"May Our Eyes Behold Your Return to Tzion"

In this article we shall try to review testimonies concerning the attitude towards the building of the Mishkan and the Temple, and the Divine service performed in them, among those generations in which the issue was of immediate pertinence. We will examine the attitude of the generations that had to decide whether or not to build a Sanctuary in their days. We will examine the degree to which the Sanctuary was central in the lives of those generations that merited the existence of a Sanctuary in their time. Finally, we will look at testimonies describing the responses of the people to the reality of the Destruction. While our findings will reflect mainly the attitude towards the Sanctuary during the First and Second Temple periods, they may serve as a basis for an understanding of why in our days, too, the importance of building a Temple at the present time is not a matter of consensus throughout the religious Jewish spectrum in Israel and worldwide.