Building temples in the sand

The Temple Institute commemorates Tisha B’Av with a YouTube video

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Two children at the beach, the boy in a bathing suit, the girl in a sundress — presumably to avoid any modesty issues — build a temple made of sand, while their father reads The Jerusalem Post.

Yep, there is something clever about a third Temple sandcastle in these days of summer, and for that, credit to the Temple Institute, the non-profit organization devoted to rebuilding the Holy Temple and the maker of the video. Certainly the timing for the video’s release worked well, at the start of the nine-day mourning period before Tisha B’Av, the fast day that ended Sunday at sundown, commemorating the destruction of the First and Second Temple.

“I talk about the Temple all year round, but at this time of year, it’s ‘in’ to talk about it,” said Rabbi Chaim Richman, director of the Temple Institute.

With more than 300,000 views of the YouTube video so far, Richman is pleased, telling news outlets that the video has gone viral.

Entitled “The Children Are Ready,” the video shows “the clear dichotomy between adults and children,” said Richman, explaining the symbolism of the children’s’ joy and innocence, and “that this [the Holy Temple] is what interests them.”

The father, representing the adult world, is “aloof, absorbed in his world, and worrying about the news, while listening to his headphones,” he said, hoping that every Jewish and non-Jewish adult will have that same moment of epiphany the father has during the video.

It’s an epiphany that Richman had long ago, and which is the goal of the Temple Institute, which aims to leave behind the Western Wall and build the third Holy Temple.

The institute has raised money to produce all of the Temple’s various vessels, and is rumored to be working on creating a red heifer, which the Torah explains is the only way to purify the vessels for official Temple use.

Still, according to Richman, the main issue stalling the building of the third Temple is not the geopolitical situation, but the Jewish people.

That issue, it would seem, remains to be solved.