Holiest Day of the Year - Yom Kippur in the Temple - Pronouncing the Divine Name & Holy of Holies
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- čas přidán 11. 09. 2021
- This week we will be detailing the complex duties of the Israelite High Priest in ancient Temple of Jerusalem on Yom Kippur, including the garments, sacrifices, entering the Holy of Holies and the Vocalization of the Four-Letter Ineffable Name of G-d!
Make sure to also check out @ReligionForBreakfast 's episode on Yom Kippur here: • What is Yom Kippur?
#Temple #HolyofHolies #YomKippur
Recommending Readings:
Mishnah Tractate Yoma - www.sefaria.org/Mishnah_Yoma....
Hamblin & Seely - Solomon's Temple: Myth and History - 978-0500251331
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I'm learning a lot with you, man! Thanks!
Dr. , I really do enjoy your work.
I grew up Christian (LDS specifically) and although they were more than happy to appropriate lots of stuff from Judeaism, I feel like I've never actually learned anything about actual Judeaism until the internet and fine religious studies channels like Esoterica and Religion for Breakfast. Thanks so much for your scholarly presentations!
I personally don't care, but I wanna warn you that a lot of other Christians will argue that Mormons are not Christians. It's actually a little bit like Islam in so that it has a other holy text superseding the Bible, which is not normal for a Christian demonination even though LDS self identify as Christians.
Random aside, but there is a theory that the miraculous visions Joseph Smith's early followers received seemingly on demand when he needed them were induced with psychoactive mushrooms, given that they ceased following his death (quite the opposite of Christianity in that regard) and that there are known species that grow in the part of New York he was from.
I can't help but wonder how many high priests, especially the older ones, fainted or were otherwise sick by the end of the day and how that would have been dealt with at different stages of the ritual. Heat, fasting and sleep deprivation is a dangerous combo. Though I imagine there were many ways in which the high priest was prepared physically and mentally for this religious marathon.
I don't know dude. I've seen pictures of 1800s men and women in 3 layers of clothes, if they dress liberally. People might have just been built different back then.
As for heat stroke, I've heard that much of the ancient Near East used a type of air circulation tunnel in many of their homes and buildings. Think like a chimney but in reverse, and letting cool air in. So that likely helped to an extent.
@@Joe-po9xn Nah. Back in the day, clothing was much more breatheable than modern polyester fabrics. The layers provided insulation too. Also take into consideration the Little Ice Age and the lack of heat isles caused by cities made of cement and pavement. It was generally much fresher. Still, you see that tropical fashions at the same time, even the ones influenced by colonial Europe, were different and adapted for heat.
It seems as if it is forcing the priest to appeal to God to fortify them.
You know maybe this is why the thing with tying a rope to the priest when he entered the holy of holies developed
@@papercut7141 my understanding is that the rope is literally for this reason. Being around the Holy of Holies was seen as risking your life.
Epic and timely. What a beautiful recounting of the Seder HaAvodah. Thank you Dr Sledge.
Thanks brother - hope the days of awe are doing the trick for you !
What a delightful surprise!! Thank you so much for posting a video about this! 🙏🏻
Also: “ The Sin-Bearing Goats” is the name of my new prog-punk-folk band. 😂
Thats fantastic
I found Esoterica via ReligionForBreakfast and have spent the last few days utterly fascinated by your channel! I love your thoroughness and your humour.
G'mar chatima tova.
I say "Amen" to that closing. ReligionForBreakfast has led me to Esoterica. Subscribing to this precious find of a CZcams channel. Fantastic explainer video, so many long standing miscellaneous questions answered.
Damn… Thank you, Dr Sledge. That was fascinating. It’s amazing- as a a Christian (raised Catholic for 15 years, then leaving the church and going to a Protestant church for awhile) and marrying a Jewish gal (Reformed) and going to several services at her temple, how bizarre and foreign this all seems; yet I know it’s an incredible part of my faith, or at least it’s history. You learn about the basic idea of animal sacrifice, but not about scale, and the incredible complexity of the rituals performed on Yom Kippur. I know this much- I would never make it as a priest, let alone a high priest back then. Besides the sacrificial stuff (I don’t think I could do it; I’m not vegan, but I love animals), the complexity of the day (really dayS) long ceremony and getting everything right with the timing and precision, with the fate of my nation’s relationship with G-D in my hands, there’s just no way I could do it… it’s a nervous breakdown waiting to happen. Even that task of saying the divine name aloud would induce a panic attack! Again, thank you for such a thorough, deep, video!
