Friday, April 6, 2012

The Temple Institute: Chag Pesach Sameach - Happy Passover!

Can we do תפילות prayers for:

The Temple Institute?

So that through them The האור Light, רפואה The Healing and The ואהבה Love of ישועת יהוה Yeshuath YHWH may come back to הארץ The Land of Israel?

"With a Mighty Hand and an Outstretched Arm"

(from the Passover Haggadah)
Nisan 14, 5772/April 6, 2012
Erev Pesach

Liberation from the many and sundry forms of idolatry that threaten to enslave us is truly a blessing from G-d. But this blessing is for naught, (G-d forbid), if we aren't willing to make the effort each day of our lives to utilize this gift of freedom for the purpose of drawing closer to G-d and pursuing the path in life that He has prescribed for each and every one of us. It is this path, paved with the sweat of our own toil, no less than the loving kindness of HaShem that carries us out of Egypt and will bring us, one day soon, to the courtyards of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. This is the Mighty Hand of G-d, and this is the Outstretched Arm of our allegiance to His word.

THE TEMPLE INSTITUTE extends its blessings for a joyful and kosher Chag Cherut - Festival of Freedom - to the entire house of Israel and to all who seek the G-d of Israel. Happy Passover!

Please take the time to visit us online and learn more about the exodus from Egypt, Pesach as it was observed in the Holy Temple, and the deep spiritual lessons of Passover that can inform our lives today, (details below).

Tune in to this week's Temple Talk, as Rabbi Chaim Richman and Yitzchak Reuven listen carefully to the chimes of freedom flashing and discuss G-d's commandment, and the people's desire to perform the korban Pesach, the Passover offering. As the festival of Passover approaches, freedom beckons at our doors - freedom from all that Egypt symbolizes: idolatry, slavery, and a life of ignominy. But what is true freedom for us today? How does celebrating the "Festival of Freedom" manifest itself in our contemporary reality? Most people today probably think that being "free" means I am free to be myself, but the Torah teaches us that to be truly free means to live for Hashem, in every way.

Relearning the Passover Offering: This week, on the 10th of Nisan, (April 2), the Temple Institute, in conjunction with other Temple oriented organizations, conducted an afternoon seminar, all about the korban Pesach - Passover offering. Classes were held in which the commandment of the Passover offering, the halacha (laws) surrounding the offering, and the practical application of the performance of the Passover offering in our day, were discussed. Hundreds of interested men, women and children attended the sessions. At 5:00 PM the classes concluded and the audience and the organizers reconvened out of doors, where more than a thousand people had already gathered in anticipation of the day's main event: a live demonstration of the korban Pesach. To learn more about the seminar, and to see pictures, please click here.

Building Jerusalem: Chief Rabbi, City of Jerusalem and Temple Institute Honor Vadim Rabinovitch: (Nisan 11/April 3), A special dedication ceremony took place in Jerusalem's Old City, at the site of the Temple Institute's golden menorah, adjacent to the stairway leading from the Jewish Quarter to the Plaza of the Western (retaining) Wall of the Temple Mount. The ceremony marked the official naming of the plaza in which the golden menorah stands, Rechavat Rabinovitch, (Rabinovitch Plaza), after Vadim (David) Rabinovitch, president of the Ukrainian Jewish Congress, who donated the money for the golden menorah, as well as for the refurbishing of the plaza in which it stands. To learn more about the dedication ceremony, and to see pictures, please click here.

This week's all-new Return of Prophecy teaching by Rabbi Avraham Sutton, is entitled, "Chapter 19: Day Six: Departing of Heaven from Earth: Man has asserted his own will. And now the presence of G-d grows progressively more distant from earth." Click here to view.

We hope in the upcoming week of chol hamoed Pesach to begin rebroadcasting this year's International Temple Mount Awareness Day Happening. We will be posting online over the next seven weeks the original six hour broadcast in seven segments, each segment featuring another of the guests who joined us for the event.

Now is the time to augment your knowledge of how Passover is intended to be observed. Have a look at our classic online Passover narrative, "SHLOMO'S PASSOVER ADVENTURE," the informative story of a family's pilgrimage to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem to celebrate the Festival of Freedom with the entire family of Israel. A must for children and adults. Click here!

Visit our archives for these classic Passover Light to the Nations teachings by Rabbi Chaim Richman:

"The Passover Experience: Korban Pesach: The Passover offering in the Holy Temple, perhaps the single most important act of the year for every man, woman and child of the people of Israel: How it was, and will be performed in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem." Click here to view.

"The Korban Pesach Challenge: Our annual reading of Leviticus, which deals extensively with animal offerings, coincides with the arrival of Passover, whose main cataclysmic event is the korban Pesach – Pascal offering. What is G-d revealing to us about our own inner nature? Part I of a two-part Passover festival double-feature!" Click to view Part I and Part II.

"Hanging in the Balance: The great illumination of 'instant' freedom that we experience on the Seder night so often seems to pass us by. Slaves yesterday, free men today, we simply haven't the vessels to be able to absorb the great chesed - loving kindness - and enlightenment that G-d had blessed us with. For this we have Sefirat HaOmer - the counting of the days of the Omer, that prepares us gradually for the great re-illumination of G-d's light - receiving Torah on Mount Sinai." Click here to view.