Incredibly beautiful picture from the website below. I love it, I really do!
http://www.etsy.com/listing/62557394/kotel-western-wall-temple-jerusalem-beit
So, my question to you as you begin to open up your eyes and see Geulah is.... what does your Temple look like?
I find when I talk to people, that everyone has a different image or a different specific part of the Temple that they focus upon.
The dimensions are listed, they are learned and everyone knows what it looks like. But, few can really "see" it in their mind or imagine it existing today. Some do, some who have been able to reach that level of spirituality see it and feel it. Others see it the way it looks in coloring books or the way it looked in a Grade B movie that Hollywood made back when costume epics were popular.
Some people see it from up above looking down and others see it from standing outside looking in, others see it how it must have looked to enter the courtyard and walk in... and look around.
Some see gold and silver... others see white and holiness. Some see the smoke rising straight up towards the sky and heaven... others see the people inside praying.
The Rebbe brought the Bais Hamikdash down to earth for so many of us. It is as real as 770 with every brick in place, ready to descend hovering in the heavens, already built waiting for us to do our part.
A beautiful picture from this website takes us to a different angle and it glows in pink and gold:
http://www.jewish-artist.com/gallery-2.html
In Day Camp we would do Arts & Crafts with children making it real as they built the Temple with sugar cubes or from a pre-made kit. Children are wonderful, they are so touchy-feely and after coloring it in or building it cube by cube it is as real as Yankee Stadium is to a Yankee fan.
http://www.judaism.com/display.asp?nt=bChN&etn=HADIH
So, I ask you ... how real is the Holy Temple in your mind?
It's Tish B'Av, the 9th of Av when Jews everywhere remember the Holy Temple in their own way and wish for the 3rd Temple to be rebuilt. Are you stuck in the past in Golus focusing on the negative or are you focusing today on the next Temple, the Final Temple and how it will look when it is rebuilt? If you can't picture it ...how can you long for it with all your heart?
Read a bit here today and try envisioning the Bais Hamigdash standing in all it's heavenly glory here on Earth.
http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs076/1102527936292/archive/1102650317349.html
Once upon the time, the image of the Bais Hamikdash was hard for me to imagine. Some scene from an old movie or maybe perhaps it looked a little bit like "Tara" Israeli style. The Jews like Scarlett would not be hungry again, we would go on and one day rebuild the Temple but it was far away and a bit hazy in my mind. A Passover Seder was real, something you could touch and feel and taste. Sukkos was about a tent you played in and felt the breeze and watched the hanging fruit sway in the wind a bit. The Holy Temple in Israel rebuilt in the days of the "Messiah" were far away and something I could not really identify with back then when I was young.
However, as a young Jewish, Southern Girl I knew that just as "The South Would Rise Again" one day so would the Temple be rebuilt. I longed for long lacy dresses with ruffles and a house with columns and then one day while staring at a picture of the Temple I thought... it looks sort of Southern ;) As I said at the beginning of this blog... we all see what we want to see. To me "Gone With the Wind" was a lesson on surviving exile from Tara and surviving and rebuilding again.
And, then something changed and I changed in bits and pieces and the words of the Rebbe changed me. He said to learn about the Bais Hamikdash and I did, and it suddenly became a mathematical project. There wer so many columns and so many chambers and as a pre-school teacher I had to teach the children about the ramp and how they walked up the ramp vs walking up steps. With each step in my life it became more real, more of an entity and as real as walking up the ramp into 770 and picking out my favorite siddur and finding my favorite spot and beginning to pray.
When the Bais Hamikdash is as real to you as 770 is to me... then you will achieved what the Rebbe desired and that is to "see" with your own eyes and to move towards Geulah away from and out of Golus.
Why are the Pyramids more real to us than the Bais Hamikdash? Considering we built them both.... why do we not focus on where we went after we left Golus?
What do you see when you close your eyes and think on Geulah and Moshiach? Do you see the Bais Hamikdash? Does it glow in gold or is intricately detailed like an architectual drawing?
Do you see what's left of the Temple or the rebuilt Temple?
There is a saying, "Change your thoughts, change your Life!" I'd take it further and say "change you thoughts, change the world around you!"
Whether you are an artist or a writer or a cook or a musician you can learn more about The Temple anywhere on the web or in the library or at your local Jewish Bookstore. And, in this wonderful world we live in you don't even have to get dressed and leave your house to buy some books and learn so more.
If you are musically based, go to www.youtube.com and enjoy the many videos set to whatever music the dreamer enjoys the most.
or
On the 9th of Av you should imagine the Beit Hamikdash and move towards living a life that is rich with thoughts of Geulah.
IF...in the blink of an eye.... the stock market can fall over 600 points in less than 6 hours and CNN speaks on it as if it is "normal" and Drudge writes an eye catching headline....in that same blink of an eye our concept of "normal" can be lost and changes. One minute it's a far away world from the distant past yet in another minute it can be as real as Shangri La and Xanadu is in our mind. Tara never existed except in the mind of Margaret Mitchell who wrote the novel and yet to many it's more real than the Third Temple. Shangri La and Xanadu never existed, yet the Temple really did exist and will again. Why.... are Tara and Shangri La and Xanadu more real than the Temple...that is the question?
Why? Maybe you have not yet learned enough of the Sichos of the Rebbe about Moshiach? Maybe you only see the glass half full and it's easier to dwell on memories of our times in Egypt building the pyramids rather than what we built once we were in Israel. Maybe...we are too stuck in the past?
In the "blink of an eye" you should be able to see the Beit Hamikdash in your dreams and it should become a reality in your life. Whether you keep a tzedakah box shaped like the Temple or a picture on your wall or perhaps in your siddur... let it be as real to you that you can "see" it and "feel" it as easily as you can picture the pyramids or the "Wailing Wall" of 770!
Enjoy the links I posted and feel free to order one of the prints or read through some of the material. Or click on the following link and hear and learn more about the Temple.
I did, you can do too. What better day is there than Tish B'Av to focus on contemplating on the Temple rebuilt immediately and live a life of Geulah?
B"H
ReplyDeleteYea! Gets you thinking about the actual Temple, what it will look like, feel like. Thank you.