גמר חתימה טובה!
Me: Let's play Goat Simulator!
Rabbi: You mean let's play Goat Sinulator!
Goat: 🐐
I really love and appreciate how tense you made this. Our modern lenes don't get it and therefore find the litanies of sacrifice dull. Emphasizing that ticking natural clock and the religious high stakes really got the sense of יום כפור intensity across.
Thanks, old friend! You know, I also think there is a lot of internalized anti-semitism (often in the form of embarrassment) in progressive Jewish circles about the whole ancient sacrificial system. It's worth learning about for many reasons least of which is that it still structures even the daily cycle of tefilah even in the most progressive prayer spaces. It's also just hella dunegons-and-dragons-y and I'm perennially down for dungeons and dragons and yiddishkeit.
@@TheEsotericaChannel Absolutely agree! Thank goodness that classical studies degree I got made me less weirded out by animal sacrifice systems. 🤷♂️ That underlying substrate for tefilah is why I was excited about this video. It really lays out the schedule of procedures efficiently and very helpful as I was trying to do some Yom Kippur prep.
Shanah tovah old friend! Gmar chatimah tovah!
PS - Dungeons and Dragons and Drash is clearly somebody's next cool Jewish project 😂
The more I learn about Judaism the more fascinating it becomes! Thanks for sharing!!
Same here, it is extremely fascinating!!
Ditto. I remember going to CCD as a young Catholic boy, and finding the Old Testament absolutely fascinating. I ended up marrying a Jewish girl, and rekindled my interest, and love, of the faith and it’s amazing history.
Dr Sledge, This study in 30 minutes was absolutely fantastic. I can't thank you enough for the amount of time you spend with each episode and how descriptive you were on the high priest ( I felt like I was inside watching) I can truly appreciate the amount of time and devotion that you spend. I would sure love a episode on the Katubah but understand with the amount of information you have been presenting over these months there just isn't time for everything ,maybe in one of your shorts it could be explained I mention primarily because many don't know how much goes on in the Katubah during even in the times of Jesus of Nazareth. I have taught on it and always suprised how most people once taught see it throughout the old and new testaments. Again thank you very much for the opportunity to be a Patreon to your channel.
OMG, I love that you plug Religion for Breakfast! I am also loving your channel, glad it popped up for me. (Happy Recon Jew here)
Thank you for this beautiful birthday present! 💙💐
Happy birthday !
It will be an even more happy day now!
Happy Birthday 🎂
I love how you’re adding to CZcams content on this academic field! Thank you.
This channel is awesome. Thank you, Dr Sledge!
What a perfect time to put out a video on this! The rendition of the Seder HaAvodah was excellent.
always outstanding.....your fan....superior prep and outstanding presentation..
Thank you for sharing your time and knowledge!
That was truly fascinating. Thank you.
Thank you for your work! It brings my life enrichment, thanks again!
Beautifully appreciated. Thank you very much sir. Continue on please🙏🏻
Great episode Doc! 👍
Excellent details! Thank you!
I'm going to be chazan for the avodah at a chabad so this is a great video as a reminder
But be careful as I think this is Schmad
It seems that the transition from secret ritual passed by initiation to public documents open to debate is good in both religion and government. Broad participation increases the vitality of the practice and its chances of survival.
The part of me that is fascinated with the ancient world is shocked to see me write that, but I have to remember that these things were alive in that time and that we're keeping them alive today.
I'm not sure I necessarily agree. As an analogous case, many insular cultures are dying out, and their languages are dying out with them. However, linguists have generally chosen not to study or record their languages, because being insular is an important part of those cultures and it would be deeply disrespectful for outsiders to try to record their languages. If a culture would rather take a secret religious ritual to the grave or to cultural extinction than make that ritual public, then I think we should respect that decision. If the secrecy is an important part of the ritual, then it's not so much increasing the vitality as it is replacing something sacred with something profane. I think our perspective, rooted in Western Modernism, makes us feel entitled to know about past and/or foreign cultures, and we really need to shake that belief. Our curiosity is less important than respecting the cultures we're curious about, in part because we fundamentally cannot understand a culture without respecting it.
Obviously the Jewish authorities chose to record their rituals, so these points don't really apply to the case of the Yom Kippur sacrifices, but in the case of some of the Greco-Roman mystery cults and such, they seem to have decided that doing things the right way and letting it die out was worth more than preserving things the wrong way.
