Symbolism of the Jewish Temple: from early notions to later interpretations

Annotation

The article deals with Jewish ideas about the temple from the era of its historical existence in Jerusalem and to the era following its fall. Texts created at the end of the Temple epoch and immediately after its destruction testify that the temple seemed a symbolic reflection of the Celestial temple covering the entire cosmos. In rabbinical thought the Temple in Jerusalem appears as a structure that models and, through this modeling, actualizes a world in which God is in unity with the earthly world and with the Israeli people. At the same time in the Tanakh the idea of the temple as a model of the universe reproducing the universal order is actually absent. The question is whether the temple was perceived in this way from the start of the existence or was this idea a late invention? Was its space initially perceived by the Jews as something more than the house of God, place of Divine presence and a point of meeting with God? Has the idea of the temple changed over the thousand years of its existence and has it been transformed after its destruction?

Keywords

Judaism, Jewish art, Temple cult, Temple, First temple, Second Temple, Jerusalem Temple, symbolism of the Temple, Celestial temple, Cosmic Temple.

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