View of Temple Mount / Eastern Gate

This is an update of the earlier post showing the interior of the Temple Mount.

In the foreground on the left is a large building representing the synagogue which was located on the eastern side of the Temple Mount. Just beyond the synagogue is the Sanhedrin courthouse. The other buildings are nondescript offices for Temple personnel.

Floating above the Temple Mount is an array of roof panels. The heights of the panels are staggered so that sunlight can come through, but they still offer enough coverage to shield the majority of the area from the hot summer sun and the winter rains. I have not yet decided if these are to be made of wood and supported by sturdy poles placed throughout the Temple Mount, or if they should be made of canvas and hung from ropes attached to the walls. The picture shows the eastern wall of the Temple Mount, which was lower than the other walls, but on the other three sides the roof panels would be roughly at the same height as the top of the walls, or 40 amos above floor level.

Looking east on the Temple Mount

Spices of the Incense: Karkom (Saffron)

Ground saffron
(americanspice.com)

Twice a day, once in the morning and again in the afternoon, the Kohanim would offer Incense upon the Golden Altar inside the Sanctuary Building. This special blend of spices and other ingredients was prepared by the Avtinas Family in one large batch which lasted an entire year. The Talmud (Kereisos 6a), based upon an Oral Tradition, provides the names and quantities of each ingredient and in this post I would like to focus on the spice known as כרכום [karkom], commonly translated as saffron.

The Talmud records that 16 maneh of saffron were used in compounding the Incense. One maneh is equal to approximately 20 ounces, so 16 maneh would equal 320 ounces, or 20 pounds of saffron. If this does not sound like an inordinate amount of spice, consider how saffron is obtained.

Crocus sativus (common crocus)
with bright crimson stigmas
(Wikipedia)

Saffron is derived from the three bright crimson stigmas [thin stalks] which grow from the crocus flower. After being harvested, dried, and ground, the [modern day] yield of saffron per flower comes to about 0.00025 ounces. At this rate it takes over 4,000 crocus flowers to produce a single ounce of dried spice! For this reason, saffron has come to be known as the most expensive spice in the world.

To produce the 20 pounds of saffron used in the Temple for the Incense, a staggering 1.3 million flowers were needed. Based on modern planting densities used in the Mediterranean (see this article, under "Cultivation"), the amount of land required to grow this many flowers is 12.7 acres. For comparison, the entire Temple Mount (which measures 750 feet by 750 feet) is 12.9 acres. Even though there was a garden located on the western side of the Temple Mount which was used to cultivate the spices of the Incense, it emerges that another, much larger, plot of land was needed where the bulk of the saffron could be grown.

The Beit Hamikdash by Rabbi Zalman Koren

A book newly available in English is Rabbi Zalman Koren's The Beit Hamikdash (Shaar Press, 2010). This large and exquisitely illustrated volume showcases the author's research and model of the Second Temple. It comprises three parts: an introduction to the concept of a Temple and its place in Jerusalem; a detailed description of the Temple structure which incorporates Talmudic and archeological sources; and a walk-through of the Temple model on display in the Western Wall Tunnels. Students of Tractate Middos and the classic Second Temple literature will no doubt find some of the author's conclusions innovative (such as his skewed orientation of the Courtyard walls and the fact that the Women's Courtyard was not perfectly square), but these result from a reading of the Jewish sources which is heavily influenced by the archeology and features of today's Temple Mount. Nonetheless, the account he presents demonstrates a remarkable breadth of knowledge of the literature and is sure to pique the interest of anyone seeking a scholarly approach to the structure of the Temple.