Wonderful video!!! I love both your videos, and religion for breakfast's. I really wish I had learned more of this earlier in life. In US public schools, we only ever learned the bare-bones basics about a select few religions of the world, and even being raised Catholic, we never really delved deep into the Jewish traditions and rituals that came before us, even though as I'm learning now, many of the modern practices of Catholicism still echo back to roots in Judaism. Thanks for some great educational content!!!
Oh, also, I have a fun fact: Some people believe that the origin of birthstones(some sort of precious/semiprecious gem associated with the month you were born) is inspired by the kind of chest-pieces you were showing the high priest wearing, with the twelve rectangles on it. Although the determination of which gem belongs to which month was not set in stone(ha ha) until modern times, when jewelers latched onto the concept as a commercial tactic to sell jewelry to a previously untapped market: infants.
I am not Jewish, but that was very interesting. Great blessing at the end! Thank you, Dr Sledge.
thanks for the lesson
Thank you for the wonderful lecture.
Another great video, Dr. Sledge. It was full of fantastic and evocative details. You really brought it to life. Thank you! I did have a couple of questions, tho: 1) Do scholars have any idea how the high priest pronounced the ineffable name of G-d? and 2) With all of the blood splashing around the Holy of Holies, it must have been a pretty messy place. Was it ever ritually cleansed or was the blood simply allowed to accumulate?
Soap is made from fat, water and lye.
When the ashes of the animals and wood remain - it creates lye. The lye combines along with the fat of the animal and then all is cleansed with water. The cleanup was likely easier than what we first imagine it to be
So interesting and informative. Thank you.
Good stuff, thanks for the content!
What a wonderful subject!
I like learning about religion on this channel it's very helpful. It really helps me get ideas for great horror stories. I'm writing down some notes on ideas to construct an apocalyptic horror story that centers around Jerusalem. Not for an end of the world type of a story, but more about uncovering a forgotten place buried underneath Jerusalem that teleports you to a creepy alternative reality of Jerusalem that looks and appears as if it was designed by Clive Barker and HP. Lovecraft and the Temple of Solomon still stand erect and houses not Angels but monsters like Witches, Demonic Looking Beasts, Cosmic Horror Entities, and weird gross, and terrifying creatures from your worst of nightmares. A Jerusalem that is home to so many creatures in both Gothic, Cosmic, and Contemporary horror. I keep going back to the story of King Solomon having Demons construct the temple, and that made me imagine an alternative Jerusalem that is neither a heaven nor a hell, but foreboding and existential and it got me thinking about alternative versions of sacred temples, synagogues, churches, and mosques in Jerusalem, where when you go inside those buildings and everything is upside down filled with creatures and spirits inside these holy monuments and tombs inspire fear and dread of the unknown. And in this alternative version of Jerusalem. Shadows are not just alive, but are sentient and know where you go and where you sleep.
Or, perhaps, the ritual “fail-safes” fail & the goat full of sin finds its way home again?
Looking forward to reading the results
i'd definitely read this!
Angels as per bible description are nearly cosmic beastly nightmares already.
Très belle leçon, merci beaucoup
Awesome. More like this please!
Thought my mason folks might dig it
@@TheEsotericaChannel And thanks for properly calling us Latter Day Saints. shows you're more well thought out than most
@@thelatterdayarbiter I do my best to address folks how I understand they want to be addressed. Everyone deserves that basic respect.
Beautifully done. It sounds so complicated.
Thank you Doctor.
Thank you
One video I would like to see is a recreation of the the actual temple service as it was done in biblical times
We read about it and hear about it but it would be very inspirational and a great learning experience to actually see and experience the whole service
Your video is very interesting and very well explained but as said above a virtual experience would be very enlightening
fascinating
I wish there was still one culture that did sacrifices and elaborate rituals like this. It's so interesting.
the samaritans still sacrifice for passover, also muslims do a sacrifice during the hajj
Hinduism?
A real instructor
Good man!
非常好！真棒👍
Thanks
Great video, not an easy subject. Just one point I would like to make. The Holy of Holies could not have been anywhere near where the dome of the rock is today. Middot Mishna 1 says
משנה מסכת מידות פרק ב משנה א
הר הבית היה חמש מאות אמה על חמש מאות אמה רובו מן הדרום שני לו מן המזרח שלישי לו מן הצפון מיעוטו מן המערב מקום שהיה רוב מדתו שם היה רוב תשמישו:
so we see that the Bet Hamikdash was in the Northern half of the raised platform backed up against the Western edge. Look at an aerial photo. The dome of the rock is in the middle and more towards the South side.
