A Tale of the Second Temple
"Rabbi Tryphon replied: 'May I see my sons die, if I didn't see Simon, my mother's brother, who was lame in one leg, standing in the Court and trumpeting!' Rabbi Akiba replied: 'Mayhaps you saw him at the time of assembly, while I am speaking of the hour of sacrifice?" (Jerusalemite Talmud, Yoma, 14b).
...Any one may hence learn how very great piety we exercise towards God, and the observance of his laws, since the priests were not at all hindered from their sacred ministrations by their fear during this siege, but did still twice a-day, in the morning and about the ninth hour, offer their sacrifices on the altar; nor did they omit those sacrifices, if any melancholy accident happened by the stones that were thrown among them... the enemy then fell upon them, and cut the throats of those that were in the temple; yet could not those that offered the sacrifices be compelled to run away... as thinking it better to suffer whatever came upon them, at their very altars, than to omit any thing that their laws required of them. (The Antiquities of the Jews, 14:4, 3)
"The Temple Court cried "Remove from hence, ye Sons of Ely! Thou hast defiled the House of Our God!" (Jerusalemite Talmud, Yoma, 7a)
'Twas twice score of years worming
Out the Altar's wood, of sweeping
Holy blood from sacred tiles,
Barred and banished
Of my share
In the Holies, the atonement.
Twice score years of pity,
Of "Behold the cripple!"
Who felt as a hundred
Or a thousand eons,
Oh what a bitter wound!
Oh how I missed my people,
Them to bless, for them to
Atone, to admonish and
Comfort in a softened,
Stern voice, to be theirs
And their Master's too.
The Heathen came,
Twice score years past,
In their polluting, thieving
Wicked, twisted pomp!
They had me hamstrung,
Atwixt Temple and Altar,
As the holy blood
Of sacrifices mingled,
With those of the innocent.
Yet again the holy garments,
Are brought over, tunic, breeches
And girdle, the pure cloth
Is bound over my eyes,
A silver trumpet at hand,
I am sent to my people
To cry "Assemble!"
My sin should be forgiven, my guilt
Should have remitted, why do I still
See my brother's dying eyes, as I
Took the sacred from
Among his writhing hands?
Why do I still here the cry:
"Remove ye sons of Ely!
Thou hast defiled my House!"