The Plan of the Temple

The old architectural plan lies before us. Solomon’s temple is described in Kings through measured proportions: a porch before the main hall, a Holy Place, and the inner sanctuary. The main building is sixty cubits long and twenty wide; the innermost chamber is described as a cube of twenty cubits. Its construction is given seven years of labor, cedar, stone, gold, and careful dedication.

The measurements establish a world of increasing inwardness. A person approaches, enters, and passes toward what is more deeply secluded.

On our journey, the porch—the ulam—will become the threshold of the senses. The heikhal, the main sacred hall, will open through the mind’s active powers. The debir, the innermost sanctuary, will become the place toward which the entire passage is directed.

We are reading the architecture inwardly. The temple becomes a map through which the human being can travel within.

The biblical story already gives room for this movement. Solomon dedicates a building while admitting that the heavens themselves cannot contain God. In John’s Gospel, Jesus speaks to a Samaritan woman of worship whose fulfillment will not be confined to either her mountain or Jerusalem. A Jewish teacher and a Samaritan woman meet across an ancient dispute about holy places, and the conversation opens beyond the dispute.

The sacred place can direct the person toward an encounter greater than its own walls.

With that possibility before us, we approach the gates.