Wednesday, February 13, 2013

The joyous dedication of the second Holy Temple (Beit HaMikdash) on the site of the 1st Temple in Jerusalem, was celebrated on the 3rd of Adar of the year 3412 from creation (349 BCE), after four years of work.

The First Temple, built by King Solomon in 833 BCE, was destroyed by the Babylonians in 423 BCE. At that time, the prophet Jeremiah prophesied: "Thus says the L-rd: After seventy years for Babylon will I visit you... and return you to this place." In 371 the Persian emperor Cyrus permitted the Jews to return to Judah and rebuild the Temple, but the construction was halted the next year when the Samarians persuaded Cyrus to withdraw permission. Achashverosh II (of Purim fame) upheld the moratorium. Only in 353 -- exactly 70 years after the destruction -- did the building of the Temple resume under Darius II.

Link: The Holy Temple

Despair is the ultimate form of self-worship—the perception that you have the capacity to truly mess up, to take the world’s destiny out of its Creator’s hands and sabotage His plans.

Know that the world is in a constant state of elevation, rocketing upwards towards its ultimate wholeness at every moment. Every quivering of every leaf, every subtle breeze, every slightest motion of any particle of our universe is another move in that same direction. Even those events that seem to thrust downward are in truth only a part of the ascent—like the poise of an athlete before he leaps, the contraction of a spring before its energy is released.

There is not a thing you could do to halt that dynamic even for a moment. True, you must take responsibility for your deeds, and work hard, very hard, to clean up your own mess. But when all the dust settles, you are exactly in the space where you were meant to be: One step closer.