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Haute cohen couture

by ben • July 22 2008
News, Archaeology, Art

Runway is old hat
When some Jerusalemites talk about the apocalypse, men in white coats come and take them away. When others do the same, the masses take out their credit cards and clamor to buy white coats from them. It's all in the pitch.

The redemption-minded Jews at the Old City's Temple Institute have been hard at work for over 20 years now, preparing replicas of the vessels from the ancient place of worship that once stood on the Temple Mount. Using rabbinic and Biblical teachings as their guides, the team's creations do not hold mere nostalgic value – they're meant for use in the messianic age, when believers say the Third Temple will be built. But they haven't just brought to life the Menorah (the symbol that we know and love from the seal of the State of Israel) and the Ark of the Covenant (the symbol that we know and love from that Indiana Jones movie).

According to a recent Associated Press feature, the Temple Institute has hand-sewn a full set of priestly garments at costs exceeding $10,000. Apparently interest among the general public has grown, because now, according to the article, "If you are a descendant of the Jewish priestly class, a full outfit, including an embroidered belt 32 cubits (48 feet) long, can be yours for about $800." It's a bargain, but a far cry from the wholesale Tel Aviv factory version seen here.

The Temple Institute managed to bring down costs by obtaining special rabbinic permission to use sewing machines.

"From the moment we see we're ready here, the clothes will be ready and the priests can get to work when the time comes," said Hagai Barashi, an assistant tailor. He wore a Biblical-looking robe, long sidelocks, and a pair of Nike flip-flops.

Illustrative painting of Second Temple priests accepting pilgrims' sacrifices courtesy of The Temple Institute, which can be reached at 02-626-4545 and visited at Misgav Ladach St. 36.

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2 Comments

1 • Jamar • 14:02 on 29 June 2009

Informative review. Moreover, the Ark of the Covenant is one of the most fabled items in the history of the ancient Near East. The Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Abuna Pauolos, has announced to the world that the fabled Ark of the Covenant is located in Eithiopia, in Axum, and is in his church's possession. The Ark is considered one of the greatest lost treasures of the world, the greatest treasure of the people of Israel, and a lot of people would give fast cash to see it in order to prove or disprove the claims. The Ark of the Covenant was lost during the Babylonian Captivity, and many have used unsecured loans to try and find just where it went. Follow http://personalmoneystore.com/moneyblog/2009/06/26/ark-of-the-covenant-unveiled/ to read more. Follow http://personalmoneystore.com/moneyblog/2009/06/22/obama-anti-smoking-bill/ to read more.

2 • Natan • 07:56 on 27 October 2009

HISTORY & ARCHAEOLOGY NEWS :

THE SLEEPING RABBI AND THE MUMMY

One can easily understand that the terrified Rabbis had been completely anesthetized by their ruthless Idumean Tyrant, Herod, who had been arbitrarily nominated by the Senate of Rome “King of the Jews” (Later this same appellation will be ironically affixed by Pontius Pilate to the cross where Jesus is crucified).

But the fact that, during two thousand years, not one single Rabbi (or Scholar) had stood up and expressed his revolted indignation at the profanation and desacralization of the third Temple of Jerusalem by Herod is one of the most stupefying event in the history of mankind’s ideologies and beliefs.

Herod built an upper floor on top of the Holy of Holies, and furthermore the ceiling of this Most Holy Place was pierced with holes allowing lift cages to descend from the Upper Floor down into the Holy of Holies.

Now, even the least talented student of any Yeshiva (Jewish religious school) will tell you that above and under the Holy of Holies there could not be neither an attic, nor a maintenance room, nor a cave (which, very incidentally, is the case in the Dome of the Rock where there is a grotto beneath the “Rock”)

Why ? Because atop the Holy of Holies, the Divine Cloud (or Shekinah) descended directly from the Infinite Heaven on the Ark of the Covenant to meet the Intercessor of the Jews (Moses and after him the High Priest) in order to perpetuate the Moral Pact between the Eternal and Humanity.

