Tamid Photo Essay in Lego® #18

The Shot

Mopping Up

A Kohen throws the blood of the Tamid offering onto the northeastern corner of the Mizbeyach.

The Story

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Immediately after the Tamid offering was slaughtered, its blood was caught in a cone-shaped receptacle called a mizrak [from the Hebrew word for throw — see next sentence.] The Kohen walked with the mizrak to the northeastern corner of the Mizbeyach where he threw some of the blood against the corner by swinging the mizrak toward the Mizbeyach. He aimed the blood right at the corner so that some of it hit the northern side of the Mizbeyach and some of it hit the eastern side. He then walked to the southwestern corner where he threw the blood in the same fashion. Any blood left inside the mizrak was poured onto the southwestern base of the Mizbeyach where it drained down into the floor and from there into the stream of water flowing through the Azarah. 

The Setup

This shot is modeled and rendered in Bricklink Studio with depth of field added in Photoshop (read more about this process in my introduction). The Kohen's mizrak is a custom piece made by joining an L-handle to a 1x1 cone. Into this I inserted a bar (shown in green for contrast) that holds the mop head (24085), in bright red, to simulate blood in flight. 

I included a number of large baseplates (48x48!) in Luminous Soft Blue overhead for an early morning feel.

The setup is the largest scene I've made so far for this project and it includes a number of significant pieces such as the Mizbeyach, the Heychal Building facade, the entire Butchering Area north of the Mizbeyach, and the two levels of Azarah floor separated by a flight of four steps.

These steps divide the lower Ezras Yisrael (where Yonasan and the Memuneh are standing) from the Ezras Kohanim. The top three steps are known as the duchan where the Leviim would stand while singing and playing musical instruments to accompany the avodah.

This scene also includes a bunch of details that were cropped out of the final shot. The large curtain leading into the Heychal Building is the same one I used inside the Holy in the previous post and is decorated with minifig hands. Above the curtain are wooden beams set into the wall (to help distribute the weight of the heavy stones above them), and in between those beams are rows of decorative stones. At the northern end of the Azarah (right side of the picture) is the outer wall of the Chamber of Hewn Stone. This chamber was hastily placed in my scene and needs to be moved a bit further west so that the door will be lined up with the upper Azarah floor. There is a green 2x2 tile floating around near the bottom of the picture whose significance is deeply mystical (i.e., I have no idea why I put it there).

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