Hypermikdash
LISHKAS HAGAZIS
At the top end of the Jewish legal system lay
the supreme court building. Here, when the need arose, the Sanhedrin
of seventy-one judges met and dealt with the most serious and difficult
cases. It was this body which gave final approval for a Jewish king
to go to war, that oversaw the function of the Temple and served as the
court of final appeal in all matters of Jewish law.
The building itself was divided into two parts:
the half which lay inside the courtyard wall was used as, among other things,
a synagogue for the priests during their morning services. The half
that was built outside the wall was the meeting place of the Sanhedrin
(since the Sanhedrin sat, and sitting down was only permitted outside the
courtyard proper, except for a Jewish king from the house of David).
Of interest: A full session of Sanhedrin
included the 71 judges seated in a semi-circle; three rows, each of 23
students who sat in straight rows before the judges; at least two scribes
and various interested parties. The Gemara (Succah 7b) tells us that
the space taken up by a seated man is no less than one amah.
Work it out: the semi-circle of judges had
a diameter not less than 45 amos and a depth (radius) of about 22. The
three rows of students must have filled at least three more amos (from
front to back) and we must allow one more for the scribes etc. Therefore,
the Sanhedrin half of the building, aside from its walls, must have measured
at least 45 x 26 amos. And it is known that the inner half of the
building was equal in size to its Sanhedrin twin.
Now, to the west of the Lishkas Hagazis lay
two adjoining buildings (palhedrin and exiles' chamber) which must have
taken up some space, so even if we say that the shorter dimension (i.e.
26 amos) lay on an east-west axis, when you add it to the width of the
walls and the size of the two western buildings, you run into a problem:
There simply wasn't room in the for these
buildings to have stretched more than 22 amos west of the Women's Courtyard
wall, because at 22 amos, the slaughter
house area began (as it stretched from the altar all the way to within
five amos of the northern courtyard wall).
And the north-south axis didn't leave us much
room to work with either, as the whole distance from the northern wall
to the beginning of Sha'ar Nikanor
was about sixty amos.
How, then, did everything fit in?
One possible answer lies in recalculating
the minimum floor space needed to hold 71 sitting judges etc. Who
says that their semi-circle was perfectly round? Perhaps they were
seated in a long "u" shape to save space or maybe they were staggered (i.e.
one slightly behind or in front of his neighbor).
Still, this one requires more thought.
And vision.
BAIS HAMOKED
The Bais Hamoked (usually translated as fireplace
chamber), was one of the three Temple locations guarded by priests (the
other two were above the water gate and above the spark gate - besides
these, there were many Levites on guard throughout the area). A guard
would stand on the building's roof, next to its huge dome, and watch over
the northern half of the Temple Mount
At night, in the building below, the priests
of that day's watch were sleeping; some on the floor of the main hallway
and some on large slabs of stone that stuck out from the northern wall.
At the southern end of the hallway was a huge door leading into the main
courtyard. Built into the door was a smaller opening that allowed
priests in and out in the early morning with a minimum of noise and
fuss. At the northern end of the hall was another door which led
to a staircase out and down to the Temple Mount.
Off to either side of the hall, were entrances
to smaller rooms. The south-western room was a holding pen for the
animals which would most likely be needed for the coming days' sacrifices.
To the south-east was the chamber used for baking the show bread.
Inside the north-east chamber were the remains
of the altar, dismantled after having been misused by Greeks and Hellenistic
Jews before the Chashmonayim (Maccabees) retook the Temple at the time
of Chanuka. The north-west was home to a small fire for warming cold
priests and from it a tunnel stretched under the floor of the Temple to
a mikvah and bathroom. Priests who became impure at night would
immediately go to that mikvah, then wait for the opening of the outer gates
in the morning and leave the area.
NORTH-SOUTH RELATIONS
You've just finished reading (and of course, carefully
reviewing) this electronic book. Now, inspired, you head for your
Mishna and begin some studying of your own. One of the first things you
notice is the Mishna (Midos 5, 3) that clearly says that the Lishkas Hagazis
(Chamber of Hewn Stone) cluster of buildings was on the south side of the
courtyard and the Parve Chamber cluster to the north.
"I just wasted all this time reading a book
by a guy who can't even read simple Hebrew?" I hear you asking yourself.
So hang on a second.
The story is that there are different versions
of the correct text to this Mishna and my decision to follow this particular
one was based on nothing less than a scientific weighing of the opinions
of many early and later scholars and a subtle and precise analysis of all
the available data.
...Ok, so I flipped a coin. but there
are lots of Jews who learn this way all the same...
THE PARVE CHAMBER
This one takes the prize as the most interesting
name in the entire Temple literature!
It seems there was a fellow named Parve who
had an unhealthy interest in witchcraft (he also had some unsavory friends
- like Bilaam and his two sons).
Parve picked up a desire to get in to see
the high priest at work on Yom Kippur. One version has him using
witchcraft to build the room that bears his name, then tunnelling underground
into the Kodesh Hakedoshim (Holy of
Holies).
Another version sees Parve climbing to the
roof of his room to watch the priest in the mikvah.
The priests seem to have been tipped off about
the story and managed to catch the culprit in the act, killing him for
his trouble. To express thanks to G-d for having saved us from whatever
scheme Parve had had in mind, the sages named the room Parve.