In honour of the Festival of Hanukah 5785/2024
The proliferation of temples throughout the world and in every religion is evidence of Man's ideal of God living on earth with him. The idea of God and Man living together in harmony and mutual admiration, love, fear respect and obedience is as ancient as thinking Man's existence on the earth.
This ideal hasn't yet been achieved but human beings continue to build temple. The interesting thing is that temples don't become more beautiful, ornate, humungous and colourful with time. The further back we go into history the more magnificent the temples.
One method of realizing the ideal is burying the dead in temples. The idea being that in the afterlife man and God can live together,
Judaism differs in two respects from other religion.
1) Only one temple can be buuilt, at only one place, Mt.Moriah in Jerusalem. Building more temples is idolatry in Judaism, the most serious transgression in Judaism.
2) The dead are unclean and forbidden to be buried near the temple, which is holy, or near a living person (also holy)
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