Parasha Parah…Do We Really Want to Return Sacrifices and the Temple?

How is it possible to survive without the Temple and without the sacrifices? Dr. Yair Paz tours historical and Rabbinic Judaism for the answers.

We are now in the midst of the ‘four Torah Portions.’ This year, a ‘leap year’ (ie: with an extra Hebrew month) it is interesting to note that this week the Torah portion is Parah (cow) and it falls in the book of Leviticus. I will connect the dots.

Have you ever met a real cow? Have you recently petted a real cow? Have you seen a kosher slaughter? The modern world has taken us away from the days of old when we lived differently.

We started reading the book of Leviticus and the majority of its focus is on the laws of sacrifices. Thus, the sages call the Pentateuch “Torat Kohanim (teachings of the priests)” or “Torat HaKorbanim (teachings of the sacrifices).” Similarly, half of Exodus is dedicated to the construction of the ‘mobile temple,’ aka ‘The Tabernacle.’

Indeed, from a historical point of view these two elements, the Temple and the sacrifices were at the center of the worship of God by the children of Israel, both during First Temple and Second Temple times.

So it is surprising, how such central elements of the Jewish religion were cut out and disappeared in the distant past, that for nearly two thousand years the people of Israel continued to ‘worship God’ without these two central elements?! How do we last without them??! How is it possible to survive without the Temple and without the sacrifices??!

Our sages give a specific answer to this difficult question, in the interpretation they preached on a verse in this week’s Torah Portion: Tzav. In this week’s portion, there are details of several sacrifice types; the burnt offering; meal offering; the sin and guilt offerings; whole sacrifices and more. Lastly, after the details, the following summary appears:

“Such are the rituals (the Torah) of the burnt offering, the meal offering, the sin offering, the guilt offering, the offering of ordination, and the sacrifice of well-being, with which the Divine charged Moses on Mount Sinai, when commanding that the Israelites present their offerings to the Divine in the wilderness of Sinai.” (Leviticus 7:37-38)

About this, the editor of Midrash Tanchuma has this to say about the portion:

“Israel said in front of the Holy One, blessed be He, Master of the world, You command that we bring all of these sacrifices. But now that the Temple was destroyed, where can we bring our sacrifices to atone for our sins?”

So the Holy One, blessed be He, said to them, “If you want that they should be atoned for you, keep my laws. How?

God said to them, “Keep my Torah. And how do we know this?”

“This is the Torah of the burnt offering, the meal offering, the sin offering, the guilt offering, the offering of ordination, and the sacrifice of well-being,” do not read it ‘rather’ as such (in Aramaic the word לא  is read like the letters LA) these are the teachings (Torah): not the burnt offering, not the meal offering, not the sin offering, not the guilt offering, not the offering of ordination, and not the sacrifice of well-being. Rather you should be busy learning Torah and it should be important to you more as if you were making an offering equal to all of the offerings.” (Tanhuma, Tzav portion, Siman (section)14 – Warsaw edition)

(It is interesting the identification of keeping=being occupied with, in other words learning itself is the ‘keeping’).

Likewise, we find that this interpretation can be seen regarding prayer and good deeds that are a type of replacement for offerings and the holy work in the Temple (seemingly a retroactive replacement).

But the Amora Rava (Amoraim refers to Jewish scholars of the period from about 200 to 500 CE) in the Babylonian Talmud, at the end of tractate Menachot, formulates the interpretation even more radically:

Rava said: Anyone who learns Torah does not need – neither a burnt nor a sin offering, a meal nor a guilt offering.

That is, in contrast to the interpretations that paint the Torah and the prayers as a retrospective replacement for the loss of the sacrifices. Rava’s interpretation shows an approach that completely reduces the need for sacrifices, and offers a replacement for them almost from the beginning.

This idea continues the bold development among Jewish thinkers such as Rambam (Maimonides) and Rabbi Kook, and they were not always understood or accepted by the general public.

We can conclude that the two most central public institutions in early Judaism, the Temple and the sacrifices, were replaced by Rabbinic Judaism and later by two other public institutions, and perhaps three: prayer, the Talmud, and perhaps also by good deeds (Gemilut Hassidim).

In other words, only learning Talmud and Torah along with prayer and together with the performance of good deeds, in other words solidarity of the nation, that includes mutual assistance institutions (like Yad Sarah or even modern bureaucracy like National Insurance Institute in Israel). They are, according to Rabbinic Judaism, worthy replacements for sacrifices.

The open question that remains is whether, after two thousand years, the desire of some of the public to re-consecrate the temple and offering sacrifices, stems from a real need?

Perhaps it would be better to perfect these three replacements of Rabbinic Judaism and not return to the ugly struggles that accompanied the two ancient institutions in the distant past.

Shavua Tov from Schechter

(image: Cow, Hanaan Habib Allah, Lehava Center, Nazereth via Pikiwiki Israel)