strong message to the nation. He dedicates and purifies the Beit Hamikdash and makes learning Torah a national priority.

  5. Yoshiyahu and the Return to God

    Rabbi Alex Israel

    Despite who is father and grandfather were, Yoshiyahu is unsurpassed as a champion of God worship, cleansing the kingdom of its idolatry and returning the nation to God. A process that begins in his youth, it further intensifies with the shocking discovery of the Sefer Torah. The precise identification of this Sefer Torah and its ramifications are debated amongst commentaries. However, the aftermath of this discovery is a purging of idolatry on an unprecedented scope including in the territories of the non-existent Northern kingdom that culminated in a mass celebration of Pessah in Jerusalem.  

  6. The Seventh Month in Nevi'im and Ketuvim

    Elisheva Brauner

  7. The Vision of the Future Temple

    Part 2 - More Concealment than Revelation

    Dr. Tova Ganzel

    The description of the Temple and the city, has some concrete and precise elements, but at the very same time, lacks some very central details.  

    According to Yehezkel's prophecy, the changes in this Temple include not only the outer structure of the edifice, but also fundamental difference in who enters it. This change relates both to the measure of access afforded the people, but also the division of roles among the various leaders of the nation, and the degree to which they are connected to the Temple.

    The impression arising from Yehezkel’s prophecy is that the Temple is not a spiritual center for the entire nation. The Temple serves the kohanim and leviim, who perform their service within it as representatives of the people, while the only roles that are given to the people are the auxiliary functions and appearances: funding of the sacrifices, prostration, and a partial view of the Divine service.

  8. Chagai on Hoshana Rabba and Chanukah

    Shani Taragin | 4 minutes

    In the second chapter of Haggai, Rabbanit Shani Taragin notes how Haggai speaks on days that are significant to us today for different reasons. On the 21st of Tishrei- Hoshana Rabba – Haggai further encourages people to continue building, saying that  God will make this Mikdash great- and provide much – needed rain. Haggai turns to the Kohanim, quizzing the delegated teachers about purity and impurity. The book of Haggai concludes on the 24th of Kislev with a call for a political turnover in addition to the glorification of the Mikdash. Though Zerubavel does not not heed his call, the prophecy continues to reverberate in later generations.

  9. The 24th of the 9th Month - Biblical Hanukka

    Elisheva Brauner

  10. The Second Haftara for Hanukka

    Rabbi Aytan Kadden

  11. The Pessah Sacrifice

    Rabbi Tzvi Sinensky

    The Jews restart the construction of the Beit HaMikdash, but are met with opposition by the locals, who turn to Darius to complain. However, Darius locates Cyrus’ letter, and support the Jews’ right to continue building. The Mikdash is finally completed more than four years later, during the month of Adar, during the sixth year of Darius’ reign. The Jews celebrate the dedication by offering hundreds of sacrifices and appointing the Kohanim and Leviim. Shortly afterwards, after purifying themselves, they offer the Pessah sacrifice on the 14th of Nissan.

    The remarkable resemblances between this Pessah sacrifice and Hizkiyahu’s, as described in Divrei HaYamim, indicates the religious potential of even the most sinful and uneducated of communities. The Jews of Hizkiyahu’s time were largely recalcitrant, to the point that many refused to participate in the sacrifice and celebration. At the time of Ezra, the Jews were similarly unobservant. Yet both communities were swayed, even transformed, under the influence of extraordinary events and historic leadership. Our narratives are testaments to the deep religious recesses of the Jews’ soul, and the capacity of inspired leaders to spark that passion.

  12. From Inside to Outside: Yom Kippur and Sukkot

    Dr. Yonatan Feintuch

    Sukkot follows almost immediately after Yom Kippur and both share in the atmosphere of Tishrei – one of soul-searching, gazing at the year gone by, atonement, and looking towards the future. Still, as we know, these festivals are very different in essence, mood, and in the laws that characterize them.

    In this article I suggest that the two holidays sit at opposite poles of single continuum: one that stretches from inwardness to outwardness.

  13. The Inauguration of the Temple on Sukkot

    Rabbi Yaakov Medan

    King Shlomo inaugurated the First Temple on the festival of Sukkot. It appears that the timing of the event was not coincidental, but rather the result of Shlomo’s intentional planning. Why?

    We find a few possible inspiring factors from the rest of Tanakh, such as that of Hakhel, the Clouds of Glory, and the inauguration of the Mishkan (around the time of Pesach).  We then discuss the inauguration of the Second and future Temples.

    It appears that Shlomo arranged that the Temple inauguration would coincide with the festival of Sukkot in order to emphasize the Temple’s role in bringing the entire world to belief in God via Am Yisrael.