Jewish Leaders in AZ Tour Mesa Temple During Open House

[smac97]

Here:

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When Temple Chai’s Rabbi Bonnie Koppell received an invitation to tour Arizona’s oldest temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, she didn’t think twice before accepting.

“I felt like the LDS community was reaching out with a hand of friendship, and that’s an important thing to accept -- someone’s offer of friendship,” she said.

About 20 Jewish community leaders have toured or visited the temple ahead of its rededication on Dec. 12.
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“The physical spaces are very, very different from what we might expect as a worship space,” Koppel said. “They’re elegantly and beautifully furnished, and there’s a grandeur about them.”

Stanton Curry, who personally invited many of the Jewish leaders who attended, said it is important to build and strengthen relationships with people of different faiths.

“There are a lot of needs to be served in our community. We’re good at some things; we’re not good at other things, and working in a partnership, we can all get a lot more done,” he said. “We have that kind of relationship with a number of religious groups, including the Jewish leadership in the Valley.”

It’s also nice to invite people over to your house, he said. “People are curious, and there are beautiful things to see in there.”

I am very happy to hear anecdotes like this.  The temple being a means whereby interfaith relationships are strengthened.

Rabbi Koppell was one of the first female rabbis in the United States.

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Sheryl Bronkesh, president of the Phoenix Holocaust Association, attended a tour and brought two local Holocaust survivors with her. They all felt extremely welcomed.

When they toured the room containing the baptismal font, the tour guide brought up the past controversy surrounding the church’s former practice of posthumously baptizing Holocaust victims.

“I don’t know if they always talk about it, or they talked about it because they knew that we had Holocaust survivors there, but they addressed it proactively,” Bronkesh said. “I thought that was really good of them.”

In 2010, the church made an agreement with Jewish leaders to stop the practice, acknowledging it had “unintentionally caused pain.”

Tim Eckstein, the board chair of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Phoenix, said there’s “still some lingering hurt” over the practice in the Jewish community, but it’s “important for us to try to move past differences we’ve had in the past.”

I'm glad to hear this was addressed, and that both sides are moving past these differences.

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Eckstein also toured the temple, and was glad to go on both a personal level and on behalf of JCRC.

“These are incredibly sincere people who are opening their doors and asking the world to come in and see what they’re about,” he said. “Anyone who’s willing to do that, I’m open to accepting that invitation, and I think we all should be-- whether we’re community leaders or not.”

Building understanding and strengthening relationships with people across different faiths is essential in building the sort of civil society “that we all want to live in,” he said.

Marty Haberer, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix, said it is very important for the Jewish community to graciously accept any invitation to participate outside of the Jewish world. “The definition of tikkun olam, which means improve the world, doesn’t mean improve only the Jewish world,” he said. It’s also important that the Jewish community shows that it is a great partner and neighbor, he said.

Touring the Mesa Arizona Temple reminded him of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. “That was a time when the physical temple was where we believed that God’s shechina, his spirit, was housed. And that’s kind of how they treat their temples.”

He was impressed by the “dignity and perfection” of the building, and said it was refreshing to see that kind of care poured into a physical facility.

I think few people are as well situated as our Jewish brothers and sisters to appreciate the meaning and significance of the temple.

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Rabbi Michael Beyo, CEO of the East Valley Jewish Community Center, began a friendship with the LDS community about five years ago and was eager to accept an invitation from a friend to tour his temple.

Religion can be used to denigrate somebody else and create outcasts, he said. “We, as Jews, have been a recipient of that for the last 2,000 years,” he said. Alternatively, religion can be used to create common ground and create a better society with bonds of friendship, “and that is what I would like religion to be,” he said.

Koppell said Jewish people “can’t have too many friends,” and it is always nice to learn about other faiths. She, too, has had longstanding ties to the LDS community, but had never been inside a temple before. The celestial room resonated most with her. It’s a kind of prayer and meditation space that she described as a mix of a living room and a palace. “It always boggles my mind that in that space there’s no talking or eating. It’s the exact opposite of a synagogue,” she joked.

