The Part of the Beis Hamikdash That Still Exists Today!

00:00 Today we’re going to learn about the Beis Hamikdash. We’ll discover that a part of the Beis Hamikdash—and not just any part, but one of its most essential parts—still exists in full force and remains intact. This will reveal something new about the Beis Hamikdash. We’re used to thinking that the Beis Hamikdash was destroyed down to its foundations, as it says in Tehillim 137, “Raze it, raze it, down to its foundation.” In other words, the destruction reached all the way to the foundation. Yet when we look a little more closely, we discover that, on the contrary, the most essential, foundational part of the Beis Hamikdash—and I’m still talking about the first Beis Hamikdash—remains intact to this day. That is wonderful news: in essence, the Beis Hamikdash is eternal. We’re usually told that the first Beis Hamikdash was destroyed, and that the second Beis Hamikdash was destroyed even more completely than the first. As the Gemara says, they destroyed the second Beis Hamikdash down to its foundations more thoroughly than the first, from which some walls or other visible remnants still remained. The second was destroyed completely, to the point that it says, “Zion shall be plowed like a field.” It literally became like a plowed field. Turnus Rufus plowed it—one of the things we discuss on Tisha B’Av. Not only did they destroy the Beis Hamikdash; some years later, the wicked Turnus Rufus, who lived in the time of Rabbi Akiva, plowed the site and turned it into a field. And yet, remarkably, a part of the Beis Hamikdash remained—not just any part, but a most essential part. This tells us something wonderful: even the first Beis Hamikdash already has an eternal dimension. The first Beis Hamikdash is an eternal house that reappeared in the second, which was built anew, and will appear again in the third. In that sense, all three Batei Mikdash together complete one house, whose essence has existed since it was built by King Shlomo.

02:21 Its most essential and innermost part still exists today. What does that mean? First, we’ll look at it from a halachic perspective, and then, of course, we’ll speak about serving Hashem. The Beis Hamikdash doesn’t represent only the physical Beis Hamikdash; it also represents the spiritual Beis Hamikdash. As is well known from the Midrashim, and particularly from the books of Chassidus, every Jew has an inner, spiritual Beis Hamikdash in their heart. This gives us the wonderful, heartening message that when we look at a Jew, we should know that even if, outwardly, it seems that their Beis Hamikdash is in ruins, G-d forbid, they still have their spiritual Beis Hamikdash in full force. So, first, the halachic explanation. There is something remarkable in the Rambam’s Hilchos Beis Habechirah. Across its eight chapters, the Rambam lays out, as halachah, all the details of the building of the Beis Hamikdash—its form, its various parts, and so on. There’s a ruling there in the Rambam. But a brief introduction before we get to it: we know that the Rambam’s work, Mishneh Torah, also called Yad Hachazakah, is a book of halachah. Pure halachah. The Rambam doesn’t include Midrashim, reasons, explanations, or intricate discussions. It is a book of straightforward halachah—rulings, as the Rambam himself writes. That is the whole nature of the book. So much so that if the Rambam occasionally quotes or includes even the smallest detail that sounds like a Midrash, all the commentators stop and ask: What halachah is the Rambam teaching us? Now, interestingly, in Hilchos Beis Habechirah, where the Rambam sets out all the laws concerning the Beis Hamikdash—its form, the measurements of its various parts, and so on—there is a ruling in chapter four.

04:24 The Rambam writes—and I’ll quote a few lines—at the beginning of halachah one: “When Shlomo built the House, and knew that it would eventually be destroyed, he built within it a place to conceal the Ark below, in deep and winding hidden chambers.” In other words, when King Shlomo built the Beis Hamikdash, he knew through ruach hakodesh that it would not stand forever. At some point it would be destroyed. So, as part of the original construction, he built tunnels beneath the Beis Hamikdash—“deep and winding hidden chambers.” It’s interesting wording. The Rambam goes on to say that King Yoshiyahu, one of the kings of the House of David, who lived several hundred years later but still well before the destruction of the first Beis Hamikdash, ordered the Ark to be hidden. He took the Ark out of the Kodesh Hakodashim, placed it in the passage that his ancestor King Shlomo had built, and concealed it in the place Shlomo had prepared. The Rambam quotes the verse there: “He said to the Levi’im who taught all Israel, who were holy to Hashem: ‘Place the holy Ark in the House that Shlomo son of David, king of Israel, built. It shall no longer be a burden on your shoulders. Now serve Hashem your G-d.’” Along with the Ark, he also concealed Aharon’s staff, the jar, the anointing oil—everything that was kept with the Ark in the Kodesh Hakodashim was hidden in the chambers beneath the Beis Hamikdash. The Rambam continues that none of these things returned in the second Beis Hamikdash. We know that the holy Ark was not in the Kodesh Hakodashim of the second Beis Hamikdash. There was only the Foundation Stone, but not the holy Ark; nor were there the Urim VeTumim, and so on. That is the Rambam, Hilchos Beis Habechirah, chapter four, halachah one. And here the question arises, as we said: the Rambam is a book of halachah. So what is the halachic point of recounting something that happened in the past?

