By Rabbi Gidon Rothstein

Yehezkel 45;16-46;18

The Future Beit haMikdash and the Month of Nissan

The gemara in Megillah identifies this text as the one to read on the week before Rosh Hodesh Nissan. It is an odd choice, since it presents numerous difficulties, some so obvious as to have been grappled with by the gemara. Yehezkel seems to here envision a Temple that operates with different rules than the one we are used to.

A first difference: The haftarah opens by claiming that the Jewish people will provide sufficient donations for the regular communal sacrifices, but that the “nasi” (which Radak thinks means the king, and Rashi thinks is the High Priest) will give the communal sacrifices for Rosh Hodesh, Shabbatot, and holidays. By translating “nasi” as Kohen Gadol, Rashi avoids a problem, but Radak seems to see the verse as saying that the king will replace the people in giving the money for the holiday sacrifices. Since the haftarah also assumes that the holidays will be the times that people will particularly insure attendance at the Mikdash, Radak’s view sees the people as outsourcing responsibility for the most important of the sacrifices, the ones the most people will witness.

How Different Will That Future Beit haMikdash Be? The Rededication

Verses 18-25 of the chapter offer several more apparent differences, with Rashi and Radak differing on how to handle them. Rashi tends to follow the gemara, reconciling as much as possible, while Radak repeatedly reads the text as pointing to a 3rd Beit haMikdash that can differ from the ones that came before. Rashi’s position is the more traditional one, but Radak’s raises more interesting questions of how much of the formerly practiced halachot of the Temple are necessary, and how much is flexible (a topic, I hope we all realize, I cannot cover here).

Even without detailing what would change in a future Mikdash—some candidates, based on this haftarah, are when in the course of the Redemption the Temple will be rededicated (Rashi thinks at the beginning, with it happening at the beginning of Nisan; Radak thinks that date will be after much redemptive activity has already occurred); whether there will be a new “hatat” or sin-offering given on the seventh day of the dedication; whether the sacrifices on Pesah (and of Sukkot) will change, making the two holidays, at least in their Temple service, more similar to each other and more generic; and the role of a future Mikdash in the lives of the people.

The Future Mikdash and the Role of Sacrifices in Jewish Thought

We do not have room to discuss all of those issues, or even any of them, but Radak’s understanding of the last of those gives me the possibility of discussing an issue that comes up here and is worth thinking about. Verses 1-8 of chapter 46 speak of a special door, from the east, through which the nasi will enter on Shabbat and Yom Tov. Radak thinks the verses assume that people will generally only come to the Beit haMikdash on Shabbat or Yom Tov.

The comment offers an in-between option to two views bandied about in the Jewish world today. One view holds and hopes that sacrifice will return exactly as it was. Certainly the more simple view, given tradition’s speaking of that return as being as such, this view only has problems gaining traction among people to whom animal sacrifice seems odd, foreign, and even perhaps primitive. Giving them some apparent (I stress the word) comfort is the view of Rambam in Moreh Nevuchim, who suggests that God instituted sacrifice because the people of the time of the Exodus were not ready for a sacrifice-free world. In weaning them from it, God restricted it to one place and only certain forms.

Only by knowing a bit of Rambam can we avoid the common error of assuming that he meant to imply that sacrifice has no other importance, and would not occur in a future Temple. First, as Prof. Twersky zt”l noted (and R. Lichtenstein has quoted approvingly), that section of the Moreh is not so much devoted to giving the reason for the mitsvot, but a reason. Rambam was trying to show that mitsvot are logical, not that he had captured the absolute reason for them (as he himself stresses in the Mishneh Torah, again as Prof. Twersky zt”l demonstrated).

If so, that Rambam’s reason no longer applies in no way implies that sacrifice itself has become irrelevant. Rambam’s having spent so much of the Mishnah Commentary and the Mishneh Torah explaining and expounding the laws of sacrifice and ritual purity—laws that did not apply in his own time, and were usually left out of halachic works of his time—should be enough of a proof of his commitment to their continuing importance.

What the haftarah does suggest—and here Rambam might have agreed—is that the role of sacrifices and the Beit haMikdash will change in the future. In the past, Jews placed too much emphasis on those rituals, seeing them as the entirety of one’s relationship with God, and assuming that as long as the proper sacrifices were offered, God could not truly be angry with the Jews, nor punish them harshly.

The future Beit haMikdash, as portrayed here, will be part of the Jewish people’s existence, but not the whole of it. It will be a place to attend and benefit from on Shabbatot and holidays, but other than that will be manned and the concern of a select group of people. Sacrifice and Temple worship will take its proper place as an element of, but not the entirety of, our connection with God.

The Importance of a Leader

The last verses discuss some rules for the Nasi giving land gifts, stressing that he cannot be corrupt in either giving or taking gifts. Our including this in the haftarah reminds us that the concern of the text—whatever we chose to get out of it—was the role of the Nasi in the future Mikdash, especially his connection to its service.

