Imagine if there was something you could do? Imagine if right after a mistake (or at the next festival, if you're in no great hurry), it was possible to travel to Jerusalem and enter this most beautiful of buildings with an animal or flour offering. Once there, we would place the offering in the warm hands of a Kohen - a priest who is trained to perfection in the art of the Temple service - and watch him offer our animal on the altar.

What a feeling of release from burden! We've betrayed our mission and our unending debt to G-d... and He's still willing to forgive us! As the animal burns on the altar - where we should have been if we were judged as our actions deserved - we are given a clean slate to start with, like a newborn baby.

What a joy that must have been!

What else is "normal" in our lives? What about the Tumah - impurity? We're so insensitive to Tahara (purity) that we don't even feel its absence. But there's no doubt that if we could become Tahor, our minds would become clearer, we would be able to learn more Torah and we could come closer to real love of G-d.

Until the Temple will be built, there will be no complete Tahara.

We all know how hard it is to get excited about Mitzvos (commandments). It's almost like someone's built a wall between the world of divine service and this murky, mundane world. Somehow our hearts and minds became stuck on the wrong side and we can't seem to break through the wall. Imagine that barrier lifted away, leaving nothing but our own decision standing between ourselves and the people we could become.

Imagine all this, and you imagine a Temple. May it be rebuilt in our day.

Sacrifices

G-d expects and wants nothing more of us than to fear Him with pure hearts and serve Him to the best of our abilities. And we've been given the means to reach that goal the Mitzvos (commandments).

The pure heart is the center of a G-dly life. But man is drawn after his actions. What he does has a greater affect than what he says or thinks.

When we do something wrong - when we, in effect, rebel against G-d's rule - is there anything that can undo the damage? How can we make it as though the mistake had never been done? There is Teshuva (repentance). There is regret for the past slip and the promise to try to never do it again. That G-d has given us this wonderful gift of Teshuva is in itself a great kindness.

Teshuva is wonderful, but we sometimes need inspiration, road markers to help us along the way.

Partly to that end, G-d commanded us to set aside a place of high purity, apart from the rest of the mundane world. This place would be the site of undiluted divine service, of priests working tirelessly at their tasks, of the fulfillment of the Will of G-d.

It was to this place (the Temple) that we would come after a fall. What better medicine could there be for someone who has just stumbled than to spend time in the place where the proper service of G-d was not only in practice, but at its peak?

But we wouldn't only watch. Remember, we are drawn after our actions! Our animal (or bird) offering was taken from us and slaughtered (for don't we deserve as much for rebelling against the true King?).

Each part of the service should bring us to think seriously about our lives and the way we use our bodies and minds. The very fact that we are giving up such and expensive and desired animal leads us to wonder at our priorities. Is owning things like this really the object of my life's work?.

And it isn't just the sin offering (the chatos) that should get us thinking. Each offering and service in the Temple contains its own library of thoughts. A trip to Jerusalem can, if used properly, be a source of growth in our Jewishness. Each type of Mitzva and each area of G-dly life is addressed by something in the temple service. All we have to do is think a little...

There are far too many details to this subject than could ever be put to paper. I can only advise the reader to look up the "Sefer Hachinuch" mentioned above, and the commentary to Chumash of Rabbi S.R. Hirsch (Parshos Teruma, T'zave, Vayikra and Tzav).

Rabbi Boruch Clinton teaches at the Ottawa Torah Institute yeshiva high school and Machon Sarah high school for girls (both in Ottawa, Canada). You may reach him with comments and questions at bclinton@torah.org.

You can now read some of Rabbi Clinton's essays on Torah life at http://www.ncf.ca/~es625/essays

You can also buy his collection of essays on the Book of Shmuel (Samuel) in printed form at www.lulu.com/marbitzmedia

Copyright © 2000 by Rabbi Boruch Clinton and Project Genesis, Inc.