06:39 What is the Rambam trying to tell us? The Gemara has various views about what actually happened. One opinion says that the Ark was not concealed by Yoshiyahu; another says that it was taken into exile. There are many different views in the halachic discussion and in the Gemara, yet the Rambam chooses to include these particular details when, seemingly, they have no practical halachic relevance. They appear to be nothing more than an account of past events. The commentators ask and discuss this question: What does the Rambam want to tell us with this halachah? And here we learn something. The Rebbe explains it in one of his wonderful sichos. I’ll give just one brief point from the sicha—an explanation of what the Rambam is saying here. The Rambam wants to teach us a particular halachah. The Beis Hamikdash was built so that its central feature was the holy Ark in the Kodesh Hakodashim. Everything was built around it. We see this in the Torah: it says, “They shall make Me a Sanctuary, and I will dwell among them,” in Parshas Terumah, and immediately goes on to say, “They shall make an Ark”—the holy Ark containing the Tablets and the Torah. That was the center: the holiness of the Shechinah that rested in the Kodesh Hakodashim, at the holy Ark. And our Sages say that Hakadosh Boruch Hu “concentrated His Shechinah between the two poles of the Ark.” He brought His Shechinah into that place, and the entire Beis Hamikdash was built around it. This raises a simple question that anyone might ask: How could the second Beis Hamikdash exist without the holy Ark? Something utterly essential was missing. An entire Beis Hamikdash—whose central purpose is to have the holy Ark as a place for the Shechinah—yet the holy Ark isn’t there. How can there be a Beis Hamikdash without the holy Ark? The Rambam comes and tells us something remarkable. He says: You should know that when King Shlomo built the Beis Hamikdash, and Shlomo

08:46 The king knew through ruach hakodesh that the Beis Hamikdash would one day be destroyed, so from the outset he built two places, two chambers—so to speak, two places for the Holy of Holies. He built one place, the usual Holy of Holies above ground, as part of the Beis Hamikdash building. At the same time, he built another Holy of Holies below ground. He built what we might call tunnels, passageways—“hidden chambers,” as the Rambam calls them—winding passages deep, deep beneath the ground. Of course, he also sanctified this place, carrying out all the required procedures, and made it a second place for the Ark. In other words, when King Shlomo built the Beis Hamikdash, he designated two special places for the Holy of Holies and the Ark: one visible, above ground, which was the ideal place and where the Ark was initially placed; and one hidden. But he prepared the second place as well. He knew a time would come when they could not leave the Ark in the visible place, because enemies would come—“because of our sins, we were exiled from our land”—and the Beis Hamikdash would be destroyed. So from the outset, he built the Beis Hamikdash with another place beneath the ground, where the Ark would remain in a holy place, with all the sanctity of the Holy of Holies. It would simply be underground. That is what the Rambam is explaining here with this account. It is not just a story; it is halachah. That is why he says that when King Shlomo built the Beis Hamikdash, he designated two special chambers for the Ark, either here or there, either in the open or hidden away. Both were prepared from the outset. He goes further: King Yoshiyahu came along while the Beis Hamikdash was still standing, at least a hundred years or more

10:51 before its destruction. Nevertheless, because he sensed that the situation was deteriorating and the destruction might be fairly near, he went ahead and hid the Ark away, even though it was not yet necessary. Why not? There was a place for it. It was still a holy place; it was the Holy of Holies. Only now, its place needed to be underground. So something remarkable follows: when the enemies later entered the Beis Hamikdash, destroyed it and burned the Sanctuary, its essential place—the Holy of Holies with the Ark—continued to exist, and it is there to this day. When they came in the time of Ezra and Nechemiah and built the Second Beis Hamikdash, the Ark did not return to the visible place, but the hidden Holy of Holies remained. The Ark remained. So we had a complete Beis Hamikdash; it was not missing that essential part. Of course, it lacked completeness in terms of what was revealed: we could not see the Ark. It was not above ground. But as to whether the Beis Hamikdash had the Ark or not, there was a holy place beneath the ground, a Holy of Holies, and the Ark was there throughout the Second Beis Hamikdash as well. And, with Hashem’s help, when Moshiach comes and the Third Beis Hamikdash is built, it will return again—the Ark will come out of that place and return to its original place above ground. But this tells us a wonderful secret, an immense revelation: to this very day, there is an eternal Beis Hamikdash that endures forever and that the enemies never touched. It tells us that even during exile, even now, when a Jew goes to the Western Wall, visits the area of the Western Wall and stands facing the holy place, there is not only the Western Wall. There is also the Holy of Holies, intact beneath the ground. There is also the Ark

