New Class: Tour of the Temple

Starting after Pesach I will be giving a 15-part email class called Tour of the Temple on the basic structure of the Beis Hamikdash. This class is being given in conjunction with Project Genesis and you can find a link to the information page here. Click Subscribe at the top of the page to sign up. Each class will also be posted to this blog.

Eating Chametz and Matzah Together

In the Mah Nishtanah at the Pesach Seder one of the questions asked is why on this night we eat only matzah whereas on other nights we eat both chametz and matzah. The question about this question is when, exactly, do we eat chametz and matzah together? Was this so common that a child would see the lack of chametz at the Seder as unusual and be moved to ask about it?

In the times of the Beis Hamikdash when people regularly brought korbanos they were used to following the regulations regarding the consumption of sanctified food. All those partaking of the food had to be tahor and the food had to be eaten within a certain period of time. Now, for most korbanos, the amount of food that had to be eaten, and the time limit for eating it, was quite manageable. There was one exception, however, and that was the Todah [thanksgiving] offering. This offering was accompanied by 40 loaves, 30 of which were unleavened (matzah) and 10 of which were leavened (chametz) and all of these had to be eaten in one day! The Torah purposely made it difficult for the person bringing a Todah to eat it all himself, forcing him to invite many friends and family members to the meal to help him consume all of the sanctified food in time. During the meal he would share the story of why he was bringing a Todah offering and this would lead to a sanctification of God's Name since so many people would recognize the kindness that God showed this individual.

Now, a child at the Seder would see a large group of people gathered for the consumption of an offering (the Korban Pesach, in this case) but would notice that only matzah was being served. He would find this odd, since at all the other large gatherings he had attended throughout the year when offerings were being consumed (namely, when his family was invited to someone's thanksgiving meal) there had been both chametz and matzah on the table at the same time. Hence the question.

(I do not have a direct source for this. Someone just told it to me in shul this Shabbos. Any ideas?)

Lego® Mizbeach Models

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to bring my Lego^® brick models of the Mizbeach to my son's fourth grade class at the Talmudical Academy. They had just finished learning about the Mishkan and so I came to show them what the Outer Mizbeach of both the Mishkan and Beis Hamikdash looked like and to point out some of the differences and similarities. The boys really enjoyed the talk and asked lots of good questions. One of them even offered to bring me a whole bag full of Lego^® bricks so that I can build more of the Beis Hamikdash!

Lego^® is a trademark of the LEGO Group of companies which does not sponsor, authorize or endorse this site

A Fuller Picture of the Kiyor

   The Kiyor [Laver] was a copper vessel which held the water used by the Kohanim to sanctify their hands and feet in preparation for the sacrificial service. It was used in the Tabernacle as well as in the First and Second Temples, although this Kiyor is not described in any great detail in the Scriptural or Talmudic sources.

   In the First Temple Solomon constructed ten additional lavers which are described as containing 40 bas (a volume equivalent to 9 cubic amos — Ralbag) of water and standing 4 amos tall (I Kings 7:38). Malbim provides further details of these lavers: the top section of the laver was cylindrical, 1¾ amos in diameter and 2½ amos tall; the bottom section was square, 1¾ amos wide and 1½ amos tall (all the numbers given here are the outer dimensions). Now, Rashi (to II Chronicles 4:6) writes that that these ten lavers were built "in addition to that of Moses," which to me implies that they were exact replicas of the Kiyor that Moses made for the Tabernacle, just as Solomon's ten copies of the Menorah and Shulchan [Table] were exact copies of the originals. I therefore model the Kiyor of the Second Temple after Malbim's description of Solomon's lavers. Here is an image of what the Kiyor would have looked like:

View of Goolah Chamber

This is the interior of the Goolah Chamber located near the northeast corner of the Courtyard. A bucket was lowered via a pulley into a cistern to bring up sweet, clean water which the Kohanim would pour into a basin ("goolah") and then use for drinking and cooking. I (mistakenly) included a stool in the lower left corner of this rendering, although Kohanim were actually not permitted to sit here since this chamber was within the consecrated confines of the Courtyard. The only people allowed to sit in the Courtyard are kings descended from the House of David.

Model Mikdash in Mexico City

I just came across this site which features a large-scale model of the Beis Hamikdash built in Mexico City. The site is in Spanish but you can have Google translate it for you, or just look at the pictures.

Formula page for slope of temple walls

These are the formulas that belong in the original post right after the diagram. I couldn't find a way to copy and paste the formulas from my OpenOffice document into the post field so I have a link to the formula page here.

Maseches Middos Mefureshes

I was recently introduced to this sefer called מסכת מדות מפורשת (Bnei Brak, 5765) written by R' Meir Yehoshua Bogard.
   It contains the text of the Mishnah with a running commentary anthologized from a few sources, primarily Tiferes Yisrael. The author also adds some more in-depth insights along the bottom on certain topics discussed in the main commentary. Inside the front and back covers are some nice photos of two recent models of the Mikdash (along with contact info) and in the back of the sefer are floorplans of the Mikdash, including a reprint of the floorplan from an old Yachin and Boaz Mishnayos.
   Although not everything in the commentary is annotated to my liking, it does give a good explanation of the masechta and would be a step up for someone who already went through the Kehati.

