טעויות
Common myths, corrected
Myth
The Western Wall was a wall of the Temple building.
Reality
It was part of the retaining wall of the platform.
Herod enlarged the Temple Mount with massive retaining walls. The Western Wall is a section of one of them. The Sanctuary stood on the platform above, some distance away.
Myth
Only priests could enter the Temple complex.
Reality
Everyone could enter the Mount; Israelites stood in the Azarah.
Mishnah Kelim lists ten graded zones. Jews and non-Jews entered the Temple Mount; men and women entered the Women's Court; Israelites entered the Court of Israel and even the priests' court for their own offerings. Only the Sanctuary was for priests alone.
Myth
Every Temple offering was an animal.
Reality
Grain, oil, wine, water, incense and first fruits were offerings too.
The minchah was flour and oil; libations were wine, and on Sukkot water; incense was offered twice daily; first fruits were brought in baskets.
Myth
Sacrifice replaced repentance.
Reality
Offerings never worked without repentance.
The Mishnah states that Yom Kippur atones only with repentance, and not for wrongs against another until the person is appeased. The guilt offering required repaying the victim first.
Myth
The Temple was only for Jews.
Reality
Its dedication and its prophecy include the nations.
Solomon asks God to hear the foreigner who prays toward the House. Isaiah calls it 'a house of prayer for all peoples'. The Talmud connects Sukkot's seventy bulls to the seventy nations.
Myth
The synagogue simply replaced the Temple in every respect.
Reality
The synagogue carried much forward, and kept asking for the Temple back.
The Talmud calls synagogues a 'little sanctuary', and holds that studying the laws of offerings is counted as offering them. The same liturgy asks, three times a day, for the service to be restored.
Myth
The Third Temple's exact blueprint is universally agreed.
Reality
It is not.
Ezekiel's vision is difficult and differs from Middot in places. Rambam says the future building 'is not explained or elucidated'; Rashi admits of one term 'I do not know what this is'.
Myth
The Ark was definitely present in the Second Temple.
Reality
Rabbinic tradition says it was not.
The Talmud lists the Ark among five things absent from the Second Temple, and the Mishnah says the High Priest placed the incense on a stone 'after the Ark had been taken away'.
Myth
Ritual impurity means sinful or dirty.
Reality
It is a ritual status, not a moral one.
Contact with the dead, childbirth and other ordinary life events cause it. Burying the dead, a great kindness, makes a person tamei. It restricted entry to holy areas, not a person's worth.
Myth
Judaism wants everyone to become Jewish.
Reality
Judaism is not a missionary religion.
The prophets imagine nations keeping their identity while seeking God in Jerusalem. Zephaniah: 'to serve Him with one consent'. Conversion is possible and welcomed, but not sought.
Myth
All Jews today agree on how the Third Temple should return.
Reality
They do not.
Traditional liturgy asks for it explicitly; many authorities hold it will be built by the Messianic king, while Rashi speaks of a Temple from heaven; modern movements differ on the prayers themselves.