The Tabernacle (Mishkan) accompanied the Jewish people from shortly after the Exodus until it was replaced by the Holy Temple (Beit HaMikdash) built by King Solomon, nearly five hundred years later. Solomon’s Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians, rebuilt, and then destroyed again by the Romans two thousand years ago. For the past eighty years, we have been trying to imagine how to build a Third Temple without starting World War III.

The heart and soul of the Mishkan and the Beit HaMikdash was the Holy of Holies (Kodesh Kodashim), which housed the Ark of the Covenant. It was so holy that it was entered only once a year, only by the High Priest (Kohen Gadol) and only long enough for him to offer incense. The Kodesh Kodashim was separated from the rest of the sanctuary by a divider, called the “Parochet”. In the Mishkan, which was designed to be transportable, the Parochet was a simple curtain made of coloured wool and linen. In the first Beit HaMikdash, which was significantly larger than the Mishkan, a dividing wall of brick and mortar separated the Kodesh Kodashim from the rest of the building[1]. In the second Beit HaMikdash, uncertainties relating to the precise location of the divider led to an unusual solution: two curtains were hung on either side of where the dividing wall had once stood. These curtains were massive. According to the Mishnah in Tractate Shekalim [8:2] “The thickness of a curtain was a hand-width. It was woven on 72 strings and each string was composed of 24 threads. Its length 40 cubits and its width 20 cubits; it was made for 820,000 dinars [of silver]”. Doing some quick calculations, this is equal to about 3.7 tons of silver, which, according to today’s admittedly high exchange rate, is a little more than ten million dollars[2]. The Jerusalem Talmud asserts that this figure is an exaggeration and that the Parochet was actually worth much less.

According to the Jerusalem Talmud, this is not the only exaggeration in the Mishnah. The Mishnah tells that when a Parochet became impure, three hundred Priests (Kohanim) were required to immerse it in order to purify it. A curtain of that size could only have been immersed in the Siloam Pool, 800 metres down the hill from the Temple Mount, a height differential of about 105 metres. This sounds like the makings of a logistical nightmare. The Jerusalem Talmud asserts that the requirement for 300 Kohanim is also an exaggeration and that this cannot be literal. Surely the Mishnah is speaking in hyperbole.

Some quick arithmetic (and a little help from ChatGPT) tells another story:

The size of a Parochet was 40 x 20 cubits by one hand’s breadth ≈ 20 x 10 metres x 8 centimetres = 16 cubic meters.

Heavy fabric has a density of between 300 – 600 kg per cubic metre, meaning a Parochet weighed between 4.8 and 9.6 tons.

One person can lift about 30 kg, meaning that 300 people could lift about 9 tons. Ergo, 300 Kohanim were indeed required to pick up the Parochet.

The Mishnah is not indulging in poetic exaggeration. It is making a deliberately concrete logistical statement. Now here is the key to fully understanding the Mishnah: It says that 300 Kohanim were required to immerse the Parochet. Not “to lift the Parochet in the air”, but “to immerse it”. This single word changes everything. The Kohanim dragged the curtain to the Pool of Siloam, likely on a wagon, and then dunked it. Archimedes showed[3] that an object immersed in a fluid displaces a volume of fluid whose weight equals the buoyant force acting on the object. This means that in water, an object becomes effectively weightless. The Kohanim were not dead-lifting 9.6 tons. They were controlling, guiding, and submerging a massive, floppy object. They were not bearing weight of the Parochet. They were managing the immersion process by holding the edges, preventing folding and tearing, and keeping the curtain fully submerged. This is exactly the kind of task where you need many hands – not because of raw strength but because of surface area, control, and synchronization.

Waitaminute. If 300 Kohanim were required to immerse the Parochet, how many Kohanim were required to pull the curtain out of the pool? Here the Mishnah is silent and intentionally so. The reason is obvious: Once soaked, the Parochet would weigh far more than dry. A heavy fabric can retain 50-100% of its own weight in water. Buoyancy disappears the moment it leaves the water. Because of the additional weight, pulling it out would require far more than 300 Kohanim. Further, the Parochet could not be simply lifted out of the water. It would be drawn out gradually, supported, drained, and rehung over time. The Mishnah does not need to say this explicitly, as anyone who has ever handled wet fabric understands it instinctively.

This Mishnah and its associated arithmetic teaches much more than the logistics of first-century fabric cleaning. The Parochet does three things at once.

The Parochet It draws a boundary [Shemot 26:33] “between the Holy and the Holy of Holies”Kodesh Kodashim. Not between good and bad, not between holy and unholy, but between levels of closeness.

The Parochet is aggressively physical. Jewish thought often speaks in abstractions. Intention. The heart. The soul. But the Parochet is thick. It has mass. It has cost. It gets dirty. It becomes impure. It requires logistics. The Torah refuses to let holiness remain theoretical. Holiness must exist in materials, in budgets, in manpower, and in compliance with the laws of physics.

Surprisingly, the Parochet becomes almost weightless when immersed in water. The most tangible divider in the Beit HaMikdash becomes manageable through immersion.

About twenty years ago I heard a lecture by Rabbi Mosheh Lichtenstein[4] on the difference between the concepts of “holiness” and “purity”. Rabbi Lichtenstein explained that holiness thrives in closed spaces, within boundaries. We attain holiness by keeping G-d’s commandments, and by doing so, restricting ourselves according to His Will. Holiness is exemplified by the Kodesh HaKodashim. Purity, on the other hand, lives in open spaces, where there are no boundaries. An object suspected of being impure, if located in a closed room, is deemed impure, while if it is found in a field, it is deemed pure. The purification of the Parochet can give us another lens with which to view Rabbi Lichtenstein’s innovation. Purification does not remove mass. It removes resistance. Purification does not make the Parcohet disappear. It changes the environment so that the Parochet no longer dominates the people handling it. Purification requires that we leave our boundaries. This is why water is the language of purification throughout the Torah. Water surrounds. It penetrates. It equalizes. It makes the rigid flexible. It teaches that sometimes the way to handle a boundary is not by pushing harder against it, but by changing the conditions around it. When we immerse ourselves – intellectually, spiritually, or morally – we do not erase distinctions, but we reduce their tyranny. The Parochet still stands, but it no longer overwhelms. That is, perhaps, the deepest lesson: Holiness demands boundaries but survival demands the wisdom to step outside of them, if only long enough to return purified.

Ari Sacher, Moreshet, 5786

Please daven for a Refu’a Shelema for Rachel bat Malka, Iris bat Chana, Shlomo ben Esther, Sheindel Devora bat Rina, Esther Sharon bat Chana Raizel, Meir ben Drora, Golan ben Marcel and Hodayah Emunah bat Shoshana Rachel.

[1] There is a disagreement as to whether or not a curtain was hung in addition to the dividing wall.

[2] Another way of looking at the value is that one dinar was typically a full day’s wage in the first century. 820,000 dinars is nearly three thousand years of wages for one person.

[4] Rabbi Liechtenstein is one of the Deans (Roshei Yeshiva) of the Har Etziyon Yeshiva.

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