This week’s parasha is Pinchas and begins with God’s blessing to Pinchas for putting an end to the immorality conducted by the Israelite men with the Midianite women. Following this, the Torah describes another census, then the incident with the five daughters of Tzelafchad, the appointment of Joshua to succeed Moses, and ends with a long list of holidays and the sacrificial offerings to be brought on those days. Elsewhere in the Torah, we read that these sacrifices must be brought only in the one specific place God chooses (Deuteronomy 12:11).

In the Wilderness, and several centuries after, this place was the Mishkan, the “mobile sanctuary”, or tabernacle. Around the first millennium BCE, King Solomon built a permanent sanctuary in Jerusalem which would be known as the First Temple. After the Babylonians destroyed it, a Second Temple was built on the same spot, and was itself destroyed by the Romans around 70 CE. According to tradition, both destructions occurred following the 17^th of Tammuz and culminated on the 9^th of Av, hence the period of mourning known as the “Three Weeks” which we find ourselves in now. This is the basic history of the Holy Temple that most are familiar with. In reality, the Temple’s history has many more hidden secrets and intriguing ups and downs.

Mishkan, First Temple, and “High Places”

The Talmud (Zevachim 118b) recounts the history of the Mishkan. It was constructed under the leadership of Moses, Betzalel and Aholiab and erected a year after the Exodus. Once in Israel, the Mishkan was in the city of Gilgal for 14 years, during which time the Holy Land was conquered from the Caananites and divided up among the tribes of Israel. Once the conquest was complete, the Mishkan was moved to Shiloh, where it stood for 371 years. Finally, it spent 57 years in the towns of Nov and Gibeon until the Temple was built (480 years after the Exodus, based on I Kings 6:1).

The epicentre of the Mishkan was the Holy of Holies, which contained the Ark of the Covenant. However, towards the end of the period of Judges, the Ark was removed from the Mishkan and taken into battle against the Philistines in the hopes of bringing about a miraculous victory. No victory was had; the Israelites were defeated, suffered the deaths of the sons of Eli the Kohen Gadol, Hofni and Pinchas (not to be confused with the Pinchas of this week’s parasha), and lost the Ark of the Covenant to the Philistines. The Ark and the Mishkan would never reunite again.

King David later brought the Ark back to Jerusalem and placed it in a special tent, while the Mishkan remained in Gibeon. We see that at this point sacrifices were actually brought in both locations – David brought offerings before the Ark in Jerusalem (II Samuel 6:17), while offerings were also brought on the actual altar in Gibeon (I Kings 3:4). In fact, the Tanakh tells us that before the Temple, people brought offerings and sacrifices in various “high places” across the country (I Kings 3:2), and not just the one place “that God chooses”.

It was King Solomon who first attempted to centralize the sacrificial rituals in Jerusalem. Not surprisingly, people continued to offer sacrifices across the country instead of trekking all the way to the Holy City. Following Solomon’s death and the split of the kingdom in two, Jeroboam (king of the northern, “Israelite” kingdom) built two more temples – in the cities of Dan and Beit-El. These two temples quickly turned idolatrous, with Golden Calves being the centre of worship. The Temple in Jerusalem also turned idolatrous shortly after, with worship of Asherah trees being particularly common (I Kings 14:23, II Kings 21:7). The Talmud (Yoma 9b) tells us that it was primarily because of this idolatry that the Temple was destroyed.

While everyone knows how the Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians, it was actually sacked and emptied out long before that. Just five years after Solomon’s death, the people of Judah descended into so much idolatry that God sent the Pharaoh Shishak (or Sheshonq) against them. Shishak took away all of the gold and treasure from the Temple, and King Rehoboam (Solomon’s son) replaced what he could with essentially brass replicas (I Kings 14:25-28). So, the First Temple only lasted with all of its original holy vessels for about 35 years, since it was completed in the 11^th year of Solomon’s 40-year reign (I Kings 6:38). For its remaining three and a half centuries, it was only a hollow shell of Solomon’s Temple, with counterfeit vessels, and lengthy periods of rampant idolatry.