While reading this book over Shavuos I came across the citation of Pesachim 26a which states that R' Yochanan ben Zakkai used to teach the Jewish people in the shade of the Sanctuary Building. The pre-yom tov lectures drew so many people that the Temple study hall could not hold all of them so R' Yochanan had to move the lecture to a large area where everybody could find a seat. The place that he chose was shaded by the Sanctuary Building so that the people could focus on the content of the speech in relative comfort. Rabbi Koren writes (p.121, citing no source) that "it can be easily proven that the only place fitting this description is the plaza situated north of the Chamber of the Hewn Stone and the Temple itself." [In Rabbi Koren's model the Chamber of the Hewn Stone is located at the northwest corner of the Courtyard, so this plaza is just to the north of the Courtyard wall, on the Temple Mount.] Indeed, it does follow that the area under discussion was to the north of the Temple (since that is where the shadow of the Sanctuary Building would pass over the course of the day) but less clear is the fact that this area was on the Temple Mount at all. The primary reason behind this latter contention is that Rashi (ad loc.) writes that the plaza where R' Yochanan gave his lectures was off of the Temple Mount proper but could still be reached by the shadow of the Sanctuary Building since it was so tall and cast its shade a great distance.

My first reaction upon seeing this Rashi was great joy since it seems to support an oft-ignored conclusion of the Talmud Yerushalmi that the Temple Mount (except for the Courtyards) was completely covered by a roof. This being the case, the shadow of the Sanctuary would not have been necessary on the Temple Mount since it was already shaded by its own roof, therefore Rashi concludes that the Sanctuary must have cast its shadow onto an area outside the Temple Mount.

I quickly came to realize that this is not correct. R' Yochanan ben Zakkai lived in the first century CE, during the times of the Herodian Temple. Since Josephus (who provides an eye witness description of that structure) does not mention that the Herodian Temple Mount had a roof, it appears that Herod did not include this feature from the original Second Temple in his edifice. If so, Rashi's motivation for placing the lecture site off of the Temple Mount proper had nothing to do with the Temple Mount roof since such a thing did not exist at that time.

I would suggest that in the Herodian Temple no suitable lecture site was available on the Temple Mount itself since, as had been the case in the original Second Temple, the areas around the Courtyards were filled with the buildings and offices needed to keep the Temple running. However, Herod had expanded the Temple Mount beyond the 500x500 amos of the original structure and this added space may have, in fact, been left as open areas for the public to gather. Thus, when Rashi states that the lectures took place "in the plaza in front of the Temple Mount" he means an area just outside the original, halachically recognized, Temple Mount on the Herodian expansion.

Immersing the Paroches Curtain

The Paroches curtain of the Sanctuary Building had considerable weight and, according to the Mishnah, three hundred Kohanim were needed to assist in immersing it. [All Temple vessels were immersed in a mikveh prior to their first use.] While this number is understood to be an exaggeration, even when the Mishnah exaggerates it still allows for a literal interpretation of its words, as follows: When immersing the curtain it was important to keep it from bunching up or folding over itself which would prevent water from getting into all the folds of the cloth. For this reason Kohanim would be stationed all around the perimeter of the curtain and pull it taut while lowering it into a shallow mikveh that was (at least) 20 amos wide and 40 amos long. It was not necessary to have anyone stand along the top edge, however, since a band of gold fastened to that edge kept it from wrinkling. The remaining three sides had a total length of 100 amos (40+20+40) which is equivalent to 600 handbreadths (6 handbreadths per amah). Since a handbreadth is the size of a fist, 300 Kohanim holding on with two hands would require exactly 600 handbreadths.

The closest I came to experiencing this event was at the Fort McHenry flag raising. When the weather is nice and the winds are just right, the large flag is flown over the fort and all of the guests who are there at the time can participate in raising it. This flag measures 30x42 feet, which somewhat approximates the size of the Paroches (which was 30x60 feet). Not nearly as heavy, though, since this flag is made of lightweight material and is quite thin, while the Paroches was one handbreadth thick and weighed more than an elephant.

Raising the large flag at Fort McHenry in Baltimore, MD

Preview of Temple Mount / Eastern Gate

For my next scene I am working on some of the details of the Temple Mount interior.

Just inside the walls of the Temple Mount ran a cedar-covered portico supported by marble columns, each of which was hewn from a single block of stone and adorned with flowered capitals. The columns stood 25 amos tall and each measured “as wide as three men can reach” which is about 12 amos (18 feet) in circumference. The cedar roof covering this portico extended 30 amos (45 feet) from the inside of the Temple Mount walls and had a fence on top to prevent anyone who might be walking there from falling off.

