The Temple of Jerusalem or Holy Temple stood on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
According to the Talmud, the Temple was built on top of a foundation stone from G-d’s creation of the world.
When it stood, the Temple was the centre of Jewish worship. It was a hub for sacrifices and offerings, pilgrimage, celebration, atonement and forgiveness, and administration. It was G-d’s sanctuary on earth.
Many mitzvot (commandments) are related to the Temple. These mitzvot can no longer be performed.
The First Temple was built by King Solomon in the 10th century BCE. It was destroyed by the Babylonians around 586 BCE.
The Second Temple was rebuilt by about 516 BCE. This photo shows a model of how the Second Temple would have looked.
The temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE. Today, only the outer Western Wall remains.
Text adapted from Simple English Wikipedia, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0.
Israel Museum 17311 (14262124886) by Sarah Murray via Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY-SA 2.0.
