A Third Temple?

July 9, 2008

by Daniel E. Levenson

I have always been curious about the role of the idea of the temple in a modern Jewish context. Clearly we derive many of our customs and religious practices from the days when the temples stood, both from actual practices conducted in the temple service, and from the larger Jewish culture that existed at the time, so I was particularly interested to read an article in Haaretz about a group of people who are not only eagerly anticipating the building of a third temple, but are hard at work creating (or recreating) all of the physical trappings of priestly culture, from incense burners to custom tailored robes for those who claim familial descent from the kohanim.

There is no question that the destruction of the temple was a disaster for the Jews and an event which led to a further chain of pain and suffering, but I’m not quite sure I get the point of a group of people trying to actively build a third temple. It makes me uneasy, actually, for a number of reasons. First of all, it completely ignores the evolution that Judaism has undergone over the past two thousand years and the transition from temple to rabbinic Judaism, and seems to suggest that at best, rabbinic Judaism was a stand-in until a new temple could be built. This ignores the incredible theological, philosophical and spiritual contributions that rabbinic Judaism has made not only within our own communities, but to the entire world.

I think it’s also worth recalling how fractious, and at times divisive, the temple was, when it stood in Jerusalem.  This is something Professor Shay J.D. Cohen mentions in his excellent book From the Maccabees to the Mishnah,  in which he notes that much of the sectarianism that characterized the second temple period (with Pharisees, Saducees, Essenes, etc.) seems to vanish shortly after the destruction of the second temple. Cohen further notes that in some ways what was going on outside of the temple served as the model for the Judaism we know today. Cohen notes “After the destruction of the temple, which must have been felt keenly in all reaches of the population, what could have been more natural than to take the extra temple piety that had developed in the preceding centuries and view it as the equivalent or replacement for the temple cult?”

I agree with Cohen’s assessment, and I think that there is something that feels more authentic in a way, about taking the customs and beliefs that existed within the community, including those that evolved among the nation, and not just the practices of the priests in the temple, and using them to help the Jewish people survive for so long as a community in exile. To suggest that all of this has just been a temporary replacement for the temple cult also feels anachronistic and even a little backwards.

There has long been a tension in Judaism between those who have wanted to centralize religious practice (one of the most notable figures who sought to do this was King Hezekiah, who is reputed to have destroyed other places of worship in ancient Israel in order to make the Jerusalem temple the one place where people could bring sacrifices) and those who want to make the religion more democratic and accessible to those beyond a select circle of elites, such as the Hassidim. To me, it seems like this group that seeks to build a new temple is in the former camp – it is inconceivable that if a third temple were built we would see a massive divide emerge between Jews (especially those in the diaspora) who will continue to adhere to rabbinic Judaism, while others may connect their conception of Judaism with the “new” temple. This would probably make the dispute that led to the split between Reform and Conservative Jews look relatively minor, and would no doubt create serious theological, philosophical and spiritual problems within the Jewish community.

And then there are the political considerations. At present, Israel is clearly not in complete control of all of the temple mount. There are a tremendous number of Muslims who also see the temple mount as holy and a part of their tradition. I have no doubt that any efforts by an extremist Jewish group to build a new temple would spark a serious political, if not military, crisis.

But in my mind, the most important reason not to rebuild the temple is that we have moved beyond it in so many ways; to turn our backs on the rich post-temple culture we have created would be to reject not only the Judaism so many of us know and love, but to reject the idea of progress as well. This is not to downplay or make light of the terrible destruction that the Romans (or Nebuchadnezzar before them) visited upon the holy city. I believe that we are right to remember this tragedy and to mourn it appropriately, but just as we do not forget earlier generations which have passed away without necessarily following precisely in their footsteps, so too should we approach the idea of Jewish life without the temple. It is important that we know the history of this period, that we find not only an historical but a spiritual connection to these events and that period in Jewish national life, but at the same time we must acknowledge that we ourselves live in a very different world. It is a world which may not have a temple, but does have many other ways of connecting to the divine, which are no less meaningful to us, and I would hope, no less authentic.