The temple in Jerusalem served as the focus of Jewish worship, and the major center of pilgrimage. The Bible (Deutronomy 16:16) prescribed three pilgrimages annualy, on Pesah (Passover), Succoth (Tabernacles) and Shavu`ot (Pentecost). Pilgrims would then come to the temple to offer their sacrifices, their first-fruits, the Tithe-offering (Ma`aser) which was to be eaten in Jerusalem, or simply join in on holiday festivities.

Jews from all over the country and from the Diaspora spent a few days or weeks in Jerusalem during the holidays. Josephus offers an estimate of 2.5 million pilgrims gathering in the city during Passover (The Jewish War, Book 6, Chapter 9, 420-427). The Tosefta's number is 16 million pilgrims (Tosefta, Pesahim 4, 16). These numbers are obviously largely inflated. Some scholars tried to estimate the number of pilgrims based on the description in the Mishna (The Mishna, Pesahim 5.5), according to which the people offering the Passover sacrifice filled the temple's courtyard almost three times its area. By multiplying the maximum capacity of the temple's courtyard by three, and then again by ten � according to Josephus each sacrifice was offered by ten men (The Jewish War, Book 6, Chapter 9, 426) - one can conclude that the number of pilgrims was around 180,000. The number of permanent residents in Jerusalem is estimated by 100,000. The multiplication of this number during the holidays seems fairly reasonable.