There, above the atonement cover between the two Cherubim which are over the Ark of the Covenant, I will meet you (Moses), and give you everything in commandment to the Children of Israel. (Exodus 25 : 23)

This Upper Storey, paganly invented by Herod and built on the top of the Holy Place and on the top of the Most Holy Place, existed, neither in Moses’ Tent of the Meeting, nor in the first Temple of Solomon, nor in the second Temple rebuilt by Zurubbabel and Jeshua at the return of exile of Babylon, nor in this same second Temple, renovated by the Hasmoneans.

In fact, Herod had invented this Upper Floor in order to be able, clandestinely, to descend himself into the Holy of Holies, with, occasionally, imperial guests as for instance Agrippa, the son in law of Augustus (who has been, inter alia, the most famous Hydraulic Systems developer in Antiquity and who shared with his friend Herod this passion for technology innovation).

( Tractate Middoth describes with great precision the ascending separate corridor which allowed Herod to go up to the upper storey of the Temple without entering officially the Temple )

Thus, with this Temple Upper Floor, Herod could offer to himself and to Pagan elites a “Judaic initiation” equivalent, for instance, to the much favoured initiation of the Eleusinian Mysteries.

Moreover Herod could thus demonstrate to his inflated ego that, in his Kingdom, no power could prevail upon his own absolute power, even that of the High Priest (who besides was nominated by Herod).

The Rabbinical reaction to this terrible desacralization of the Mystical essence of the Herodian Temple has been, and is still, totally absurd and incongruous :

The Tractate Middoth of the Mishnah, written by the Palestinian Rabbis, describes meticulously the architecture of the third Temple of Herod (third Temple which replaced in fact the second Temple utterly demolished by Herod even in its foundations) :

Here after, the extract of this Rabbinical Tractate Middoth of the Mishnah displays an incredible scope of naivety, or of blindness, specifically when concerning this third Temple Upper Floor usefully invented by the Potentate Herod :

And in this Upper Room of the Sanctuary there were trap openings down into the Holy of Holies through which they would lower down craftsmen in cages, so that they could not feed their gaze on the Holy of Holies (sic). (Middoth : 4 : 5)

The vast ocean of Rabbinical Literature allows sometimes discoveries of treasures of thought, seldom equaled. But, in same time, in particular in its Aggadic aspects (stories rather legendary) one can discover also in this Rabbinical literature disconcerting accounts of vertiginous acrobatic reflexions.

Indeed, in this respect, the Rabbis, Authors of the Middoth Tractate, indicate, with a very sincere and quasi-unconscious meticulousness, how anybody can walk above the Holy Place and above the Most Holy Place, and how any fellow can even penetrate down, by using small "elevators", into the Holy of Holies.

Holy of Holies which, in addition, had lost its Mystical Perfect Cubic form proportions prescribed by G*d to Moses (5 meters x 5 meters x 5 meters) and respected by Solomon (10 meters x 10 meters x 10 meters), as well as by the architects of the second Temple at their return from exile, and which had been transformed profanely by Herod into a square well, 10 meters x 10 meters x 30 meters high according to Flavius Josephus, or 20 meters high according to Tractate Middoth.

Now, in this Most Holy Place of the third Temple, which thanks to Herod’s architectural modification anybody could then desacralize at will, only the High Priest had the religious right to penetrate, once a year (Kippur), for a very short moment of a few minutes to meet The Eternal and purify All Israel, and this, after one week of intense preparation, made of rigorous and ceaseless immersions in living source Waters inside the Sanctuary { in the Mikweh (Purification Bath) located, close to the Temple, at the upper floor of the Parvah House }.

Therefore, one will wonder, very vainly, what kind of work these pseudo “craftsmen” would have had to carry out in a Sacred Place, where there was strictly nothing since the Ark of the Covenant had disappeared, where nobody ever penetrated, and where the most complete darkness reigned.

But, moreover, in the field of total absurdity thus evoked, how many holes would have been necessary, actually, to drill in the ceiling of the Most Holy Place, so that these craftsmen of such eminently virtual work, locked up in a cage probably measuring 2 meters by 2 meters, would have been able to achieve such completely imaginary tasks, in a space of 10 meters by 10 meters out of reach from the cages, and without never being allowed to have a glance at the interior of the Holy of Holies ?!

