The Jewish Priests are NOW in Training for the Third Temple-1

A woman looks toward the Tempe Mount from the Mount of Olives.

 “Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that the kingdom of God is near.”  (Luke 21:31)

Despite the Muslim community working diligently to deny the very existence of a historic link between the modern Jewish state and ancient Judea, work continues toward a Third Temple, including the creation of Temple vessels and the training of the Levites, who are appointed for Temple service, and Kohanim (Priests). In order to deny the Jewish claim to the Temple Mount, even the slightest evidence of the First and Second Holy Temple is routinely covered or destroyed by the Jerusalem Islamic Authority, the Waqf. The Waqf, which is in control of administering the Temple Mount, has dug up and dumped ancient and priceless remains of the Beit HaMikdash (Temple) in a public land fill, with no concern for the millennia of artifacts they are destroying in the process.

A model of the Second Temple and the Temple Mount

Since the Israeli government gave control to the Waqf in 1967, the Waqf, in cooperation with Israeli police, has effectively barred Jews and Christians from worshiping on the Mount, sometimes even banning their access to it. Even though the Israeli government allows the police to enforce this unjust practice, Jews pray daily, “May it be Your will that the temple be speedily rebuilt in our own time.”  They have done so ever since the destruction of the last Jewish Temple by the Roman general Titus in AD 70. In recent years, several organizations have married their prayer with action. According to Chaim Richman, the director of the Temple Institute in Jerusalem, whose headquarters is a short distance away from the Western Wall in the Old City, a “Temple in waiting” has essentially already been created. “The Temple Institute is actively engaged in the research and preparation of the resumption of service in the Holy Temple to the extent of actually preparing operational blueprints for the construction of the Temple according to the most modern standards,” Richman told CBN News’ Chris Mitchell.

 Chaim Richman, the director of the Temple Institute in Jerusalem.

Indeed, the Institute has already created over 60 sacred Temple vessels that will be needed for worship in the coming rebuilt Temple. The High Priest’s breastplate containing the 12 precious stones representing the tribes of Israel, and the musical instruments of the Levitical choir are also ready.  In addition, the Institute prepared the priestly garments. These garments will adorn a new generation of Levitical Priests (Kohanim) who are already in training. Kohen is a status given only to Aaron (who was a Levite) and his descendants.  Levitical priests, therefore, are those Jews who mark their ancestry back to the tribe of Levi and are descendants of Aaron, the brother of Moses.  Today, Cohen is a common Jewish last name and indicates a possible connection to the bloodline of Aaron. While the Kohanim were charged with sacrificial duties, those Levites who were not descendants of Aaron were charged with caring for the Temple as well as its vessels and furnishings. It has been close to 95 years since Jerusalem’s Chief Rabbi Kook was reported in a British publication to have established Torat Kohanim, a yeshiva (school for Orthodox rabbinic studies) designed for the training of Levites to serve in a rebuilt Temple.

 

 Rabbi Kook

Training in Kook's school was said to include participation in Temple sacrifices as in the First and Second Temples. When questioned by a Jerusalem Zionist executive, the Chief Rabbi responded that his was essentially a Torah academy, but he acknowledged that the recent establishment of a Palestinian mandate to give Jews a homeland in the ancient Land of Israel revealed a Divine providence that allowed the improbable to become probable. In other words, it was now possible that the Temple would be rebuilt since the Jews were returning to their land. Closing his response in a hopeful vein, the Chief Rabbi wrote, “So, too, the day will come when all nations will recognize the truth of our rights to the Temple area.  All will know and recognize that the prophetic vision regarding this holy place—that ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all the nations’—will only come to pass when ‘this great, holy house’ will be established there, in the hands of its original, eternal owners, the people of Israel, G-d’s people from time immemorial.  They and no other.” 

 Orthodox Jewish men look toward Jerusalem and the Temple Mount from
the Mount of Olives.