‘The Curtain Falls’ Parashat Teruma 5786 |
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.........