I also want to say that the temple was directly West of the Eastern gate - and the only Eastern gate is the Shaar Harachamim - remember the Eastern wall is entirely intact and there is no other gate there along the Har Habayit section. If so then the Romans must have dug up some of the platform of the original Har Habayit. We see from Masechat Parah that the party with the red heifer goes out of the Eastern gate, crosses the valley on a bridge and then sprinkles the blood while facing West towards the temple. However I can't find an actual text that says that the temple, the gate and the place where they performed the red heifer ritual were in a straight line. Nevertheless I find it hard to believe that the temple would have been built with the gate at an angle.
Either way, the Dome of the Rock is clearly out of the running as the site of the Holy of Holies, since the Holy of Holies was the very Western end of the Temple.
This is an interesting point. I know this is a sensitive topic, but I want to learn more! On my last visit to Jerusalem, my mind was completely blown by the City of David. The Gihon spring runs right through the city, the only 'main' fresh waterway into Jerusalem BC. While walking Hezekiah's water tunnel (8th century BC), I wondered if this could have been the escape route for the Arc of the Covenant in the 6th century? Although the City of David is south east Jerusalem, I believe we are slowly unearthing the truth. I want to learn as much as I can about the 1st Temple. I feel unsure about the 2nd-3rd temple location. After the Babylon captivity and the raising of Jerusalem in the 6th century, how sure are we that the locatin was in the same place? And to build another temple without the Ark...Why? I have so many questions about the 1st Temple vs the Temple that came later. Remember, Hezekiah's Tunnel was an Old Testament fairy tale for millennia, and only rediscovered in the 1800s. Many believers were ridiculed for believing the nonsense. Hindsight is 20/20. I would like to find a discussion group that is as obsessed with the Ark and 1st Temple as I am.
The third temple could be the individual, as one goes deepest within the self. At One Ment. Atonement is not without blood, possibly signifying that one must embody the rituals mentally.
Amen.
I am Jewish I love my god I study the teachings all my life from the deepest part in my soul that longs for the one and only the true source of our existence. I also don't keep yom kipur- I don't want to hurt my soul I love my life and charish it I try to eat with intention of nurishment. God is only a race from which we came from and to which we will go back to. Awareness is the a program once that ends we get to go back to the main event and guess what we choose to do -> play again :)) Thank you for your insightful content and may we learn to first forgive ourselves (without harming our creations) May we ask the earths forgivemess and may she allow us to stay healthy and repent
Dr Sledge, I was wondering where the inspiration for your channel logo came from? To me it looks like Mayan script!
🙏
Oh goodness !!! I'm so glad I was not born back during that time
I thought that Azazel was one of the “sons of heaven” who defiled himself with a “daughter of man.” So basically a watcher, or fallen angel, from 1 Enoch.
I'd guess that the writer of Enoch drew on a preexisting tradition for the name. Sort of like the name Asmodeus in Tobit.
@@Salsmachev Probably, but 1 Enoch was written down during the 2nd temple era from earlier stories.
@@neilbrocklebank6539 I guess what I mean is that both the temple ritual and Enoch probably got the name from the same place, but they are essentially two distinct characters that belong in distinct theological contexts and I'm guessing that's how the high priests would have seen it. Sort of like how Gawain and Lancelot in the Arthurian legend were originally two different interpretations of the same original character who eventually came to be seen as separate characters with their own independent legends. Watchers Azazel and goat Azazel probably had a common origin, but would likely have been viewed as distinct characters.
Both are linked. Mount azazel is where.he resides. I cannot remember where I red that a sacrificial goat was offer to him because it was due to him that we learned to sin. We had sin in us. We just didn't know how to. So they would place all their sins on the goat. To put them back on azazel and expunge it.
@@blackreazor you’re right. He taught man to forge weapons and wage war and so all sin was to be ascribed to him.
Would love some additional insight into the esoteric aspects of the history of Joseph Smith Jr, founder of the LDS church ("Mormons").
unfortunately, you're not gonna get much with regards to any form of supposed witchcraft in any first or secondary sources. I looked for myself, it's pretty disappointing. but if you still wish to understand the history of the Latter Day Saints and the esoteric nature of their beliefs, Saints Unscripted's Faith and Beliefs segment is a good recourse.
I'll need to watch this a few more times to get everything right. I know, I know, West - to the left. But where is my goat?!
