Shivat Tzion, the First Return to Eretz Yisrael After a long and protracted siege, Jerusalem fell to Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon. (586 BCE). The fabulous Temple of Solomon was burnt to the ground, Tzedkiyau Melech Yehuda blinded, and masses of the people exiled to Babylon. Most of the sacred Mikdash vessels were taken to Babylon and those sacred vessels that could not be transported were destroyed. The exiles had to accustom themselves to life in their new alien surroundings. Yirmiyahu HaNavi tried to psychologically prepare them to face an exile which would last 70 years (Yirmiyahu 25:11). Once the shock of being uprooted and exiled had passed, the Judean exiles rapidly entered into the economic life of their new environment. As we can see from the portions of the Tanach written in that period, the economic situation of the exiles in their new milieu was not unfavorable. Yirmiyahu wrote the distraught exiles and urged them to "build houses and live in them, plant gardens and eat their fruit, take you wives and beget sons and daughters and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters and multiply there… (Yirmiyahu 29:5,6). Yirmiyahu's letter to the exiles gives the definite impression that Babylon was a land of economic opportunity. It is very likely that upon their arrival in Babylon, the exiles were warmly greeted by already established Israelite communities, descendants of the northern tribes exiled by Assyria in 721 BCE. These Israelites, now joined by the recently exiled Judeans, had proven that foreigners could prosper in Mesopotamia. Daniel and his companions, and later Nechemia and Mordecai, proved that it was possible for Jewish exiles to find employment in the highest echelons of government of the Babylonian and Persian Empires. The house of the prophet Yechezkel was spacious enough for the elders of Judah to come and sit "before" him (Yechezkel 33:30,31). After the proclamation of Koresh (Cyrus) permitting the exiles to return home, they brought with them: "7337 slaves, 200 singers, 392 Temple servants" and large numbers of animals. Exiles who did not return contributed large quantities gold and silver (Ezra 2, Nechemiah 7:66-69). They were not an impoverished community. (There is no question that descendants of the northern ten tribes maintained an independent existence and this is evident from Yirmiyahu 3:11-15 where he calls for their repentance. The prophet Yechezkel prophesied the coming amalgamation of the two exiles (37:15-22) which indeed happened to a great extent. The descendants of the "ten tribes "who lived between the Two Rivers became "Judaized" and later "men of the people of Israel", hailing from northern cities, joined Zerubavel when he returned to Jerusalem. (I D. HaYamim 9:3). The exiles learned to speak Aramaic, the language of Mesopotamia and became acculturated to Babylonian culture, but the new generation born on foreign soil, refused to assimilate into the surrounding pagan culture. On the contrary, a veritable spiritual and religious reawakening occurred in Babylonia which many scholars and researchers are at a loss to explain. However, a close reading of the Tanach shows that the seed for the religious rival was planted well before the Destruction of Jerusalem. On foreign soil, in the land of the enemy, the exiles turned away forever from foreign idolatrous cults. They retained their religious and national identity and inculcated their children and learned "to sing the Lord's song" in a strange land. The new generation growing up in cosmopolitan Babylon chose to become part of a strictly religious exile community. Yechezkel never had to rebuke the exiles for sacrificing in pagan temples or participating in heathen rites. In ancient times a sacrificial rite was considered the only legitimate form of communal divine service; therefore it is even more astonishing that the exiles did not attempt to build some sort of substitute temple on foreign soil. The Judean exiles, like the exiled northern Israelites before them, did not create a "Babylonian Jewish sacrificial ritual". The Judean exiles, while developing vital institutions such as the Beit Knesset and Beit Midrash, remained loyal to the memory of the Holy Temple of Jerusalem. The Mikdash was held to be the only lawful place to bring sacrifices to the One G-d. (Hundreds of years later, 154 BCE, a schismatic temple was built by the High Priest Onias IV (V?) at Leontopolis - Yeiv - in Egypt. Closed by the Romans after the destruction of the Mikdash, this temple was modeled on the Mikdash though considerably smaller. Known in the rabbinical literature as "Beit Chonio", the Leontopolis temple was always secondary for Egyptian Jewry and did not play a major role in the life of the community. Philo of Alexandria, a contemporary of the Leontopolis temple, in his voluminous writing discusses the Beit HaMikdash in considerable detail but he never mentions the Leontopolis temple even once. It was basically a sanctuary for an isolated military garrison.) Political circumstances changed with the sudden fall of the Babylonian Empire (538 BCE) and the rapid rise of a new world power, Persia, under the leadership of Koresh the Great. The Persians, unlike the Babylonians, strived to preserve the ancient customs of their subject peoples. Judean exiles, with their undampened longing for the restoration of the sacred service in the Holy Temple of Jerusalem, were psycho- logically ready when Koresh permitted the rebuilding of the Temple of Jerusalem. "Thus saith Koresh King of Persia: All the kingdoms of the earth have been given to me by the Lord, G-d of Heaven; and He has charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem which is in Judah. Whosoever there is among you of all his people - his G-d be with him - let him go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah and build the house of the Lord…" (Ezra 1:2,3, II Divrei HaYamim 36:22). And in fact, there is a fascinating archeological relic on display in the British Museum called the "Cyrus- cylinder." It was found in the ruins of ancient Babylon and reads; "I am Cyrus king of the world… the great god Marduk rejoices at my pious acts… I gathered all their people and led them back to their abodes… and the gods… at the order of Marduk, the great lord, I had them installed in joy in their sanctuaries… ".There follows a list of celebrated destroyed temples in the ancient world which were restored by Koresh, the Beit HaMikdash, the only temple that really mattered in the long run, is not included. Perhaps Daniel and his friends, of whom it was said, "in all matters of wisdom and understanding… he (the king) found them ten times better than the magicians and the enchanters in his entire kingdom" (Daniel 1:20) - were, in their old age, able to influence Koresh, to include the Temple of Jerusalem in a revised list of temples to be restored. Daniel continued to serve in his role of advisor 'even unto' the first year of Koresh (ibid. 1:12). The benevolent Persian king also gave to the returning Judean exiles the gold and silver vessels from the first temple which he "inherited" from the Babylonians and urged the exiles who did not make the long trek back to Jerusalem to follow his example. The exiles responded generously, donating gold, silver and work animals and furnishing large sums for the reconstruction of the Beit Hamikdash. <to be continued> Catriel's book in progress: The Temple of Jerusalem, A Pilgrims Prospective; A Guided Tour through the Temple and the Divine Service [The
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