Rebuilding our holy Temple, brick by brick

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A model of the Bait Hamikdash — the Temple that was on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem — is coming to Long Island in the New Year, part of a campaign to make Judaism’s ancient spiritual citadel something tangible, right here, right now.

“People sometimes think that the Bait Hamikdash (Temple) has nothing to do with us,” said Rabbi Mordechai Persoff, educational director of Machon Hamikdash (Temple Institute). “It was 2,000 years ago, or it’s for the times of Mashiach another 2,000 years from now.”

The hands-on exhibit, in which children will actually construct the Temple, will visit the Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway (HAFTR) and the North Shore Hebrew Academy, among other area schools, in November, Persoff told The Jewish Star in an interview from Jerusalem.

He said the Temple represents “a lot more than korbanot (the Temple sacrifices).”

“Most important, it is something that belongs to us,” he emphasized. “Everyone has a part in it, not just the tzadikim (the right-eous).”

The exhibition is not only about the physical building of the model, but about talking to the students’ “neshama (soul), their regesh (feelings),” Persoff said.

Machon Hamikdash was founded and is headed by Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, who served in the paratrooper brigade that liberated the Temple Mount in 1967 and was one of the first soldiers to reach the Mount. That sparked his interest in the Mount and led to the organization’s creation 25 years ago. Shortly thereafter, Machon Hamikdash began educational tours around Israel. The North American project was initiated by a shaliach (representative) to the U.S. who wanted to do something to educate American Jews about the Temple.

The Temple Institute’s bid to educate communities and schools in North America began last spring when Steve Frankel, director of the Mikdash Educational Center, joined Persoff and two others at Bnei Akiva’s Camp Moshava in Indian Orchard, Pa., on construction of a 1:50, 80 piece scale model of the Bayit Sheni (the Second Temple) that was built by Herod and is described in Mishna Mesechet Midot.

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