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The Temple on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem was Judaism’s holiest place in Bible times because God’s presence dwelt there (I Kings 8:27-30).
Even when toward the end of the Second Temple period synagogues were functioning in many communities where Jews lived, the central place of Jewish worship continued to be the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.1 Already at this early time Judaism had fully developed an ideology of “sacred space,” especially in terms of Jerusalem and the Holy Land.2 This thought was expressed in an early midrash:
The Almighty preferred Eretz Yisrael above all other countries; He selected the Bet ha-Mikdash (Temple) from all places in Eretz Yisrael; and He chose the Holy-of-Holies over all other areas of the Bet ha-Mikdash. (Shemot Rabba 37.4)
It is commonly believed that once the Roman armies destroyed the Second Temple in the year 70 CE during the third year of the Jewish rebellion against the oppressive Roman rule, the Temple Mount ceased to be the sacred focus of Judaism.