Aside from this portico which covered the interior perimeter of the Temple Mount, the remaining area of the Temple Mount was also covered by a roof. This roof extended from the inner edge of the portico up to the walls around the Courtyard, leaving the Women’s Courtyard and the Main Courtyard open to the sky. The roof was designed to keep out the heat of the sun in the summer and the rain in the winter and had some sort of openings to let in light.

In the rendering shown below I have started putting many of these elements into place, such as the columns (modelled after those found at Persepolis), the cedar roof above the portico, and the fence around that roof. We are looking at the eastern wall which was lower than the other three walls of the Temple Mount and stood only 26 amos (39 feet) high. This is why it is not visible above the cedar-covered portico. The gate in this wall is the Shushan Gate leading out to the Mount of Olives. The building at the lower left is the Sanhedrin courthouse which was located just inside the eastern gate.

Not (yet) shown is the large roof of Temple Mount proper.

Interior of the Temple Mount, looking east.

(Final) View of Minor Sanhedrin Courthouse

Here is the final rendering of the minor sanhedrin courthouse. Amenities now include fine rugs for the students to sit upon, a fireplace to keep the room warm in the winter, a buffet to sustain the members of the court during long proceedings, and a large wall cabinet where transcripts of each session could be stored.

Major Change to the Minor Sanhedrin Courthouse

Last week I posted a description of the minor Sanhedrin courthouse but have since learned that a major change must be made to the overall design. Rashi to the Mishnah on the bottom of Sanhedrin 36b writes that the three rows of students who sat before the judges also arranged themselves in a semicircle, and this view is followed by Tiferes Yisrael (upon whom my model is based) to Sanhedrin 4:4 §24. The new description is as follows:

In these courts the judges sat on chairs or benches arranged in a semicircle facing south (where the door of the chamber was located) and three rows of 23 students each, also arranged in semicircles one behind the other, sat on the ground in front of the judges. A person is one amah wide which means that each semicircle had a diameter of about 16 amos and a radius of about 8 amos. Thus, from east to west the court would need 16 amos of space (to account for the diameter of the semicircle) while from north to south it needed 19 amos (8 amos for the radius of the judges' semicircle, one amah of space between the judges and students for the witnesses and litigants to enter before the court, 8 amos for the radius of the first row of students, and 2 more amos behind them for the next two rows).

Preview of Minor Sanhedrin Courthouse

The Temple complex housed a total of three courthouses: two minor sanhedrin courts of 23 members each and the Great Sanhedrin of 71 members. The first of these courts was situated on the Temple Mount just to the right (i.e., north) of the Shushan Gate. In these courts the judges sat on chairs or benches arranged in a semicircle facing south (where the door of the chamber was located) and three rows of students, 23 in each row, sat on the ground in front of the judges. Taking into account the space required to seat the judges (their semicircle had a diameter of about 16 amos) and students, and allowing one amah of space between the judges and students where the witnesses and litigants would stand, the minimum dimensions of this chamber were 23 amos wide (east to west) by 12 amos long (north to south).

This is the next scene that I am working on in my virtual Beis Hamikdash model. In the picture here I have just started blocking out the rough dimensions of the room and where everybody will be sitting or standing. The two litigants apparently cannot agree on the size of that fish...

Preparing the Temple for Pesach

In Temple times, the weeks leading up to Pesach included not only preparing the house but the body as well, for anyone who had contracted corpse-tumah had to purify themselves before partaking of the Pesach offering or visiting the Temple. The procedure entailed a one-week quarantine during which the individual was sprinkled with spring water mixed with the ashes of the red cow [parah adumah]. It was not necessary to travel to Jerusalem to do so but rather this could be  carried out in the comfort of one's own city since the family groups [mishmaros] of Kohanim living throughout the land of Israel possessed small, but sufficient, amounts of ashes for this express purpose.

It once happened in the First Temple era during the reign of King Chizkiah that an unprecedented breach of ritual purity caused the festival of Pesach to be delayed a full month (Sanhedrin 12a). One theory as to the source of this tumah is that the skull of Aravnah the Jebusite was discovered beneath the Altar (Tosafos ad loc., based on Yerushalmi Sotah 5:2). [Aravnah was the owner of the threshing floor purchased by King David to serve as the site of the future Temple (II Samuel 24:18-25).]