We do plenty of "talking" and "eating" in the church gyms.

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The visitation period that began Saturday, Oct. 16, will run through Nov. 20, and advanced reservations are encouraged.

About 2,500 people toured the temple the week of Oct. 11, about 85% of whom were not members of the Mormon faith, Curry said.

85% is very cool.

Thanks,

-Smac

[InCognitus]

4 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Stanton Curry, who personally invited many of the Jewish leaders who attended, said it is important to build and strengthen relationships with people of different faiths.

Good article.  Stan Curry was our bishop many years ago, and I got to know him quite well working with him in the calling I had at the time.  Early last year I attended an event in his home, and he shared with me some of his connections he has with the Jewish community in Phoenix.  He's a good man, and perfect for the work he is doing.  Thank you for bringing this article to our attention.

[TheTanakas]

On 10/21/2021 at 1:14 PM, smac97 said:

I think few people are as well situated as our Jewish brothers and sisters to appreciate the meaning and significance of the temple.

I wouldn't go that far.  Jewish brothers and sisters would disagree on our use of the 
molten sea upon the twelve oxen for baptisms and performing marriages in the temple.

Pete

[smac97]

41 minutes ago, TheTanakas said:

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I think few people are as well situated as our Jewish brothers and sisters to appreciate the meaning and significance of the temple.

I wouldn't go that far.  Jewish brothers and sisters would disagree on our use of the molten sea upon the twelve oxen for baptisms and performing marriages in the temple.

Pete

Sure.  I'm not saying they agree with the particulars of our temple worship.  But temple worship is, in the Judeo-Christian world, almost exclusive to the Latter-day Saints.  Our Jewish brothers and sisters have gone without it for 2,000 years or so, and during that time have come to grips with that loss.  Consider, for example, the apparent expectations of Josephus (writing after the destruction of the temple) (emphases added) :

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We have seen that, according to Josephus, who was an eyewitness from the Roman camp, the destruction of the Temple in August 70 CE was not intended by the Roman high command. In the chaos of the siege a fire started by a lighted brand flung into the sanctuary by a Roman soldier spread rapidly out of control and attempts by Titus to save the building were in vain. Josephus was clear that Titus had been the instrument of the Jewish God in punishing his people for their sins. It was equally clear that, just as God had brought about in due course the rebuilding of the Temple after its destruction by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, so too its rebuilding could be expected now. The Torah contained explicit injunctions to Jews to bring sacrifices and offerings, so to decide that this was no longer possible was hardly an obvious option. The Jerusalem Temple was not the only religious building to burn down by accident in the Roman empire — indeed, the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in Rome had burned down the previous year. The obvious option for Jews was to hope and pray for a rapid rebuilding of their shrine, and for them to strain every sinew to bring it about.

Josephus, writing in the mid-90s CE, took it for granted that Jews were expected still to worship in the Temple, boasting in Against Apion about its excellence:

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One temple of the one God — for like is always attracted to like — common to all people as belonging to the common God of all. The priests will continuously offer worship to him, and the one who is first by descent will always be at their head. He, together with the other priests, will sacrifice to God, will safeguard their laws, will adjudicate in disputes, and will punish those who are convicted […] We offer sacrifices not for our gratification or drunkenness — for that is undesirable to God and would be a pretext for violence and lavish expenditure — but such as are sober, orderly, well-behaved, so that, especially when sacrificing, we may act in sober moderation. And at the sacrifices we must first offer prayers for the common welfare, and then for ourselves; for we were born for communal fellowship, and the person who sets greater store by this than by his own personal concerns would be especially pleasing to God.

Nothing in this paean of praise for the Temple hints at the fact, which will have been as blatant to his readers as to him, that it had been destroyed a quarter of a century earlier.