This connects well with Parshat haHodesh, since in both cases we are being told that the Nasi should be our representative. In the case of HaHodesh, kings had to count the years of their reign from Nisan, the first month of the Jewish people. The structure of the king’s office, in other words, emphasizes lessons for the people as a whole, whether in terms of the calendar or the Mikdash, making him our representative in more than just the usually understood ways. Shabbat Shalom.

[16] All the people of the land shall give this oblation for the prince in Israel.
[17] And it shall be the prince’s part to give burnt offerings, and meat offerings, and drink offerings, in the feasts, and in the new moons, and in the sabbaths, in all solemnities of the house of Israel: he shall prepare the sin offering, and the meat offering, and the burnt offering, and the peace offerings, to make reconciliation for the house of Israel.
[18] Thus saith the Lord GOD; In the first month, in the first day of the month, thou shalt take a young bullock without blemish, and cleanse the sanctuary:
[19] And the priest shall take of the blood of the sin offering, and put it upon the posts of the house, and upon the four corners of the settle of the altar, and upon the posts of the gate of the inner court.
[20] And so thou shalt do the seventh day of the month for every one that erreth, and for him that is simple: so shall ye reconcile the house.
[21] In the first month, in the fourteenth day of the month, ye shall have the passover, a feast of seven days; unleavened bread shall be eaten.
[22] And upon that day shall the prince prepare for himself and for all the people of the land a bullock for a sin offering.
[23] And seven days of the feast he shall prepare a burnt offering to the LORD, seven bullocks and seven rams without blemish daily the seven days; and a kid of the goats daily for a sin offering.
[24] And he shall prepare a meat offering of an ephah for a bullock, and an ephah for a ram, and an hin of oil for an ephah.
[25] In the seventh month, in the fifteenth day of the month, shall he do the like in the feast of the seven days, according to the sin offering, according to the burnt offering, and according to the meat offering, and according to the oil.
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Ezek.46
[1] Thus saith the Lord GOD; The gate of the inner court that looketh toward the east shall be shut the six working days; but on the sabbath it shall be opened, and in the day of the new moon it shall be opened.
[2] And the prince shall enter by the way of the porch of that gate without, and shall stand by the post of the gate, and the priests shall prepare his burnt offering and his peace offerings, and he shall worship at the threshold of the gate: then he shall go forth; but the gate shall not be shut until the evening.
[3] Likewise the people of the land shall worship at the door of this gate before the LORD in the sabbaths and in the new moons.
[4] And the burnt offering that the prince shall offer unto the LORD in the sabbath day shall be six lambs without blemish, and a ram without blemish.
[5] And the meat offering shall be an ephah for a ram, and the meat offering for the lambs as he shall be able to give, and an hin of oil to an ephah.
[6] And in the day of the new moon it shall be a young bullock without blemish, and six lambs, and a ram: they shall be without blemish.
[7] And he shall prepare a meat offering, an ephah for a bullock, and an ephah for a ram, and for the lambs according as his hand shall attain unto, and an hin of oil to an ephah.
[8] And when the prince shall enter, he shall go in by the way of the porch of that gate, and he shall go forth by the way thereof.
[9] But when the people of the land shall come before the LORD in the solemn feasts, he that entereth in by the way of the north gate to worship shall go out by the way of the south gate; and he that entereth by the way of the south gate shall go forth by the way of the north gate: he shall not return by the way of the gate whereby he came in, but shall go forth over against it.
[10] And the prince in the midst of them, when they go in, shall go in; and when they go forth, shall go forth.
[11] And in the feast and in the solemnities the meat offering shall be an ephah to a bullock, and ephah to a ram, and to the lambs as he is able to give, and an hin of oil to an ephah.
[12] Now when the prince shall prepare a voluntary burnt offering or peace offerings voluntarily unto the LORD, one shall then open him the gate that looketh toward the east, and he shall prepare his burnt offering and his peace offerings, as he did on the sabbath day: then he shall go forth; and after his going forth one shall shut the gate.
[13] Thou shalt daily prepare a burnt offering unto the LORD of a lamb of the first year without blemish: thou shalt prepare it every morning.
[14] And thou shalt prepare a meat offering for it every morning, the sixth part of an ephah, and the third part of an hin of oil, to temper with the fine flour; a meat offering continually by a perpetual ordinance unto the LORD.
[15] Thus shall they prepare the lamb, and the meat offering, and the oil, every morning for a continual burnt offering.
[16] Thus saith the Lord GOD; If the prince give a gift unto any of his sons, the inheritance thereof shall be his sons’; it shall be their possession by inheritance.
[17] But if he give a gift of his inheritance to one of his servants, then it shall be his to the year of liberty; after it shall return to the prince: but his inheritance shall be his sons’ for them.
[18] Moreover the prince shall not take of the people’s inheritance by oppression, to thrust them out of their possession; but he shall give his sons inheritance out of his own possession: that my people be not scattered every man from his possession.

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