The joyous dedication of the second Holy Temple (Beit HaMikdash) on the site of the 1st Temple in Jerusalem, was celebrated on the 3rd of Adar of the year 3412 from creation (349 BCE), after four years of work.
The First Temple, built by King Solomon in 833 BCE, was destroyed by the Babylonians in 423 BCE. At that time, the prophet Jeremiah prophesied: "Thus says the L-rd: After seventy years for Babylon will I visit you... and return you to this place." In 371 the Persian emperor Cyrus permitted the Jews to return to Judah and rebuild the Temple, but the construction was halted the next year when the Samarians persuaded Cyrus to withdraw permission. Achashverosh II (of Purim fame) upheld the moratorium. Only in 353 -- exactly 70 years after the destruction -- did the building of the Temple resume under Darius II.
Link: The Holy Temple
R. Mordechai Jaffe served as the rabbi of numerous communities in Poland and Lithuania. Among his more well-known works are Levush Malchut,a halachic code following the order of R. Jacob ben Asher’s Arbaah Turim, and Levush HaOrah,a super-commentary to R. Shlomo Yitzchaki’s Torah commentary. R. Mordechai served as the head of the “Council of Four Lands,” the government-sanctioned Jewish organization entrusted with dealing with Jewish communal affairs. In addition to Talmud and Jewish law, R. Mordechai was also well-versed in both Kabbalah and astronomy.
He passed away on 3 Adar II.
Link: Rabbi Mordechai Jaffe
Naturally, we think of the Jewish people as a conglomerate of many Jews. But the Baal Shem Tov saw the Jewish people as a single, indivisible whole.
Think of a geometrical point. A point is indivisible, but not because it is too hard, too big, or too small to cut up. A point simply has no area to be divided. That’s what makes it a point.
And yet, from a point you can extend infinite lines radiating in infinite dimensions.
In a somewhat similar way, but far beyond, all Jews are one Jew. Which means that in any one Jew, you will find all of us—just from a different angle.
So that whatever happens to any one of us instantaneously happens to the entire Jewish people. Not by some ripple effect or resonance. But because any one sample of the whole is the whole and the whole is one.
And so, the Baal Shem Tov taught, when the light of any one Jewish soul breaks free, the entire nation is redeemed along with it.
And accordingly, the Rebbe wrote, the ultimate exodus of our entire people is also a personal, intimate liberation for every Jew.