On Tisha B’Av, the day commemorating the destruction of the Jewish Temples in Jerusalem, Josh Wander brought his silver trumpets specially made for use in the Temple to the Machkama building. Built about 700 years ago, it is currently used as a Border Police station. The building faces the Western Wall Plaza but juts out over the Temple Mount. 

Wander made the trumpets to fulfill the commandment of Chatzotzros. Wander’s website explains that according to the Rambam, this is the Biblical commandment- to blow the silver trumpets in times of war and trouble for the Jewish People.

spacer

The trumpets were blown at a prayer service held twice a year and overseen by Rabbi Rami Goren, the son of Rabbi Shlomo Goren, who served as the first head of the military rabbinate of the Israel Defense Forces. Rabbi Shlomo Goren oversaw the IDF victory in the 1967 Six-Day War that brought the Temple Mount under Israeli sovereignty. 

After exhaustive research and under strict rabbinic supervision, Josh Wander, a resident of the Mount of Olives, has recreated the silver trumpets from Solomon’s Temple. Josh blew these trumpets at the National Religious Broadcasters’ Conference in Tennessee and at CPAC in Washington DC, both attended by Donald Trump. As mandated by the Bible, Josh blew the trumpets for the IDF troops as they went out to war against Hamas in Gaza.

When the Temple was still in service thousands of years ago, music was an essential aspect of serving God. That sacred music, sent into exile along with the Jewish people after the destruction of the Second Temple, has been lost for 2,000 years. Today, one man is working to bring back that music, the return of which was predicted by a great Jewish sage to be the last step before the Messiah.

Music has always been a way of connecting to God, ever since the first musician, Jubal.

And his brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all such as handle the harp and pipe. (Genesis 4:21)

When the Children of Israel witnessed the splitting of the Red Sea, Miriam the prophetess picked up a tambourine and led the entire nation in a song of praise (Exodus 15:2). Saul encountered a group of prophets who used music to connect to God (I Samuel 10:5). Isaiah composed songs, and Ezekiel prophesied about one “who has a pleasant voice and plays well on an instrument”. And of course, King David, the Biblical rockstar, gave us the official Temple song book: Psalms.

The Temple was the heart of the Jewish People and music was at its core. According to the Talmud (Jewish oral law), the regular Temple orchestra consisted of twelve instruments, and the choir of twelve male singers.

Temple musicians were selected from the tribe of Levi. The Zohar explains that the Levites were selected to sing in the Temple because the name Levi means to accompany, and their music would cause other to come close to God.

Levitical singers went through a training period from the age of 25 to 30 and usually participated in the Temple service between the ages of 30 and 50. Young Levites often joined the choir to “add sweetness to the sound” but were not permitted to stand on the same platform with the adult Levites (Talmud Erchin 2:6).

When Israel went into exile, so did the music. When the Jews were captive in Babylon, musicians hung up their harps and refused to play.

“How shall we sing the LORD’S song in a foreign land?” (Psalms 137:4)

Rabbi David Louis, an accomplished musician, is now working to change all that. As the composer for the Temple Institute, he is attempting to bring back the Temple music, he told Breaking Israel News.

Its loss, he revealed, was not a mistake, but intentional.

“It was caused to be forgotten by the Levites, so that it wouldn’t be used for secular purposes,” he explained. “They broke their instruments and even injured their own hands.”

Rabbi Louis is tuning up his harp in preparation, expecting the return of the Temple music very soon.

“The Gaon of Vilna (an 18th century Torah sage) said that the Temple music will be the last secret to be revealed before the Messiah, and we are almost there,” Rabbi Louis explained. “Prophecy is about to return, bringing music with it. The music exists and it is waiting for us to access it.

“We have the tools but we aren’t exploring them to their full potential. The most powerful example of this is the trop, the cantillation that teaches how to sing the Bible. This teaches us so much about the musicology of the Bible.”

Rabbi Louis sees prophecy as returning along with the music, explaining that we are already beginning that process.

“Just as we have a prophetic experience when we say Shema and unify ourselves with God, musicians will be able to do this using the cantillation. But people are not exploring this. It is apparently being held back until people will do this without trying to use it for personal gain.”

He described to Breaking Israel News the characteristics that make Temple Music unique.

“Temple music can only be achieved within a mentality that allows for the simultaneous existence of individuality and collectivity. Jews are extremely individualistic: each is a complete world unto himself. Yet we all have an equally strong sense of belonging to the Jewish people. In musical terms this means that we are able to blend two opposite musical techniques, composition, a cohesion with the whole, combined with improvisation, individual freedom of expression.”

As a trained orchestral conductor, Rabbi Louis understands how difficult this is technically.

“Were we to attempt Temple heterophony professionally,” he posited, “Classically-trained musicians would feel uncertain of what is expected of them and untrained musicians would lack sense of musical geometry.”

After 2,000 years of musical exile, Rabbi Louis believes that what is lacking to bring back Temple music is simply a change in attitude, and to pick up our instruments and begin to play.

“All we are lacking is the freedom of thought,” Rabbi Louis explained. “If you want to bring this prophetic reality into existence, we should just start having rehearsals. It is going to come from the interaction of people with this intention, people who come together to play music for holy purposes.”

So how will we know that the music that comes out will be the real Temple music? Rabbi Louis has no worries.

“Whatever happens then will be the de facto authentic music of the Temple, even though none of us can predict, expect or prepare for the actual sound which will will be heard.”

