GATEWAYS TO TORAT HAYIM

 
CONNECTING TO JEWISH LIVING WISDOM RESOURCES

 

When the Cracks Appear, Let the Light Enter

by Jacobson, Rabbi YY

“What was missing with these [first two] Temples?

 

The Zohar…explains that the first two Temples were edifices built by human hands, and thus subject to the mortality of everything human. Just as man is by definition limited, all of his accomplishments and feats are limited, and hence they were both destroyed.

 

Only by destroying the human Temples was the groundwork laid for a Temple that defies the limits of human mortality, a Temple built by G-d Himself, and therefore indestructible.

 

To make room for a Divine structure, the human structure had to be demolished. The demolition itself was the first phase in the construction of the third and eternal Temple.”