Meanwhile, the Ark of the Covenant appears to have been taken by Shishak as well, since it is no longer mentioned in the Tanakh, except for one reference in II Chronicles 35:3, which describes how Josiah purified and rebuilt Solomon’s Temple. The corresponding passage in II Kings 23 does not mention the Ark. Some suggest that Solomon hid the original Ark somewhere in the Temple Mount, knowing that the kingdom would fall apart after his death. Josiah brought the Ark back from this secret location temporarily, before hiding it again so that the Babylonians could not carry it away (Keritot 5b). Some believe the original Ark is still hidden away deep below the Temple Mount.

The Second (Third, Fourth, and Fifth) Temple

Soon after the destruction of the First Temple, the Persians conquered the Babylonians, and Cyrus the Great permitted the Jews to return to Israel and rebuild their temple. When they came (about 50,000 altogether), the Jews met resistance by the Samaritans. These people claimed to be the original Jews that remained behind while the majority of Jews were taken to Babylon (and Assyria before that). The Babylonian Jews claimed that the Samaritans were imposters, foreigners from another land that were settled in Israel by the Assyrians. The Talmud calls them Kutim, from the place in Iraq where they are said to have originated.

The Samaritans had their own temple erected on Mt. Gerizim, which they consider the original holy mountain (as opposed to Mt. Moriah, where the temples stood). The Samaritans resisted the new Jewish arrival, and prevented them from rebuilding the Jerusalem temple for a while. Ultimately, the Second Temple was built, and the Samaritans would slowly be forgotten. A small number still exist today, and hold on to their traditional beliefs. They still claim to be the original Israelites and “Guardians of the Ark”, and insist that Mt. Gerizim is the holy mountain. Archaeological evidence shows that an elaborate temple dedicated to Hashem did exist on Mt. Gerizim as far back as the 5^th century BCE. The temple was destroyed around 128 BCE by the Maccabee warrior-king and high priest John Hyrcanus (Yochanan Hurkanus), the son of Simon the Maccabee, and grandson of Matityahu, the original leader of the wars with the Syrian-Greeks, as commemorated during Chanukah.

At the same time, two more temples were erected by Jews outside of Israel. In 1967, archaeologists discovered a Jewish temple in Egypt, on the island of Elephantine (modern-day Aswan). In the middle of the first millennium BCE, Elephantine had a large Jewish population. Various papyri have been found there, among them a letter to the governor of Judea to help rebuild the Elephantine temple. It is not certain when this temple was first constructed. After the Kingdom of Judah was destroyed, many Jews fled to Egypt (with the prophet Jeremiah reluctantly joining them) to avoid the Babylonians. It is possible that they built this temple instead of the Jerusalem temple. It is also possible that this temple was built alongside the Second Temple during the early Persian period. The Elephantine temple was gone by the middle of the 4^th century.

Some time later, another Jewish temple was built in Egypt, in Leontopolis. We know far more about this temple, since it is mentioned by historical sources like Josephus, and is even mentioned in the Talmud. It was built in the 2^nd century BCE by a kohen named Onias (Chonio), the son of Simon the High Priest. The Talmud (Menachot 109b) says this was Shimon HaTzadik, and gives two accounts as to what happened. In one account, Shimon appointed his son Onias to take his place before his death, but his older brother Shimi wrested the high priesthood from him, so Onias fled to Alexandria and built his own temple. This was in fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecy: “In that day shall there be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt” (Isaiah 19:19).

Josephus suggests the Leontopolis temple stood for as long as 343 years, and was a centre of sacrifices and offerings. The great Jewish philosopher Philo offered sacrifices there, in addition to the Jerusalem Temple. It appears that in those days it was common to worship God at both temples! Indeed, the Romans were aware of this, and when the Second Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, Vespasian gave the order to destroy the temple in Leontopolis as well. The order was carried out in 73 CE, putting an end to Jewish sacrificial services.

Since then, Jews have been waiting for a Third (Jerusalem) Temple. However, as we’ve written before, it is highly unlikely that this Temple will offer any sacrifices. Instead, it will be a holy gathering place of unity, peace and prayer; a place for deeper contemplation, meditation, inspiration, and elevation. It will be, as many sources suggest, an eternal edifice that will not have to be built by man at all, but will descend miraculously from Heaven. May we merit to see it soon.