Home -- Content: Series 7 (Laws) -- Translation: English -- Book: 1 (Tora) -- Part: 1 (Positive) -- Command: 21 -- Text
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The Sharia of Moses in the TORA
Part 1 - The 248 Positive Commandments of the Tora
21 - REVERING THE SANCTUARY - "Building ut inside each Jew"
In the Mishneh Torah Maimonides explains the eternal sanctity of the ground on which the sanctuary stood: “Now why do I maintain that in the case of the Sanctuary and Jerusalem their first holiness (i.e. the holiness they attained at the time of the first Hebrew conquest of the Land of Israel) remains constant for all time to come…? It is because the holiness of the Sanctuary and of Jerusalem issued directly from the Shechinah (i.e. the Divine Presence), and the Shechinah is free from all transiency. Does not Scripture say, ‘I will bring your sanctuaries to desolation’ (Lev 26: 31) – which the sages have expounded thus: ‘Although they be desolate they retain their sanctity (for ever)’?”*