There are a number of difficulties with this approach:
1) If it was a matter of corpse-tumah, the purification procedure only takes one week, so why was a whole extra month needed?
2) If the remains of Aravnah were causing the tumah, could they not simply be removed from the Temple precincts (where they obviously did not belong) and reinterred elsewhere?
3) Why is it that the skull was only discovered at this point?
4) A closer look at the source in Yerushalmi indicates that this incident of the skull being found occurred in the Second Temple era, not the First Temple era (as Tosafos understand).

The Chasam Sofer (to Sanhedrin 12a) offers a novel historical perspective which addresses each of the above questions. When Aravnah sold his threshing floor to King David he reserved a small portion of his estate for himself and it was there that he was eventually buried. In that region of Jerusalem there were many natural subterranean tunnels and the tumah from Aravnah's tomb made its way through them to the area beneath the Temple. Now, when the First Temple was built King Solomon had taken this into account and he designed the walls in such a way to form a halachic barrier to the tumah which kept it from invading the Temple grounds.

Many years later, the evil King Achaz destroyed the original Altar and built a new one for idol worship in its place, and the extent of his "renovations" was such that it disrupted the halachic barriers put in place by Solomon. When King Chizkiah took office and began to repair the Temple, the tumah from Aravnah's tomb was rediscovered. [Although the Gemara speaks of Aravnah's "skull," Chasam Sofer explains that the term גלגל actually refers to the spreading of tumah underground. See further there.] The remains could not be moved since they were in their rightful place so Chizkiah needed to repair the halachic barriers in order to ready the Temple for use. This, however, was not a simple matter, and he found it necessary to delay the festival of Pesach by one month in order to allow his men time to carry out the repairs.

When the First Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians they razed the building down to its very foundations ["aru, aru, ad hayesod bah"], once again breaking down the barriers which shielded the Temple from the tumah of Aravnah's tomb. The Yerushalmi which indicates that the skull was discovered during the Second Temple era is describing what happened when the Temple was rebuilt by the returnees of the Babylonian exile when they once again had to address the issue of Aravnah's remains.

(Special thanks to R' Nechemiah Feldman for bringing this Chasam Sofer to my attention.)

LEGO® Outer Altar of the Tabernacle

There are many similarities between the Outer Altar constructed for the Tabernacle in the wilderness and the Outer Altar of the Temple in Jerusalem. Both have a one-amah high Yesod (base) around the bottom,  both have keranos (horns) at the four top corners, and both stand 10 amos tall.

The differences between these two altars range from the obvious to the obscure. In the obvious category are all those structural details which make the Tabernacle altar portable, such as the smaller size (it measured just 5 amos to a side, as opposed to 32 amos), the hollow interior which was filled with dirt when the Jews camped and emptied during travel (as opposed to being made of solid stone), the walls being made of wooden planks plated with copper, and the need for poles to carry it.

An interesting fact about the poles is that they were placed just above the midpoint of the Altar, some 6 amos from the ground. Now, most people measure 3 amos from their shoulders to the ground (Meiri to Shabbos 92a) which would make it nearly impossible for anyone to even reach the Altar's poles, let alone carry them on their shoulders. Turns out that the Levites, who carried the Altar, stood 10 amos tall and could easily handle this job (see Shabbos 92a).

Among the more subtle differences is that the Yesod of the Tabernacle Altar went around all four sides. In the Second Temple, due to certain technical requirements which had to do with the location of the Altar with respect to the boundary between the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, there was no Yesod along most of the southern and eastern sides of the Altar. In the wilderness this was not an issue, hence the Yesod could surround the Altar on all four sides.

I assembled a Lego® model of both altars which I usually show together so that people can get a sense of the difference in size between the Tabernacle Altar (which most people are more familiar with from reading about it in the Torah) and the vastly larger altar built for the Second Temple. Below are some pictures of the Tabernacle Altar model. The body of this altar measures about 3 inches to a side and 6 inches tall.

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