“How can a person's offering be sacrificed when he is not standing by it?” The early prophets instituted twenty-four watches, and for each priestly watch a ma'amad in Jerusalem, of kohanim, of Leviim and of Israelites: those of the ma'amad in or near Jerusalem stand by the tamid, on behalf of all Israel; the others gather in their towns. Their place is the Ezrat Israel, the eleven-ama strip east of the Ezrat Kohanim, which they cross only for semikha, shechita and tenufa. The tamid tour places two of them, facing the Sanctuary, one wrapped in a tallit; the free visit, a single one, wrapped in a tallit.
Dimensions
- Ezrat Israel: eleven amot wide across the 135 of the court
- twenty-four ma'amadot, one per watch
- the Ezrat Kohanim is crossed only for semikha, shechita and tenufa
Sources
- Ta'anit 4:2“וְכִי הֵיאַךְ קָרְבָּנוֹ שֶׁל אָדָם קָרֵב, וְהוּא אֵינוֹ עוֹמֵד עַל גַּבָּיו… עַל כָּל מִשְׁמָר וּמִשְׁמָר הָיָה מַעֲמָד בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם שֶׁל כֹּהֲנִים, שֶׁל לְוִיִּם, וְשֶׁל יִשְׂרְאֵלִים”
- Middot 5:1“מְקוֹם דְּרִיסַת יִשְׂרָאֵל אַחַת עֶשְׂרֵה אַמָּה, מְקוֹם דְּרִיסַת הַכֹּהֲנִים אַחַת עֶשְׂרֵה אַמָּה”
- Kelim 1:8“עֶזְרַת הַכֹּהֲנִים מְקֻדֶּשֶׁת מִמֶּנָּה, שֶׁאֵין יִשְׂרָאֵל נִכְנָסִים לְשָׁם אֶלָּא בִשְׁעַת צָרְכֵיהֶם, לִסְמִיכָה לִשְׁחִיטָה וְלִתְנוּפָה”
Project decisionProject's position: the worshippers are not in period costume but in what their community wears today for Yom Kippur — suit and tallit, suit and kippa. This is a deliberate stance, not a reconstruction. The gestures are also choices.