Second Temple Blues

One quick idea I heard yesterday. I started university earlier this week. Things are really hectic right now as I'm trying to find my bearings. but I wanted to share a fascinating thought I heard from one of my lecturers yesterday. His name is Prof. Eyal Regev, and although he seems to hold some Biblical Criticism views which I do not like, his class was very interesting. We began by studying the early Second Temple period, and he noted something about Chaggai 2:1-9. In those verses, Chaggai, speaking for Hashem, tells the people in Yerushalayim not to be upset that the new Temple isn't as nice as the old one (for those that could remember it). He promised them in the name of Hashem that eventually, the Temple will be the glory of the whole world.

Regev pointed out this promise was never fulfilled in the Second Temple era. It's true that during Herod's time, the Temple received a serious facelift, but still two things were missing from Hashem's promise: a. The Shechinah was not present (כבוד ה' mentioned) and the description makes it seem as though Am Yisrael will be a free nation, which was not the case in Herod's time, being that Herod was a vassal of the Roman Empire. In other words, Regev said, the nation in Chaggai's time received awesome promises, which significantly raised their expectations of the future. And then nothing really happened. And the people, believing in the prophecy, began becoming frustrated more and more, until finally their frustration blew up. He mentioned a bit at the end that this blew up during Ezra and Nechemiah's time. I wasn't really sure what he was referring to - might be the fact that they became less religious (intermarrying, working on Shabbat, etc) - but I was thinking that these high messianic expectations may have really blown up on the eve of the Great Revolt.


(picture taken from here)


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