13:04 with the Tablets and the broken Tablets. Everything remains intact underground. So the very essence of the Beis Hamikdash, which the enemies never touched, is still there. It remains forever. And this speaks to every Jew. Besides the great comfort of knowing that even now we still have the Beis Hamikdash in its essential completeness, notice how closely this resembles what we have been discussing. We are talking about a Jew. We said that there is the physical Beis Hamikdash, but every Jew is, in essence, a Beis Hamikdash. “They shall make Me a sanctuary, and I will dwell among them.” The Midrash notes that it says “among them,” in the plural, not “in it.” “A sanctuary” is singular, so why does it say “among them” in the plural? Because every Jew is a Beis Hamikdash; Hashem dwells within each and every Jew. And with a Jew, too, we say the same thing. Take the resurrection of the dead, for example. A Jew passes away, G-d forbid, and in time his body is buried in the ground, and so on. Yet the luz bone always remains. As the Midrash tells us, even though a Jew has been underground for years and years, the luz bone is always there. There is a point that never disappears. And as it says, at the resurrection of the dead it is not a new body that comes into being; it comes from the body that already existed. There is one part of the body that is never destroyed, never decays. It remains forever. From that point, called the luz bone, the body will be rebuilt in the future. That is the resurrection of the dead. This, too, speaks of eternity, like the eternity of the Beis Hamikdash. There is something in the Beis Hamikdash that is its very essence—the Holy of Holies with the Ark—over which the enemies could have no power, and it remains forever. The same is said of a Jew. A Jew’s body is eternal. All the more so

15:08 when we speak of a Jew’s soul, of the spiritual Beis Hamikdash. Every Jew’s soul is literally a part of G-d above, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu dwells in a Jew’s soul. So here, too, we discover something remarkable: sometimes you may look at a Jew and see that he is not in a good place in his observance of Torah and mitzvos. His visible Beis Hamikdash has been destroyed. But that is only the building, only what is above ground. Every Jew has a Holy of Holies. Every Jew has an Ark. Every Jew has the Tablets of the Covenant, with their engraved letters. The letters on the Tablets were engraved. Chassidus explains the significance of engraved letters: they cannot be erased. Written letters can be erased; engraved letters never can. Every Jew has a connection with the Torah, and through it a connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. It is an engraved connection, one that never ends and can never be erased. It remains in full force. So the essential Beis Hamikdash has not been destroyed. Even if outwardly you see destruction, know this: look closely and you will see that he has an intact soul. He has an intact heart. The heart of every Jew is awake. As King Shlomo says in Shir Hashirim, “I sleep, but my heart is awake.” The Holy of Holies is eternal. The Ark is eternal. The covenant, the Ark of the Covenant, the Tablets of the Covenant—all are eternal. A Jew always has an essential connection with the Torah and with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Exile is therefore only external; it is an outer covering. Our task is to remove that covering, to clear away the dirt and the waste, to remove what conceals the inner reality, to reveal the inner Beis Hamikdash within us and to build the Beis

17:17 Hamikdash. As explained in the works of Chassidus, every detail, every chamber, everything in the Beis Hamikdash has a counterpart in each person’s spiritual Beis Hamikdash. We should study the laws of the Beis Habechirah, as the Rebbe taught us: during these days we need to study the laws of the Beis Hamikdash, to know what it looked like, and also to study its spiritual meaning. What does it represent in our inner service? We must build our own spiritual Beis Hamikdash and also study the laws of the Beis Habechirah. This is the most positive preparation a Jew can make during these days so that we merit the building of the Third Beis Hamikdash. Our Sages said, as recorded in the Midrash on Yechezkel, that Hakadosh Boruch Hu told the prophet Yechezkel: Teach them the measurements of the House. There is a verse in Yechezkel, yes, telling us to study the laws of the Beis Hamikdash, its form, all its plans and all its details. “I will consider it as though you had built it.” Through studying matters concerning the Beis Hamikdash today, a Jew is, in effect, building the Beis Hamikdash. And in this way, may we merit that soon, during these very days when we mourn the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash, what the prophet says will come true: these days will become days of joy and gladness. These days will be transformed into joy and gladness. “I will turn their mourning into joy”—their mourning into joy and gladness. May these days become days of joy and gladness with the building of the Third Beis Hamikdash, speedily in our days. Amen, may it be Hashem’s will.