The Temple of Solomon was filled with the music of 4,000 harps and a remarkable couple have been on a lifelong journey to return that music in time for the Third Temple. Praise Hashem with the lyre; with the ten-stringed harp sing to Him. (Psalms 33:2)

They recently released a video depicting the long-awaited fulfillment of the Psalm; a Jewish child returning to Israel removing a harp from a willow where her forefathers had hung it upon going out into exile.

The story of Micah and Shoshanna Harrari is a microcosm of the Jewish exile. As a young couple in the early ‘70’s, they wandered the U.S., living in shacks, teepees, tents and sometimes sleeping outside.

“We were looking for the perfect place,” Shoshanna told Breaking Israel News. “For us, that meant someplace beautiful. We lived in some beautiful places but we were always restless. If anyone said, ‘you should check this place out,’ we would pull up roots and go live there.”

At one point in their wanderings, they were living in a shack in a forest in Colorado. With no electricity or running water, their entertainment was limited to reading to each other by candlelight. In the winter, a massive snowstorm buried their cabin, trapping them inside. They had a plentiful supply of firewood and enough food and water, but they had read all their books. After three days of being trapped, cabin fever began to set in. In desperation, they began to read the bible they carried along their journey but had never read.

“There we were with Avraham and Sarah, our relatives, in the cabin,” Shoshanna said. “It was great. This became our main reading material and we were immediately captivated by Hashem’s words. When we got to the prophets, one message kept being repeated; that Hashem will call back the Jews so we can settle our land and never be uprooted.”

“This blew us away. Every time we read this, we knew it was an invitation to go to the land of our ancestors and help build up our homeland. We knew nothing about Israel but it sounded like our kind of place. We thought we could get a donkey and cart and wander around like Avraham and Sarah.”

The message was clear but it took several years for the Harraris to finish wandering. They meandered eastward, living in Vermont for a while. One night, they both woke up with the clear feeling that they needed to move on. The next day, they left, making their way across the Atlantic Ocean. A few months later, they were living in a teepee in Portugal when the midnight message came to them once again. They drove toward Israel, arriving in Greece in 1982. On a whim, they went to the ticket office for a shipping line and discovered the next boat to Israel was leaving in one hour. They didn’t hesitate, jumping aboard immediately. Not so many days later, they landed in Israel.

“The only contact we had was a friend of a friend of a friend in Jerusalem,” Shoshanna said. “We knocked on their door and introduced ourselves, not knowing that it was two hours before Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year).”

The holiday settled the matter: they were home. Eventually, the Harraris settled in Tiberias on the shores of the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) where Micah set up a carpentry shop. Shoshanna had always wanted a harp for some reason she didn’t entirely understand.

“I am the daughter of a Kohen so I am sure there is some ancient connection,” Shoshanna explained.

Micah was a trained luthier and musical instrument craftsmen, but due to their nomadic lifestyle, had never had the opportunity to work in the field. Perhaps inspired by the Kinneret whose name means ‘harp,’ he announced to his wife that the time had come for him to fulfill her musical dream.  

Such a project required preparation and research. The only harps they were familiar with were the type used to play classical music. They learned that archaeologists had discovered cave drawings of a harp in Megiddo. The drawings were believed to be 3,000 years old, meaning the Megiddo lyre would have been the instrument young David played to soothe a troubled King Saul.

“We had no idea that no one had made a harp like this in 2,000 years,” Shoshanna said. “When we first started making harps, we didn’t think anyone would even want harps. But we knew we were going to do it anyway.”

The first harp took a long time to come together, spending months looking more like scrap wood in their living room than a potential musical instrument worthy to grace the Temple. A random meeting in 1984 with a writer from The Jerusalem Post resulted in an article on the Harrari’s David harp project. The article generated unexpected interest and the Harp Project was begun.

As a result of the article, they were contacted by Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, founder of the Temple Institute.

“He told us that one day there would be a Temple and there would need to be harps ready for the Temple service,” Shoshanna said.

Rabbi Ariel immediately commissioned a harp for the Temple Institute with the intention that it would be used in the Third Temple. More research revealed that the Temple had both nevel (harp) and kinor (lyre). As donations came in, the Temple Institute commissioned more harps from the Harraris.

Just before Pesach, Shoshanna was overcome with another inspiration.

“I looked around and realized that everything to bring geula (redemption) was really moving. I felt that people should know this, in case they wanted to be part of it.”

The Harraris decided to create a video depicting the role of David’s harp in geula inspired by Psalms.

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat, sat and wept, as we thought of Tzion. There on the poplars we hung up our lyres, for our captors asked us there for songs, our tormentors, for amusement, “Sing us one of the songs of Tzion.” How can we sing a song of Hashem on alien soil? Psalms 137:1-4

“As we were going to exile in Babylon, the last thing we saw were the harps from the Temple hanging from the trees,” Shoshanna said. “The Jews prayed that one day, Jews would return and take the harps off the trees. The whole purpose of music used to be to connect to Hashem. We wanted to bring this back into the world.”

This became the theme of the video, depicting the fulfillment of those prayers. A harp is taken from an ancient willow and brought to Jerusalem with singing and joy.

Apparently, interest in the Temple harp is strong since more than 30,000 people have watched the video on the Harrari’s Facebook page.

The Temple Harp Project is an ongoing non-profit endeavor to create harps and lyres for the Third Temple.