Talmudic Aggadot of Bayit Rishon

In this first session of this new series, we will begin with the gemara’s understanding of  how the exact location of the Beit HaMikdash — the first one, which of course also determined the location of the second Beit HaMikdash — was chosen in a discussion between King David and Shmuel HaNavi.

In this, our second session in this series, we look at parts of the story of the building of the First Beit HaMikdash. We will encounter discussions in the gemara regarding who exactly were doing all the work, and–time allowing–how some of it was rather miraculously done..

In this, our third session in this series, we will first complete the material from the previous session by reading the very clear and helpful conclusion and summary written by the Radak (on Melachim I) about the division of labor that went into procuring and transporting the raw materials (i.e. lumber and stone) used in building the First Beit Mikdash. We will see how he used the information found in the Talmudic discussion that we studied on Yevamot daf 89a in the last session.

Then we will move on to the new subtopic “How were the stones cut and used?” We will study the Talmudic dispute concerning this, and learn about the apparent prohibition to cut stones in (for?) the Mikdash, and what is the origin of this prohibition. We will see how both sides of the dispute agree on the fact that a miraculous mechanism was used at that time, but disagree on where and how it was applied.

In this session we will learn an aggadah found in parallel in a few places in the Talmud Bavli. which describes the end of the building of Bayit Rishon (the First Temple) and the act that finally completes it: bringing the Aron Kodesh (the Ark of the Covenant) into the Kodesh Kodeshim, the strange difficulty that Shlomo had in bringing this about, and how he finally overcame the obstacle. In studying this aggadah we will also study the explanations found in the books Chidushei Aggadot of the Maharsha, and of the Maharal of Prague.

We will begin this session, our fifth in this series on Bayit Rishon (the First Temple), by examining carefully the Mishnah in Masechet Ta’anit that lists the historical events that occurred on the 17th of the month of Tammuz, which is the calendar date of this class (in Israel time). We will try to identify which of these events occurred at the time of  Bayit Rishon, with the help of the commentary of Tiferet Yisrael.

Following this, we will encounter our next topic regarding Bayit Rishon: the dedication of the Temple after it was completed, and learn what is stated in the gemara (Talmud Bavli, passages in Masechet Shabbat, Zevachim, and Moed Katan) about what went wrong (and did it really go wrong..?) with this celebration.

In this session we will first complete the previous topic by carefully reading the gemara’s explanation of what the people of Israel were thinking when they did not observe the fast of Yom Kippur at the time of the dedication of the Beit HaMikdash of King Shlomo. We will also see the fascinating Hassidic explanation of this by Rav Tzadok haCohen.

Following this, we will read verses from the book of Melachim I in order to learn how gold was used by King Shlomo both in the Beit HaMikdash and in the house/palace he  built for himself. Then we will learn, with the help of Chiddushei Aggadot of the Maharsha, the gemara passage in Masechet Yoma about the trees of the Beit HaMikdash that grew gold fruit!

In this last session of our series, we will complete learning the story about the miracle involving gold in the First Beit HaMikdash.

Following this, we will study another passage from Masechet Yoma that details several very significant differences between Bayit Rishon and Bayit Sheni.

Finally, and time allowing, we will study a few of the Talmudic passages found towards the end of Masechet Ta’anit about the destruction of the First Beit HaMikdash.