(2 of 2)
Two Talmudic schools located near the Western (Wailing) Wall are teaching nearly 200 students the elaborate details of Temple service. Other groups are researching the family lines of Jewish priests who alone may conduct sacrifices. Next year an organizing convention will be held for those who believe themselves to be of priestly descent. Former Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren, who heads another Temple Mount organization, believes his research has fixed the location of the ancient Holy of Holies so that Jews can enter the Mount without sacrilege. He insists, "I cannot leave this world without assuring that Jews will once again pray on the Mount."
No group is more zealous than the Temple Institute, whose spiritual leader, 50-year-old Rabbi Israel Ariel, was one of the first Israeli paratroopers to reach the Mount in 1967. "Our task," states the institute's American-born director, Zev Golan, "is to advance the cause of the Temple and to prepare for its establishment, not just talk about it."
During six years of research, the institute has reconstructed 38 of the ritual implements that will be required when Temple sacrifices are restored; it will complete the other 65 items as funds permit. A museum of the completed pieces has drawn 10,000 visitors during the current holy days. In addition to such items as trumpets, lyres and lots, the institute is preparing vestments for the priests-in-waiting. According to Scripture, the clothing must be painstakingly made with flax spun by hand into six-stranded threads.
One difficulty is the requirement (as in Numbers 19: 1-10) that priests purify their bodies with the cremated ashes of an unblemished red heifer before they enter the Temple. Following a go-ahead from the Chief Rabbinate, institute operatives spent two weeks in August scouting Europe for heifer embryos that will shortly be implanted into cows at an Israeli cattle ranch.
As for rebuilding, none of the groups are believed to be stockpiling limestone and marble just yet. For years, however, a miniature Temple model has lured tourists to Jerusalem's Holyland Hotel, and the institute is preparing blueprints for a more authentic replica that will cost $1 million. All money for the various projects will come from Jews; Christian well-wishers are not allowed to contribute.
To rabbis like Jerusalem's Pesach Schindler, such efforts are historically interesting but spiritually superfluous. A member of Judaism's Conservative branch, which shuns Orthodox literalism regarding the Temple, Schindler contends that "religion evolves. We have respect for the past, but it has no operational significance. With the establishment of the state of Israel, we have all our spiritual centers within us. That is where the Temples should be built."
But historian David Solomon insists that a new Temple is essential: "It was the essence of our Jewish being, the unifying force of our people." The Temple Institute's Golan admits it may be a long time before the building rises. "No one can say how, and no one wants to do it by force. But sooner or later, in a week or in a century, it will be done. And we will be ready for it." He adds with quiet urgency, "Every day's delay is a stain on the nation."