On Shavuot the Temple Service was Renewed

Unbeknownst to the general public and ‘just-like-that’ Temple sacrificial service was just started this holiday of Shavuot 2025. The Torah commands people of Israel to offer many types of sacrifices – and a good portion of them are vegetarian. The offering of Shavuot is one such sacrifice and it is prepared as two loaves of bread that are meant to be brought before Gd and waved by a Cohen priest next to the place of the sacrificial altar. That’s it. That is the sacrifice.

Although short and simple this act of bringing the new wheat harvest to the Temple was extremely important and brought blessing on the new harvest and allowed the new grain to officially be used in Temple procedures thereon out. 

After much deliberation among many Rabbinic figures on exactly the fine Halachic legal details of this offering in the current state of the Temple Mount, two Cohanim took up the millenia-long mantel of priesthood and accomplished what so many Jews pray for all over the world. This was not a priestly training exercise. This was the real deal. A glimmer of religious freedom on the holiest site in Judaism. A glimmer of hope. 

And yet in Israeli media the event is barely covered relative to its significance. However, I can say that across the Torah world this event is moving mountains. It has brought up discussion of major contemporary Halachic topics such as the basic principle of ‘Tuma Hutra B’Tsibur.’ This principle dictates that even if the congregation of Israel is not pure, they are still obligated to bring certain offerings on the Temple Mount regardless – ‘impurity is allowed on congregation-wide offerings.’

There is a video taken by a Gentile passerby of the event that I cannot upload due to copyright laws. But to see a Cohen in full priestly garment sanctify his hands and feet and then perform a literal Temple commandment is a sight that will be recorded as Jewish history in the making. There is something to be said about the first Jewish sacrifice being vegetarian and not an animal sacrifice but I will leave that for a future post perhaps. Suffice it to say that this Mincha Chadasha (‘New Mincha-offering’ as per Leviticus 23) also represents the renewal of Temple Service. 

Renew our days as of old (Lamentations 5).

If this Shavuot is not discussed enough today it will be in the future.