In an eschatological perspective one could say that this third Herodian Temple, desacralized in such a cynical way, was doomed to be destroyed.

Now this stubborn millenary blindness of the Rabbis can, most probably, be explained by their desire to keep a mystical devotion for a Temple of Jerusalem mummified, rather than to serve a living Temple where they would have to share their power with the hereditary Priests descending from Aaron, as prescribed by the Bible, and where they would feel obliged to revive animals sacrifices :

- Concerning the distribution of powers it may be usefully recalled that the Pharisee Rabbis did not only share power with the “Cohanim” (Hereditary Priests) but most often did take over all the power in the Sanhedrin of the Temple. Furthermore and incidentally there are quite a lot of Rabbis Cohen in the world…

- Concerning animals’ sacrifices, those bloody Rites were not specific to the Jewish Religion : almost all Civilizations in Antiquity did practice Animal Sacrifices. And almost all Civilizations have rightfully forsaken these initial primitive Rites.

This natural evolution of the civilization necessary Moral Rites is confirmed by the Scriptures, as, for example inter alia, in Psalms : 50 : 9-14 :

I have no need of a bull from your stall or of goats from your pens,

For every animal of the forest are mine and the cattle on a thousand hills.

I know every bird in the mountains, and the creatures of the field are mine.

If I were hungry I would not tell you, for the World is mine, and all that is in it.

Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats ?

Offer thanksgivings to Me, your God, and fulfill faithfully your Covenant with Me.

Such, because the true, unique and revolutionary Invention of the Jewish Religion was the institution of the Worship of a Moral Pact uniting the Jews to YHVH and to be preserved and perpetuated in the Ark of Covenant, in the Temple.

And the development of this glorious Cult, celebrating day after day the Moral Covenant, allowed in fact, progressively, to install the Jewish-Christian Moral infrastructure which is fathering World Democracy for Humanity.

Dazzling confirmation of the sacrilegious desacralization by the Pagan Architecture of the Herodian Temple, was given by the representation of the Temple which was made on the coins, struck at the time of the last Jewish Revolt, led by Bar Kockba and Rabbi Akiba, -the main Architect of the Mishnah.

This Revolt against the Romans aimed, in 132-135, at rebuilding the Temple of Jerusalem which had been destroyed by Emperor Titus in 70 : Obviously, Bar Kockba and Rabbi Akiba (who knew perfectly the Structure of the third Herodian Temple) made a point of fully restoring the Moses-Solomon Sacred Architecture with all its original Mystical Cubic Significance :

Now, all these Coins of Bar Kockba, do not display obviously the height of the Pagan Upper Floors which had been installed on the top of the Temple by Herod.

Moreover, the verticality so characteristic of the third Herodian Temple is replaced by a deliberately horizontal vision, with, only as a vestige of the Herodian concept, the tetrastyle Porch (probably because its visual memory was still too present 70 years after its destruction, and, anyhow, did not affect the Mystical Jewish Power of the Temple).

And then, upon this authentic 4th Temple, which would have been thus restored by Rabbi Akiba and Bar Kockba, the Shekinah could have, again, descended directly at the absolute zenith of the Holy of Holies, to deposit on the Ark of the Covenant its Divine Protection, in order to perpetuate gloriously the solemn and imprescriptible Rite of Celebration of the Moral Pact granted to Israel by YHWH.

***To conclude with this Op-ed, we would add that it proceeds from a quite bizarre state of mind to think that Mystical Certitudes cannot be studied and analyzed, especially when these mystical certitudes result from an initial malevolence made of egocentrism, cruelty, cold manipulation and ruthless thirst for power.

Natan October 2009

Natan is the Head of THE NATAN FOUNDATION FOR THE RESTORATION OF THE TEMPLE OF JERUSALEM ON ITS AUTHENTIC SITE (downwards from the “Haram”, as authentified by Natan’s exclusive Study of the Temple Ancient Hydraulic System which has been faithfully preserved up today in the bedrock of the “Haram”)

{=On-line at : www.jerusalem-4thtemple.org }

Natan is the Author of “The Real History of the Temple of Jerusalem”

{= On-line at : www.jerusalem-4thtemple.org

- http://jerusalem-4thtemple-natan.blogspot.com }