והכהנים הלוים בני צדוק אשר שמרו את משמרת מקדשי בתעות בני ישראל מעלי המה יקרבו אלי לשרתני ועמדו לפני להקריב לי חלב ודם נאם אדני יהוה
At the end of Part I I wrote:
Next (and this is where I go beyond RaMBaM) the system was designed to gradually invalidate the members of that extended family [the Kohanim]. We didn't get the hint after the Babylonians destroyed the first Temple, so God had to send the Romans to destroy the second Temple.So what do I do about Yehezke'el 44:15? Maybe it was a certification of the purity of the descendants of Zadok. Maybe it was a re-set of the purity of the descendants of Zadok. Or maybe it was not at all a reference to the Terrestrial Temple, but rather to the Celestial Temple, Judaism has a concept of בית המקדש של מעלה that may date back all the way to Yeshayahu's first vision:
בִּשְׁנַת-מוֹת הַמֶּלֶךְ עֻזִּיָּהוּ, וָאֶרְאֶה אֶת-אֲדֹנָי יֹשֵׁב עַל-כִּסֵּא רָם וְנִשָּׂא; וְשׁוּלָיו, מְלֵאִים אֶת-הַהֵיכָל.Where was that היכל? Not on Earth:
כה אמר יהוה השמים כסאי והארץ הדם רגלי אי זה בית אשר תבנו לי ואי זה מקום מנוחתי(Yeshayahu 66:1) but rather in Heaven. Yehezke'el's whole discussion of what now is called "the Third Temple" may be an extended description of an abstract entity, of which the Terrestrial Temple was just a physical representation, the way "2" is a physical representation of an abstract mathematical concept. In support of this thesis, I point out that the floor plan of the Second Temple followed the floor plan of the First Temple, not the floor plan of Yehezke'el's Temple.
If the future Temple, and the associated rituals, are a complex of abstract concepts, an understanding of which is connected to the Final Redemption, either as a consequence or as a prerequisite, then praying for the restoration of the Temple and of sacrificial worship continues to make sense, despite the built-in impossibility of their physical restoration.