It looks like it took quite a while for the expectation of a prompt re-building to fade:

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Josephus was wrong in his expectation that the Jerusalem Temple would be rebuilt. Once it was in ruins, Vespasian and Titus invested too much political capital in propaganda about the defeat of the Jews as justification for their seizure of imperial power in Rome to permit any suggestion that its destruction should be regretted, let alone that a new building should arise in its place. The dedication of the Jews who had defended the sanctuary during the siege, and the defensive advantages of the site, discouraged their immediate successors from permitting rebuilding. The founding by Hadrian of the Roman colony of Aelia Capitolina on the site of Jerusalem in 130 CE put paid to the possibility of a new Jewish Temple for the remaining centuries of Roman rule. An abortive attempt by the pagan emperor Julian to rebuild the Temple in 364 CE in order to annoy Christians was prevented by Julian’s premature death on campaign. The Temple Mount lay desolate until the late seventh century CE, when the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik constructed on the site the magnificent Islamic shrine of the Dome of the Rock that still stands there today.

It is however probable that Josephus was not alone among Jews in expecting the rebuilding of the Temple. A hundred years after him, the compiler of the Mishnah in c. 200 CE included discussion of the detailed practice of Temple worship — not just the set feasts (Sabbath, the pilgrim festivals, the Day of Atonement) but the general treatment of “hallowed things” (animal offerings, meal offerings, sacrilege) and the dimensions of the Temple building and its constituent parts. At least some non-Jews, for whom worship with sacrifice, libations, and other offerings was among the most normal characteristics of Judaism, seem to have shared the assumption that in due course the Jerusalem Temple would again house crowds of pilgrims. Late in the third century, 200 years after the destruction, the pagan orator Menander of Laodicea (in Asia Minor) was still pointing to the pilgrim festivals in Jerusalem as the most impressive example of mass pilgrimage. He noted that “the glory of [a religious] festival is enhanced when those who assemble are either very great in number or of the highest repute. An example of high repute […] is Olympia, where renowned people meet,” but, he noted, “the largest multitudes are to be found at the festival of the Hebrews living in Syria Palestine, as they are gathered in very large numbers from most nations.” In due course Jews were to develop new expressions of Judaism that came to terms with the loss of the Temple, but it is not clear how long it took for the yearning for a rebuilt Temple to subside. Some of the coins of the rebels led by Bar Kokhba in 132–’35 CE carried images of the Temple and the legend “For Jerusalem.” The attempted rebuilding by Julian in the mid-fourth century passes almost unremarked in the extant rabbinic writings from Palestine in this period, but this may be because, being at the instigation of a pagan ruler rather than through the efforts of Jewish priests, it was deemed invalid. Temple imagery and reference to the priestly “courses” in many mosaic inscriptions on synagogue floors of the fifth and sixth centuries CE have encouraged speculation that Jews in this period harbored hopes for an imminent rebuilding, but this may be an over-interpretation. In any case, rebuilding was not a practical possibility under Christian rulers intent on turning Palestine into a Christian holy land in which Jesus’s prediction of the destruction of the Temple could be witnessed as fulfilled.

It sounds like the Jews spent some centuries anticipating or hoping for a the temple to be re-built:

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It would not be until the 12th century, in an Islamic world where sacrifice was no longer part of the wider culture, that Maimonides would assert that God had encouraged sacrificial cult in the first place only in order to wean Jews away from the human sacrifice to be found among surrounding peoples. Even Maimonides believed that in the last days the Temple would be restored by God, as assumed in the daily prayer that had been in regular use, at least among rabbinic Jews, since soon after 70 CE:

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To Jerusalem, your city, may you return in compassion, and may you dwell in it as you promised. May you rebuild it rapidly in our days as an everlasting structure, and install within it soon the throne of David. Blessed are you, Lord, who builds Jerusalem […] Find favour, Lord our God, in your people Israel and their prayer. Restore the service to your most holy house, and accept in love and favour the fire-offerings of Israel and their prayer. May the service of your people Israel always find favour with you.

