The Temple Institute is celebrating International Temple Mount Awareness Day on Wednesday by answering questions about the holiest site in Judaism through an interactive online broadcast on the organization's YouTube and Facebook pages.
Videos from the broadcast, which can be viewed here, feature Temple Institute director and scholar on the topic Rabbi Chaim Richman along with Yitzchak Reuven, answering questions submitted via messages to the group's Facebook page.
Popular questions received included: "What’s with the Ark of the Covenant and is it really lost? Where was the Red Heifer sacrificed and is there any archaeological evidence of its ashes? Does the Temple really have to go on the Temple Mount?"
Every year during the Jewish month of Nisan, which is the anniversary of the dedication of the Tabernacle during the Jewish people's exodus from Egypt to Israel in the desert, the Temple Institute holds International Temple Mount Awareness Day.
Nisan is also the month of redemption, in which the Jewish people were redeemed from slavery in Egypt as celebrated in the Pesach (Passover) holiday, and is also taught in Jewish tradition to be the month in which the future final redemption will occur.
The event "celebrates the promise of the rebuilding of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and the revolution in Temple consciousness that is taking place in Israel," states the Temple Institute.
In addition to leading efforts to educate about the importance of the Temple Mount and the Holy Temple, the organization has recreated over 60 sacred vessels to be used in the Third Holy Temple that has yet to be built. The vessels can be viewed at the organization's Visitors Center in the Old City of Jerusalem.