amayasnep

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Amaya 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ | 27 | ΘΔ | Artist | Nature lover | Huge nerd | Actually a snep | NSFW 🔞

Kissing girls is a mitzvah :3


During the Second Temple Period, Jewish priests were tasked with maintaining the fire upon the altar of the temple as a way of honouring God even after an offering was made. A literal light unto the world. This practice was then written down by Jewish priests sometime during the Persian Period (538–332 BCE) and passed down in Vayikra (Leviticus) 6:5-7.

The fire on the altar shall be kept burning, not to go out: every morning the priest shall feed wood to it, lay out the burnt offering on it, and turn into smoke the fat parts of the offerings of well-being.

A perpetual fire shall be kept burning on the altar, not to go out.

And this is the ritual of the meal offering:
Aaron's sons shall present it before [God], in front of the altar.

Fast forward to today and one of the key elements of any synagogue is the ner tamid (‘eternal light’). Traditionally, an oil lamp placed somewhere above the bima (front stage) in order to honour the flame that burned without end upon the altar of the Second Temple. Some synagogues opt for a flame fed by natural gas, while others opt for an ornate lightbulb that’s always kept on.

Note that synagogues incorporate design elements that nod to the original temple in Jerusalem. This is also why the terms “synagogue” and “temple” are synonymous in most contexts.

Relevance to me

When I visited a synagogue for the first time, the ner tamid was one of the first things I identified. The one used at the synagogue I visited was a lightbulb that flickered gold light through metal and glass. It hung above the podium atop the bima. I just found that pretty interesting.

To stumble across the passage that makes the ner tamid a thing was a pleasant surprise.

Bonus fact!

Among most textual critics, Leviticus 6:7 is understood to be a colophon, which is a tagline added by the author to the end of a text to state its purpose.


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