In the meantime, the response of rabbinic sages back in 70 CE to the Temple destruction was severely practical:

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If a Festival-day of the New Year fell on a Sabbath they might blow the ram’s horn in the Holy City but not in the provinces. After the Temple was destroyed Rabban Yohanan b. Zakkai ordained that they might blow it wheresoever there was a court. R. Eliezer said, “Rabban Yohanan b. Zakkai ordained it so only for Yavneh.” They replied, “It is all one whether it was Yavneh or any other place wherein was a court.” […] Beforetime the lulav was carried seven days in the Temple, but in the provinces one day only. After the Temple was destroyed, Rabban Yohanan b. Zakkai ordained that in the provinces it should be carried seven days in memory of the Temple […] Beforetime they used to admit evidence about the new moon throughout the day. Once the witnesses tarried so long in coming that the levites were disordered in their singing; so it was ordained that evidence could be admitted only until the afternoon offering […] After the Temple was destroyed Rabban Yohanan b. Zakkai ordained that they might admit evidence about the new moon throughout the day.

The emphasis on ensuring liturgical continuity is significant. In the centuries after 70 CE synagogue buildings gradually began to take on an aura of sanctity, albeit at a level below that of the Temple. Synagogue mosaic inscriptions in Aramaic and Greek record the gifts of pious Jews to “this sacred place” in numerous sites in Galilee in the fifth and sixth centuries. Considerable expenditure on such mosaics, many of them elaborately depicting biblical scenes such as the binding of Isaac by Abraham, in itself attests the new veneration accorded to these buildings.

For centuries the Jews were specifically praying for the restoration of the temple.  Latter-day Saints hope for and anticipate this as well:

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In one of the great discourses that he gave shortly before his death, the Prophet Joseph Smith made the following comment while talking about the second coming of Christ; he said these events must take place before the second coming of Christ:

“Judah must return, Jerusalem must be rebuilt, and the temple, and water come out from under the temple, and the waters of the Dead Sea be healed. It will take some time to rebuild the walls of the city and the temple, &c., and all this must be done before the Son of Man will make His appearance.” (Documentary History of the Church, vol. 5, p. 337.)

Modern Christian thought about the temple is all over the place (see here), with " Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant Christianity" apparently believing that " a third temple, whose partial purpose would be the re-institution of animal sacrifices, is seen as unnecessary and thus superseded."  However, "Irenaeus and Hippolytus were among early church writers who foresaw a rebuilding of the Temple, as necessary for the preparation for the reign of the Antichrist."  Also, "{m}any Evangelical Christians believe that New Testament prophecies associated with the Jewish Temple, such as Matthew 24–25 and 2 Thessalonians 2:1–12, were not completely fulfilled during the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 (a belief of full preterism) and that these prophecies refer to a future temple."

Thanks,

-Smac

[Calm]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

But temple worship is, in the Judeo-Christian world, almost exclusive to the Latter-day Saints.  Our Jewish brothers and sisters have gone without it for 2,000 years or so, and during that time have come to grips with that loss.

I don’t think we should just use the label temple as if saying the word is all that needs to be said to make a connection with how the Jews used their temple. I think one needs to identify what behaviours took place within temple grounds and look at those if one is going to make such claims.

It comes across as if all that matters to make a connection between our two faiths’ use of temples is the fact we use the same label for a building when you state that Jews would not agree with the particulars of our worship.

So what practices do you see as exclusive to Latter-day Saints that are consistent with ancient Jewish Temple practices?

Are there other Christian faiths who have buildings they consider dedicated to the worship of God or could even be considered a dwelling place for God?

Perhaps this can help in framing how Jews view what the temple is meant to be:

https://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-temple-and-vs-synagogue/

Edited November 5, 2021 by Calm