The Temple Within
Many years ago the Jews resided in the Land of Israel, the land of spirituality, a land of holiness. Holiness is incredibly pure and therefore extremely sensitive. On a high level even small flaws or problems can trigger a negative reaction. As the Talmud writes:
״הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא מְדַקְדֵּק עִם סְבִיבָיו כְּחוּט הַשַּׂעֲרָה״
(Yevamos 121b)
“the Holy One, Blessed be He, is exacting with His surroundings, i.e., the righteous who are close to Him, up to a hairsbreadth.”
A perfected state is no easy thing to maintain, and once we corrupt or contaminate it, it can be incredibly hard on us, and may even devour us — destroy our temple, expel us from our home, and burn everything up with fire — or perhaps with shame and guilt.
Within Israel was Jerusalem, the city of truth and completion, and on a mountain in the middle stood the Beit Hamikdash, the Jewish Temple, where the Shechinah — the Presence of God, rested.
We used to live in our homeland together with the divine presence — we had the proper spiritual tradition to connect with God, both historically as a nation and often historically as individuals — aka back when we were children. At that time we were able to connect to the divine on our home turf, from inside Israel, from within ourselves.
But then calamity struck and our temple of peace was destroyed — both internally and externally. We didn’t live up to the Holiness we needed to maintain our state and therefore we were kicked out of our homeland and sent into exile — both as a nation and as individuals.
When we went into exile the Shechinah, the Presence of God, went with us. No longer was God found in His preferred resting place, within Jerusalem, within our tradition, within our homes, and within our hearts. Now we must find God outside, at the edge of the desert — on the brink of despair, and from there we can begin the journey of redemption.
In exile we suffer terribly and we call out to Hashem. Hashem hears our prayers and Holiness returns from its own personal exile — Moshe comes back to save us and lead us out of Mitzrayim.
Moshe comes back to remind us of our God — of the true spiritual tradition that was exiled with us.
He returns to let us know that אהיה אשר אהיה — that God is limitless and nothing is impossible.
Holiness comes back to let us know that even when we have nothing and we are just a barren bush in the desert burning in fire and enveloped by chaos — אפילו בהסתרה שבתוך ההסתרה — God is there.
It comes back to teach us that even in the lowest possible place, beneath our feet, there is holiness and we must remove our shoes. That we can reach a level where even the ground is Holy — a level where even our physical bodies and our darkest shadows are incorporated into the divine.
It comes back to remind us of our own spiritual Torah tradition — to remind us who we are — to remind us of the One True God.
Our prayers have been answered, and we begin our return home to the land of our ancestors — to the place where we belong.
Eventually we return to the land of Yisrael — the state of God consciousness. We rebuild the city of Jerusalem, the city of completeness, and we will rebuild our Temple, our House of Peace — both as a nation and as individuals.
At the same time our true Torah tradition will return from exile and we will know how to access our true selves from within our homeland — aka prophecy will return, and with it the Shechinah will finally return from exile and reside where it belongs — inside the Temple of our God, inside our very hearts.
On that day the entire world will be united together in perfect unity.
We will all finally live in peace!
Not just with each other, but within ourselves.