This is immensely interesting. Do any of these Rituals live today? Obviously in an altered or evolved form as at this time there is no Temple in Jerusalem.
Thank you for the ברכה
Most of orthodox Jewish prayer services are based around the temple service in some way or the other
@@TheEsotericaChannel :) thank you. I'm thinking of converting to Christian Eastern Orthodoxy and I recognized some aspects incorporated into the Christian Liturgy. As I'm still an outsider, I may be miss interrupting? But I still see it.
Thanks again. I appreciate your work.
Have you covered the emerald tablets of Toth?
Hey Justin, where did you get the pic of the 3d model of the temple from? Is the model open source?
Toda
The 'Spare wife for the High Priest' thing sounds like an interesting premise for a Rom Com. Or like, drama.
legend has it many of the Sadduccee High Priests were killed when they would enter the Holy of Holies with the incense already lit
I think it is really fascinating, though as a lifelong vegetarian I am repulsed by the animal sacrifice.
The number and variety of sacrifices, and especially the 2 goats, in my mind reveals the polytheistic past of Judaism.
If there is only one god, what is this of placating a forest demon Azazel?
If there is but one god, why would they require separate sacrifices with specific different tasks done with the blood of each?
This seems to me to be left over from worship of Asherah and Ba'al, as well as perhaps others.
Which has me wondering if they kept the ritual unchanged from the polytheistic through the henotheistic period, and then into the monotheistic historically liminal era.
Simply changing whom the various sacrifices were for.
After all the crowd came to see X number of sacrifices.
They are gonna get X number of sacrifices.
Is that your dog?
Good dog!
So, to understand, over the course of history, the incense was alternately lit both inside and outside the Holy of Holies, depending on who was in charge? So both occurred without metaphysical consequences and effect. How does this figure into the ongoing debate?
How do you know it had no metaphysical impact? Do you have a copy of God's Book of Life lying around?
@@Salsmachev Not what I meant. If there was no record, written or otherwise, of high priests getting struck dead in association with the location of the lighting of the incense, then it would have been easy for the other party to consolidate their position on the ceremony. As it stands historically, I guess Yahweh was fine with either approach, and the parties were just using it as a point of power or contention. Hope that helps.
@@realpastorvlad While I agree that is one possible interpretation, I think it's worth considering that they earnestly believed that it made a difference. I personally think it's a bit reductive to assume that doing the wrong thing and/or pissing off God has to have obvious physical repercussions. And, frankly, even when I was working at a grocery store I had the experience of feeling cross about other people's half-assed work, so I imagine that when your job is literally to save your whole community's souls, those feelings would become rather more heated in their own right, without having to be part of a larger power struggle.
What is the Torah reading done by the priest? What book or sections are recited?
Just the verses I quoted on the episode
I would not be surprised at all if that was the very site where Adam was created by the Divine creator.
That's the legend!
Is, or has, the descriptive "omphalos" been applied to the Temple in Jerusalem? Jerusalem, and especially the Temple at its heart, was the geopolitical centre of the Jewish state as well as being the spiritual centre of the state and its people. To my understanding the unification of the political centre of the state and the spiritual centre of the state would make of Jerusalem an omphalos by definition, in the same way that Babylon was.
I mean, J'lem is often referred to as the "navel of the world" in the medieval period
@esoterica Inking the image. Your gonna love it. I got sidetracked with my video game I'm making. You should probably respond to the 2 emails I sent.
I did - both of them.
@@TheEsotericaChannel odd. I'll go check the Spam box. Technology, got to love it.
@@TheEsotericaChannel I searched your name in the top bar because it wasn't showing up and I found them. Once again, odd.
Andrew sent me.
𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄
Wait, so you draw lots on your prayers now?
(just joking lol, no disrespect meant)
That's a helluva lot of animals!
the complexity of this ritual makes yearly tax preparation feel like a lazy walk in the park.
It seems like poor form to pass all your sins onto another being, kill it and then rejoice?
Here i was hoping to hear the vocalization of the Holy name :(
Do your religion still do this.
Judaism does not perform sacrifices, its forbidden to do so until the Temple is rebuilt
"+1 against taharah" 😂😂😂
knowing what you know about aztec/mayan rituals do you beleive that ancient semites and meztizo civilizations are related?
Any mention of Leviticus and we are in trouble. Never has one author created so much confusion. No doubt contradicted by Ecclesiastes. What a mine field of proposterous leanings. I don’t do sacrifice. It’s nonsense.
Jesus helped in that way