View of the music chambers

Here is a rendering of the music chambers located beneath the Courtyard. The Leviim would store their musical instruments here and also practice their singing and playing.

Slope of the Temple Walls

   The Gemara (Yoma 28b) states that the earliest time we may recite the Minchah prayer is "when the [eastern] faces of the walls begin to darken." At face value this means that the prayer may be recited immediately after solar noon, for at that point the sun has passed into the western half of the sky which causes a shadow to fall over the eastern faces of the walls, thus "darkening" them. The Gemara goes on to demonstrate that in practice, however, this is not the case. We have as a general principle that our prayers correspond to the tamid offerings brought in the Temple, and that the time period allowed for the Minchah prayer is identical to that allotted for the afternoon tamid offering (Berachos 26b). If so, the afternoon tamid may also be brought "when the [eastern] faces of the walls begin to darken" yet we find that the earliest permissible time for the afternoon tamid is half an hour past noon. [When the Gemara speaks of "half an hour," it refers not to standard 60-minute hours but to שעות זמניות, solar hours. A solar hour is calculated by dividing the total amount of daylight hours — sunrise to sunset — into twelve parts, and each part represents one solar hour.] The Gemara (Yoma loc. cit.) suggests that there is no contradiction here because — unlike standard walls — the eastern faces of the Temple walls only fell into shadow at half an hour past noon. Rashi explains that this resulted from the Temple walls being thicker at their base than at their top; since they tapered as they rose, the sun continued to shine on their eastern faces even past noon, and only at half an hour past noon did the eastern faces finally darken in shadow.

   The commentators explain that the Temple walls were purposely built in this fashion to ensure that the afternoon tamid offering not be brought too early (see Tos. Yeshanim to Yoma loc. cit. and Rabbeinu Tam, Sefer Hayashar §308.). [They understand that the tamid offering could, in theory, be brought immediately after noon. By building the Temple walls as described above, it created a buffer of half an hour to safeguard against bringing the offering earlier than noon.] Since the movement of the sun varies with the seasons, the length of a solar hour also changes throughout the year. One might think that the walls must be designed so that their eastern faces will darken at half (of a solar hour) past noon on any day of the year. This is not necessary, for the only time that the tamid offering was permitted to be brought as early as half past noon is when erev Pesach falls out on Friday and enough time must be allowed after the tamid for the multitude of Pesach offerings to be brought and roasted before the onset of Shabbos. As a result, the Temple walls were designed to darken at half past noon specifically on the fourteenth of Nisan (the approximate date of the Spring equinox). [Although this phenomenon was meant to be observed on interior of the Courtyard 's western wall – for the benefit of those standing in the Courtyard – the text of the Gemara indicates that all of the walls were designed in the same fashion.]

   The position of the sun at half an hour past noon on the Spring equinox in Jerusalem is a readily-quantifiable phenomenon, making it possible to estimate the slope of the walls of the Temple.

Background

   Sunrise and sunset times can be generated mathematically for any date and location on earth, and from this data it is possible to calculate the time of solar noon as well as the length of the solar hours. Dividing the length of a solar hour in half and adding it to the time for solar noon yields the time of day (in local time) at which the sun is at half past noon.

   It is also possible to mathematically pinpoint the position of the sun in the sky relative to any given location on earth for any time and date. This position is given by two angles, azimuth and elevation, where azimuth is the angle between true north and the point on the horizon directly below the sun, and elevation is the angle between the line to the center of the sun and the horizontal plane. See diagram:

Knowing the azimuth and elevation angles of the sun at half past noon will allow the slope of the Temple walls to be calculated.

(I could not paste the formulas into this post, but they appear here)

Data for Jerusalem

   The following set of data was generated/calculated for Jerusalem using the coordinates of the Temple Mount of 31° 46’ (31.7781) N and 35° 14’ (35.2353) E and an elevation angle at sunrise/sunset of -0.8° on the Spring equinox (actual date used was March 21, 2007):

Sunrise¹ 5:42

Sunset¹ 17:51

Solar Noon² 11:46

Half past noon² 12:16

Azimuth at half past noon¹ 193.9º

Elevation at half past noon¹ 57.6º

¹ Generated from U.S. Naval Observatory (http://www.usno.navy.mil/USNO/astronomical-applications/data-services/alt-az-world, accessed 9-26-10)

² Calculated

Results

   Using a relative azimuth angle of 13.9º (193.9 - 180) for α and an elevation angle of 57.6º for δ, the slope of the Temple walls is calculated to be 8.67º from the vertical.

View of the Chamber of Receipts

This is a view of the interior of the Chamber of Receipts located within the Hall of the Fire (Beis Hamoked). Here the Kohanim would sell receipts which entitled the purchaser to certain amounts of oil, flour, and wine which accompanied their sacrifices.