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Essay
The Subterranean Temple
by
Yanki Tauber |
I am asleep, but my heart is awake —Song of Songs 5:2
Our sages tell us that "When King Solomon built the Holy
Temple, knowing that it was destined to be destroyed, he built a
place in which to hide the Ark, [at the end of] hidden, deep, winding
passageways."[i] It was there that King Josiah placed the Ark twenty-two
years before the Temple's destruction, as related in the Book of
Chronicles.[ii]
The Holy Temple in Jerusalem
was built by King Solomon in the year 2928 from creation (833 BCE),
and was destroyed 410 years later, on the 9th day of the month of
Av, by the armies of the Babylonian emperor Nebuchadnezzar. Seventy
years later it was rebuilt; the second Temple stood for 420 years,
until its destruction by the Romans, also on the 9th of Av, in 3829
(69 CE). Ever since, the Av 9 has been a day of fasting and repentance-a
day on which we mourn the Destruction and pray for the coming of Moshiach,
when the third and final Temple will be restored to its place as the
Divine epicenter of the universe.
The Holy Temple was G-d's home, the place in which He chose to
manifest His all-pervading truth. How, then, could it have been
destroyed by human hands? Only because the very structure of the
Temple allowed for this possibility. This is the deeper significance
of the fact that King Solomon built the Holy Temple "knowing that
it was destined to be destroyed" and incorporated into it a hiding
place for the Ark for that eventuality. Had the Temple not been
initially constructed with the knowledge of, and the provision for,
what was to happen on the ninth of Av, no mortal could have moved
a single stone from its place.
The Places of the Ark
The fact that the Ark's hiding place was built into the Holy Temple
from the very beginning also carries another implication: it means
that the first, second and third Temples are not three different
structures, but the continuum parts of a single edifice.
The Ark contained the two tablets of stone, inscribed with the
Ten Commandments by the hand of G-d, which Moses brought down from
Mount Sinai. It was the holiest object in the Temple, and the sole
object in the Temple's innermost chamber, the "Holy of Holies."
Indeed, our sages define the primary function of the Holy Temple
as the housing of the Ark, for the Ark constituted "the resting
place of the Shechinah (Divine presence)."[iii]
Thus, the underground chamber built by Solomon is much more than
another "part" of the Holy Temple. The fact that it was constructed
for the express purpose of containing the Ark means that it is of
a piece with the "Holy of Holies"-the very heart of the Temple and
its raison d'être.[iv]
This is further underscored by the fact that the Ark has remained
in this chamber from the time that it was placed there by Josiah,
twenty-two years before the destruction of the First Temple, to
this very day. This means that for the 420 years of the Second Temple,
the Ark was not in the Holy of Holies, but in its underground chamber.
But if the most fundamental function of the Temple is to house the
Ark, how can there be a Holy Temple without an Ark? Also, at the
time that Josiah hid the Ark, there was not yet any threat to the
Holy Temple or to the Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem, only the
prophetic knowledge that the Temple was destined to be destroyed.
If the essence of the Holy Temple would have been negated by the
removal of the Ark below ground, this would certainly not have been
done until there was actual danger that the Ark might fall into
enemy hands. Obviously, then, the underground hiding place of the
Ark is no less part of the Holy Temple, and no less valid
a place for the Ark, than the (above-ground) Holy of Holies.
In other words, the Holy Temple was initially designed and built
to exist in two states: a revealed state and a concealed state.
Accordingly, there were two designated places for the Ark in the
Holy Temple-the above-ground portion of the Holy of Holies, and
the chamber hidden at the end of "deep, winding passageways." In
its revealed state, the Holy Temple was a beacon of Divine light,
a place where man openly perceived and experienced the Divine presence.[v]
In its concealed state, the Divine revelation in the Holy Temple
is muted, or almost completely obscured. But as long as the Temple
houses the Ark, it continues to serve as the dwelling of G-d.
In the thirty centuries since it was first built, the Holy Temple
has never ceased to fulfill its fundamental function as the seat
of the Divine presence in the world. There were times in which the
entire structure stood in all its glory atop the Temple Mount in
Jerusalem, times in which it existed in a diminished form (as in
the Second Temple Era), and times in which it was almost entirely
destroyed. But a certain part of the Holy Temple has never been
disturbed, and there its heart has never ceased to beat. When the
"Third" Temple will be built, speedily in our days, and the Ark
restored to its above-ground chamber, it will not be a new edifice,
or even a "rebuilding," but a revelation and reasserting of what
has been present all along.
Deep and Winding
"Because we have sinned before You... our city was destroyed, our
Sanctuary laid waste; our grandeur was banished, and the glory departed
from our House of Life; no longer are we able to fulfill our duties
in Your chosen home, in the great and holy house upon which Your
name is proclaimed..."[vi]
As these lines express, the Temple's susceptibility to destruction
is, on the most basic level, a negative thing. Because G-d knew
that we might prove unworthy of His manifest presence in our lives,
He instructed that the Holy Temple be built in such a way as to
allow for periods of diminution and concealment.
But our vulnerability to sin is but G-d's "awesome plot on the
sons of man."[vii]
G-d created us with the capacity to do wrong only to enable us to
uncover "the greater light that comes from darkness"[viii]-to enable us to exploit
the momentum of our lowest descents to drive our highest achievements.
There is much to be achieved through the virtuous development of
our positive potential; but nothing compares with the fervor of
the repentant sinner, with the passion of one who has confronted
his darkest self to recoil in search of light. No man can pursue
life with the intensity of one who is fleeing death.
For centuries the Holy Temple has lain desolate, its essence contracted
in a subterranean chamber deep beneath its ruined glory. But this
terrible descent is, in truth, but the impetus for even higher ascent,
even greater good, even more universal perfection, than what shone
forth from the Temple in its first and second incarnations.
The paths to this chamber are hidden, deep and winding. This is
not the straight and true path of the righteous, but the furtive,
convoluted path of the "returnee" (baal teshuvah)-a path
that plunges to the depths of his soul to unleash the most potent
forces buried therein.[ix]
[i]. Mishneh Torah, Laws of the Holy Temple, 4:1;
Talmud, Yoma 53b.
[ii]. II Chronicles 35:3; Mishneh Torah, loc. cit.
[iii]. Nachmanides' commentary on Torah, introduction
to Exodus 25. See Likkutei Sichot, vol. IV, p. 1346, note 24.
[iv]. Thus the Talmud says that "The Ark was concealed
in its place" (Yoma, ibid.).
[v]. See Exodus 23:17 (as interpreted by the Talmud, Chaggigah
2a), 25:8 and 40:34-35; I Kings ch. 8; Ethics of the Fathers,
5:5; et al.
[vi]. From the Mussaf prayer for Shabbat Rosh Chodesh.
[viii]. Ecclesiastes 2:13 (as interpreted by Chassidic
teaching).
[ix]. Based on an address by the Rebbe, Shabbat Chazon,
5741 (1981), (Likkutei Sichot, vol. XXI, pp. 156-163).
Reprinted with permission from The
Week In Review
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