One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
בִּיאַת הַמִּקְדָּשׁ
Biat HaMikdash · Chapters 2–4
Sefer Avodah · Who may enter the Sanctuary, who is sent out, and who may serve
1×/yr
The High Priest enters the Holy of Holies
3 camps
Impurity sent out ring by ring
Tzitz
The forehead plate atones for hidden impurity
Death
Serving the Temple while impure
Ch 2Entering and not leaving
- The innermost room. The High Priest enters the Holy of Holies only on Yom Kippur, four times; a fifth entry, or any priest entering there otherwise, is death at the hand of heaven. (2:1-3)
- No casual entry. Entering the Sanctuary when not serving - even to bow - is forbidden: death for the Holy of Holies, lashes for the rest. (2:4)
- Do not flee mid-service. A priest may not abandon his service and rush out; leaving in the middle is itself a death-bearing offense. (2:5)
- The mourner at the altar. An ordinary priest who becomes an onen must stop (his service is profaned) - but the High Priest continues, for "from the Temple he shall not depart." (2:6-8)
RememberThe innermost room admits one man, once a year - and the High Priest may not leave the altar even to bury his dead.
Ch 3The concentric camps
- Sent out by severity. It is a mitzvah to send the impure from the Temple - each expelled exactly as far as his impurity demands, no farther. (3:1-3)
- The rings. The metzora leaves all of Jerusalem; the zav and niddah leave the Temple Mount; the tevul yom the Women's Courtyard; the one lacking his offering the Israelites' Courtyard. (3:3-7)
- The corpse is admitted. Counterintuitively, the corpse-impure - and a corpse itself - may enter the Temple Mount, learned from Moses carrying Joseph's bones. (3:4)
- The price of entry. Entering while impure carries kareis for the deepest zones and lashes for the Mount; entering by the rooftops, oddly, is exempt. (3:8-19)
RememberEach impurity is stopped at exactly the ring it cannot pass - and no farther; the grim corpse-impurity reaches furthest in.
Ch 4Serving, and the plate that atones
- Serving impure is death. One who performs service while impure profanes it and is liable to death at the hand of heaven; the zealous priests would remove him by force. (4:1-2)
- The plate reaches back. For the "impurity of the depths" - a hidden corpse no one could have known of - the tzitz brings appeasement, and the offering is accepted. (4:6-8)
- The appointed hour overrides. Timed offerings (the daily, Yom Kippur, the Paschal) are brought even in corpse-impurity rather than not at all. (4:9-12)
- Pushed aside, not erased. The prohibition is only superseded - so a pure priest of another watch is sought first, and the tzitz is still needed. (4:14-16)
RememberA fixed plate of the Name atones for the fault no one could have known - and the sacred hour will not wait for perfect purity.