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-Qumranin kuparikääröstä
-Talmud Bavlista
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The Copper Scroll was discovered in the caves of Qumran in 1952. It remained an enigma for many years. However, intensive research over the past thirty years has begun to unlock many of its secrets. To understand the scroll, one must first understand the geology and geography described within its text.

Subsequent validation for the significance of the Copper Scroll was forthcoming (but not until the 1990’s). Rabbi Mendel Tropper and Rabbi Rachmael Steinberg, came across a long forgotten text called the Emeq HaMelek which had been written by Rabbi Naftali Hertz Ben Ya’acov Elchanon in the year 1648 in Amsterdam. Rabbi Steinberg cites that “Rav Hertz was known as a very holy and very prominent Rabbi, whose knowledge of both the written and oral Torah was superb - and he was in the line of transmission from Rabbi Ari Ben Luria who was the leader of the most illustrious group of Rabbis in the world, including the great Torah giant - Rabbi Yosef Cairo, author of the Shulchan Aruch.

“Inside the text of Emek HaMelek (Valley of the King) is the complete text of a missing Mishnaic text called ‘Massakhet Keilim’ consisting of twelve chapters. Each chapter describes various vessels which were hidden away by Jeremiah the Prophet in the Jewish year 3331 (429 BCE), seven years before the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem in 422 BCE. The text mentions that five holy men were put in charge of this awesome task and it names them. They were Shimor HaLevi, Chizkiah, Tzidkiyahu, Haggai the Prophet and Zechariah the Prophet. In Chapter Three, it also mentions that other prophets were with them along with Ezra the Scribe when the twelve chapters were written in Babylon.

“The most significant of these twelve chapters are the first and second chapters. The first chapter clearly lists the vessels that were hidden and the second chapter states the following: ‘These are the Holy Vessels and the vessels of the Temple that was in Jerusalem; . . . Shimor the Levite and his friends, wrote [the treasure lists] on a copper tablet.’”

Rabbi Steinberg further states that the Talmud, in Huriot 12A, also describes that the Prophet Jeremiah foresaw that the Exile was imminent and that certain vessels had to be protected and hidden away for future generations. Jeremiah ordered King Josiah to hide the Ark of the Covenant, along with other items including the bottle of Anointing Oil, Aaron’s Staff and the Chest sent by the Pelishtim (Phillistines) as “a gift to the God of Israel.” And indeed, as Jeremiah foresaw, Nebukanezar sent an army into Jerusalem afterwards and destroyed the Temple, sacked the city, destroyed the city walls and carried the population to exile in Babylonia. Rabbi Tropper cites a passage in the Babylonian Talmud, (Tractate Yoma 72a) which states that although the Mishkan and its contents were hidden away, they will one day be found again.

(Note: The Mishkan was the portable Temple in which the Ark of the Covenant was carried and housed during the forty years in the desert and until King Solomon built the First Temple in Jerusalem almost five centuries later.)

An article by Rabbi Tropper cites the following: “This house of worship (“Mishkan”) contained the altar for the daily and seasonal sacrifices, the elaborate Menorah (candelabra) of solid gold, the Qalal (copper urn) containing the Ashes of the Red Heifer (see below)*, and the numerous other vessels utilized for the detailed services of the Kohanim (priests). Within the Mishkan’s inner chamber, the Holy of Holies, could be found the magnificent Ark of the Covenant containing among other sacred items, the Tablets of the Ten Commandments brought down by Moses at Sinai. Because of these sacred contents and the level of holiness attained by the Prophet Moses, only the Mishkan reached a pure enough state to warrant that the Shechina (Divine Presence of G-d) come to rest within it for all eternity. When the First Temple was built in Jerusalem, the Ark of the Covenant was placed inside while the rest of the Mishkan was buried beneath in a secret vault.”

It is important to emphasize here that the chapters of Massakhet Keilim (an addition or Tosefta to the Talmud cited by Rabbi Hertz as the source for his information about the Copper Scroll) cannot be found in modern copies of the Talmud.

Subsequent research (again in the 1990’s) uncovered the work done by Solomon Schechter at Cambridge in 1896. It turned out that Schechter had acquired 100,000 pages in that year from the Genizah of the very old Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo, Egypt. (A “Genizah” is a repository for damaged or aged sacred Jewish texts). A copy of the missing Tosefta, under the section of Keilim (“Vessels”) was found among those scrolls - and is the same text cited by Rabbi Hertz as his source. However, the ancient copy from the Cairo Genizah was believed to be 800 years old - much older than the publication by Rabbi Hertz in 1648.

And as if this were not sufficient, it turned out (although again correlated much later) that in 1952, the same year that the Copper Scroll was found at Qumran - two immense Marble Tablets were found in the basement of a museum in Beirut, Lebanon with ancient Hebrew writing inscribed on them. The Tablets begin by saying, “These are the words of Shimor HaLevi, the servant of HaShem, in the year 3331 of Adam.” Remarkably, the rest of the writing proved to be the entire missing text of Massakhet Keilim with its reference to the Copper Scroll!

*The Ashes of the Red Heifer are the ashes from a completely red cow which was sacrificed under the jurisdiction of Moses, and which are necessary for the ritual purification of the priesthood as well as all Jews who are spiritually unclean. This mysterious process mentioned in Numbers 19 is a prerequisite for the re-establishment of Holy Temple Service.

Note: An Ibex Skin Scroll (called THE TEMPLE SCROLL) was found in Qumran in the 1950’s by the same Bedouin who found the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947. It is an extensive document which would fill several volumes and was purchased by Yigael Yadin for Israel in 1967 at the end of the Six Day War. It was also written by Shimor HaLevi. Yadin thought it was significant that the Scroll was written in the First Person, leading some to believe that it had been dictated by G-d to Moses. It is a detailed account of how to re-institute Temple Service.