Haftorah

📖 Summary of Haftorah: Melachim 1 5:26-6:13

• Peaceful relations with each other: G-d provided Shlomo with wisdom as he had spoken to him, and there was peaceful relations between Chiram and Shlomo and they made a treaty with each other.

The taxes and workers collected by Shlomo from the Jewish people to help build the temple:

• King Shlomo collected a tax from all the Jewish people of an amount [that can pay the salaries[1]] of 30,000 men [to assist with the wood chopping].
• The men who went to Lebanon to chop wood: 10,000 men were sent to Lebanon [to join the servants of Chiram in the wood chopping[2]]. The men who were there would switch each month, and thus every month there would be 10,000 men in Lebanon and 20,000 at home for a period of two months.
• The tax collector: Adoniram was in charge of collecting the tax.
• The stone carriers: Shlomo had 70,000 stone carriers [who would bring the stones from the mountain until the city[3]].
• The excavators of stone: Shlomo had 80,000 excavators of stone [who would excavate the stone from the mountains and then send them off with the carriers[4]]. [All these workers were converts who had converted out of awe of Shlomo’s greatness.[5]]
• The administrators in charge of the workers: There were 3,300 administrators appointed by Shlomo to oversee the workers [45 workers under his patrol].
• The stones: The king instructed that very large and very heavy stones be brought to build the foundation of the temple. The stones were excavated with iron and were all smoothly cut.

Chapter 6: The building of the Temple

The year that the temple was built:

• And it was in the 480th year from when the Jewish people left the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Shlomo’s reign, that the temple of G-d was built in the month of Ziv [i.e. Iyar[6]] which is the second month [from Nissan[7]].

The dimensions of the Heichal:

• The building [i.e. the holy and holy of holies, known as the Heichal[8], this area was also called the Devir[9] and refers to the holy of holies[10]] that was built by King Shlomo for the sake of G-d was 60 cubits long [i.e. approximately 30 meters] and 20 cubits wide [i.e. approximately 10 m] and 30 cubits tall [i.e. approximately 15 m]. [Thus, it was double the size in length and width then the size of the tabernacle.[11]]
• The dimensions of the courtyard of the Heichal: The entrance area to the Heichal of the building was 20 cubits long corresponding to the width of the Heichal, and was 10 cubits wide in front of the Heichal to the east.

The windows:

• Windows were built into the Heichal in a way that the inner side of the window was narrow and the outer side was wide [to emphasize that G-d does not require the light, unlike other windows which are built wide in the inside and narrow on the outside.[12] Some explained that these windows contained a clear glass panel as typical windows of today.[13]]

The Heichal:

• The hallway surrounding the Heichal: On the outside wall of the Heichal, surrounding both the Heichal and Devir [i.e. holy of holies[14]] a wall was built thus forming a hallway surrounding the Heichal [with the exception to the eastern side which was the front of the Heichal and did not contain an external wall]. There were three layers of shelves by the walls that surrounded the Heichal, [thus forming three floors in the area surrounding the walls of the Heichal]. The lower shelf was five cubits wide while the middle shelf was six cubits wide, while the third top shelf was seven cubits wide. This was done being that the external wall of the Heichal was built in a slant in order not to have the shelves need to be supported within actual holes in the wall of the Heichal.[15]
• The excavation of the stones and lack of use of iron: The building was built with complete stones that were brought from the mountain. The sound of an ax or of any other iron vessel was not heard in the area of where the temple was built [as none of the stones were excavated using iron and it was rather done using the special Shamir worm[16]].
• The entrance to the Heichal: The entrance to the Heichal was from the right side of the Heichal. The shelves each contained a hole from which a person was able to go from the lower shelf to the higher shelf, from the bottom shelf to the middle shelf and the middle shelf to the top shelf.
• The roof of the temple: The building of the temple was completed, and its roof was covered with two layers of roofing, one with the material called Geivim, and the second was made from cedarwood.
• The height of each of the three floors that surrounded the Heichal: Each one of the floors/shelves that surrounded the Heichal was five cubits tall [for a total of 15 cubits[17]]. The top floor was covered with cedarwood to serve as its roof and was attached to the roof of the Heichal.

Hashem guarantees the temple’s endurance to Shlomo if he follows the Torah:

• G-d spoke with Shlomo saying, “This building that you have just built, if you follow my statutes and laws and guard all my commands to follow them, then I will establish My word with you and the words that I spoke with your father. I will dwell amongst the Jewish people, and I will not leave my nation Israel.”
• Shlomo built the temple and completed it.

[1] Rashi 5:27

[2] Metzudos Dovid 5:27

[3] Rashi 5:29

[4] Rashi 5:29

[5] Rashi 5:29

[6] Rashi 6:1

[7] Rashi 6:1

[8] See Ralbag 6:2

[9] Rashi 6:2

[10] Metzudos Tziyon 6:5

[11] Hagr”a 6:2

[12] Rashi 6:4; Menachos 86b

[13] Metzudos Dovid 6:4

[14] Metzudos Tziyon 6:5

[15] See Mefarshim on 6:6 for a detailed explanation behind these statements

[16] See Rashi 6:7

[17] Rashi 6:10