The Temple of Jerusalem, rebuilt in three dimensions to the measurements of the Mishnah. You enter on foot, walk where you like, and every stone tells you where it comes from.
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The tour is a three-dimensional scene you walk through with a keyboard, a mouse or a finger. Courtyards, gates, chambers, the altar and the Sanctuary are built in volumes to the measurements of tractate Middot, the only measured description of a standing Temple.
Click a gate, a vessel or a garment and it tells you what it is, its measure, and the text behind it: Middot, Tamid, Yoma, the Rambam, with a link to Sefaria. Where the sources disagree or fall silent, the tour says which opinion was kept, which was set aside, and what is merely a choice of the project.
The Mishnah counts ten degrees of holiness, from the land of Israel to the Kodesh HaKodashim, and defines each by those who may no longer enter (Kelim 1:6-9). The tour covers the last seven. So does this page: the further you go, the narrower the light.
Holier than Jerusalem: zavim, zavot, menstruants and women after childbirth may not enter.
Holier than the Chel: one who immersed that same day may not enter before sunset.
Holier than the Ezrat Nashim: one who still owes an offering of atonement may not enter.
Holier than the Ezrat Israel: Israelites enter only for what requires them, the semikhah, the shechitah and the tenufah.
Holier than the Ezrat Kohanim: priests with a blemish or unkempt hair may not enter.
Holier still: no one enters without having washed hands and feet.
Holiest of all: no one enters but the Kohen Gadol, on Yom Kippur, at the hour of the service.
The scene is generated by a script in Blender, measure by measure, from the project's technical sheet. The plan and the dimensions come from Middot; what the First Temple had without Middot repeating it returns when the Tanakh describes it and nothing abolishes it. It is therefore the Temple to come, neither the First nor the Second: the Ark is back on the Even HaShetiya, Yakhin and Boaz stand in the Ulam.
The kohanim and Levi'im who people the tour are dressed after the Rambam, Klei HaMikdash. The images on this page come from the film in preparation: the render of the scene, repainted as a photograph without a single stone moving.
Mishnah Middot, Tamid, Yoma, Kelim; the Babylonian Talmud; Rambam, Hilkhot Beit HaBechirah and Klei HaMikdash. The texts are read on Sefaria, and every citation in the tour links there.
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