Wednesday, April 01, 2015

Rehearsal sacrifice of the paschal lamb

(PROSPECTIVE) TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Temple Mount activists slaughter lamb in public 'rehearsal' of Passover sacrifice. Hundreds attend ceremony held by group advocating for the re-building of Jewish temple in the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, in show of strength marking rising influence of their cause. (Nir Hasson, Haaretz)
Several hundred people on Monday attended a “rehearsal” for the Passover sacrifice, held in a schoolyard in the Kiryat Moshe neighborhood of Jerusalem. The lamb was slaughtered by kohanim (members of the priestly class) who performed the various stages of the sacrifice through the roasting of the lamb and eating it.

It was a show of strength by Temple Mount activists – and this year they had additional reasons to celebrate, including the recovery of senior activist Yehuda Glick from an assassination attempt and the possibility that the next cabinet will include three ministers (Habayit Hayehudi’s Uri Ariel, and Likud’s Miri Regev and Tzipi Hotoveli) who enthusiastically support changing the Temple Mount’s status quo to allow Jewish prayer.

[...]

The organizers stressed that this was not the sacrifice of the paschal lamb, but a rehearsal for the real thing. “So that we’ll know what to do, so that we can feel this ancient experience,” said Arnon Segal, a Temple Mount activists and the event’s emcee. The real Passover sacrifice must be on Passover eve, toward evening, on the Temple Mount.

[...]
Arutz Sheva has video of the event here.

I don't have any interest in getting involved in this political discussion, apart from reiterating that there should be no building or excavation on the Temple Mount before its archaeological record has been fully documented using non-invasive scanning technologies and/or minimally invasive and nondestructive technologies such as nanotechnology. But what these people want is to undertake the sacrifice on the Temple Mount, but not necessarily in the (rebuilt) Temple.