Shavuos 2026 at Darchei Tzedek

Why would anyone need a life-size replica of the Outer Altar from the Second Temple? Beside the obvious bragging rights, it makes it much easier to demonstrate how far the Kohanim threw the entrails of the bird olah when it was performed on the southwest corner. And that is just one of the many hands-on demonstrations that were featured in this year's Shavuos night shiur titled: Fascinating Facts from the Daily Avodah.

To bring certain parts of the avodah to life I prepped a large blank wall in the Darchei Tzedek social hall with a life-size silhouette of the Outer Altar using painters tape. Conveniently, the floor tiles in this room are one amah (18 inches) square, so I counted out 32 of them, marked the ends of the Altar, and started rolling tape. The tops of the keranos are ten amos from the ground, or 15 feet high (yes, ladders were needed), and all together I estimate that I used over 80 feet of tape.

A bird olah is normally processed at the Altar's southeast corner while the Kohen stands on the Sovev, but when this corner is busy the bird olah is moved to the southwest corner on top of the Altar. In this case, the Kohen has to throw the crop and some of the feathers clear over the ramp and onto the makom hadeshen, a linear distance of about 31 amos. During the shiur I had a volunteer from the audience throw a bird crop (represented by a red sticky hand party favor) and some feathers (represented by some feathers) from one side of the Altar to the other while the rest of us cheered him on. The young man managed to get the items about two-thirds of the way across - not bad for a first try. Just goes to show how much strength the Kohanim possessed in order to carry out the avodah properly.

Other demonstrations included a minifig-scale Lego® Altar, a 4x8-foot floor plan of the Beis Hamikdash printed on felt (so I can stick little Kohanim on it and move them around as needed), and the crowd favorite: unlocking the armpit door of the Heychal Building using a replica key from Mishnaic times.

Over yom tov the Altar silhouette generated much animated discussion among the shul goers, with some people even voting to keep it up year-round. Sadly, this exhibit was only temporary and is no longer upon the walls, but who knows, if we can find a sponsor then next year we can really evoke some zeicher lechurban feeling with a Jerusalem stone mural.

Image generated by AI