(כב) כִּ֠י לֹֽא־דִבַּ֤רְתִּי אֶת־אֲבֽוֹתֵיכֶם֙ וְלֹ֣א צִוִּיתִ֔ים בְּי֛וֹם הוציא [הוֹצִיאִ֥י] אוֹתָ֖ם מֵאֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרָ֑יִם עַל־דִּבְרֵ֥י עוֹלָ֖ה וָזָֽבַח׃ (כג) כִּ֣י אִֽם־אֶת־הַדָּבָ֣ר הַ֠זֶּה צִוִּ֨יתִי אוֹתָ֤ם לֵאמֹר֙ שִׁמְע֣וּ בְקוֹלִ֔י וְהָיִ֤יתִי לָכֶם֙ לֵֽאלֹהִ֔ים וְאַתֶּ֖ם תִּֽהְיוּ־לִ֣י לְעָ֑ם וַהֲלַכְתֶּ֗ם בְּכָל־הַדֶּ֙רֶךְ֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר אֲצַוֶּ֣ה אֶתְכֶ֔ם לְמַ֖עַן יִיטַ֥ב לָכֶֽם׃
(22) For when I freed your fathers from the land of Egypt, I did not speak with them or command them concerning burnt offerings or sacrifice. (23) But this is what I commanded them: Do My bidding, that I may be your God and you may be My people; walk only in the way that I enjoin upon you, that it may go well with you.
(ז) הֲיִרְצֶ֤ה יְהוָה֙ בְּאַלְפֵ֣י אֵילִ֔ים בְּרִֽבְב֖וֹת נַֽחֲלֵי־שָׁ֑מֶן הַאֶתֵּ֤ן בְּכוֹרִי֙ פִּשְׁעִ֔י פְּרִ֥י בִטְנִ֖י חַטַּ֥את נַפְשִֽׁי׃ (ח) הִגִּ֥יד לְךָ֛ אָדָ֖ם מַה־טּ֑וֹב וּמָֽה־יְהוָ֞ה דּוֹרֵ֣שׁ מִמְּךָ֗ כִּ֣י אִם־עֲשׂ֤וֹת מִשְׁפָּט֙ וְאַ֣הֲבַת חֶ֔סֶד וְהַצְנֵ֥עַ לֶ֖כֶת עִם־אֱלֹהֶֽיךָ׃ (פ)
(7) Would the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, With myriads of streams of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, The fruit of my body for my sins? (8) “He has told you, O man, what is good, And what the LORD requires of you: Only to do justice And to love goodness, And to walk modestly with your God;
(כו) וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֔ים נַֽעֲשֶׂ֥ה אָדָ֛ם בְּצַלְמֵ֖נוּ כִּדְמוּתֵ֑נוּ וְיִרְדּוּ֩ בִדְגַ֨ת הַיָּ֜ם וּבְע֣וֹף הַשָּׁמַ֗יִם וּבַבְּהֵמָה֙ וּבְכָל־הָאָ֔רֶץ וּבְכָל־הָרֶ֖מֶשׂ הָֽרֹמֵ֥שׂ עַל־הָאָֽרֶץ׃
(26) And God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. They shall rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle, the whole earth, and all the creeping things that creep on earth.”
(ח) רַבִּי שְׁמוּאֵל בַּר נַחְמָן בְּשֵׁם רַבִּי יוֹנָתָן אָמַר, בְּשָׁעָה שֶׁהָיָה משֶׁה כּוֹתֵב אֶת הַתּוֹרָה, הָיָה כּוֹתֵב מַעֲשֵׂה כָּל יוֹם וָיוֹם, כֵּיוָן שֶׁהִגִּיעַ לַפָּסוּק הַזֶּה, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר, וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים נַעֲשֶׂה אָדָם בְּצַלְמֵנוּ כִּדְמוּתֵנוּ, אָמַר לְפָנָיו רִבּוֹן הָעוֹלָמִים מָה אַתָּה נוֹתֵן פִּתְחוֹן פֶּה לַמִּינִים, אֶתְמְהָא. אָמַר לוֹ כְּתֹב, וְהָרוֹצֶה לִטְעוֹת יִטְעֶה.
(8) ... “if a great person . . . says, ‘Why do I need to take permission from one lesser than me?’ . . . they say to him: Learn from your Creator, for He created upper ones and lower ones, and when He came to create the human, He ruled with the ministering angels.”
נעשה אדם. אַעַ"פִּ שֶׁלֹּא סִיְּעוּהוּ בִיצִירָתוֹ וְיֵשׁ מָקוֹם לַמִּינִים לִרְדּוֹת, לֹא נִמְנַע הַכָּתוּב מִלְּלַמֵּד דֶרֶך אֶרֶץ וּמִדַּת עֲנָוָה שֶׁיְּהֵא הַגָּדוֹל נִמְלָךְ וְנוֹטֵל רְשׁוּת מִן הַקָּטָן; וְאִם כָּתַב אֶעֱשֶׂה אָדָם, לֹא לָמַדְנוּ שֶׁיְּהֵא מְדַבֵּר עִם בֵּית דִינוֹ, אֶלָּא עִם עַצְמוֹ, וּתְשׁוּבַת הַמִּינִים כָּתַב בְּצִדּוֹ, וַיִּבְרָא אֶת הָאָדָם, וְלֹא כָתַב וַיִּבְרְאוּ:
נעשה אדם WE WILL MAKE MAN — Although they did not assist Him in forming him (the man) and although this use of the plural may give the heretics an occasion to rebel (i. e. to argue in favour of their own views), yet the verse does not refrain from teaching proper conduct and the virtue of humbleness, namely, that the greater should consult, and take permission from the smaller; for had it been written, “I shall make man”, we could not, then, have learned that He spoke to His judicial council but to Himself. And as a refutation of the heretics it is written immediately after this verse “And God created the man”, and it is not written “and they created” (Genesis Rabbah 8:9)
כתוב והרוצה לטעות. פי' אתה כתוב בתורה נעשה. ללמד שלא ימנע הגדול לטול עצה מן הקטן כדבסמוך ואין לחוש בשביל פתחון פה כו'. שהרי בפירוש כתוב בתורה שהש"י הוא אחד. וזהו יסוד התורה. ומי שיודע דרך התורה לא יבוא לטעות בעבור דקדוק זה לסתור מ"ש מפורש בתורה. ואין זה אלא למי שרוצה וחפץ לטעות בכוונה. ולאיש כזה אינו צריך לחוש לטעותו. שהרי יטעה עכ"פ:
ביום הוציאי אותם. תחלת תנאי לא היתה אלא אם שמוע תשמעו בקולי ושמרתם את בריתי והייתם לי סגול' (שם יט):
כי לא דברתי וכו׳. ביום שהוצאתים ממצרים לא דברתי עמהם אז על דבר עולה וזבח ואם היה עיקר ההוצאה בעבור הבאת הקרבנות כי בזה הכל תלוי אף בזולת שמוע בקול ה׳ היה אם כן מהראוי להצטוות עליה ביום שהוצאתים ממצרים:
כי אם וכו׳. שמעו בקולי רק הדבר הזה צויתים אז שמעו בקולי וכו׳ כמ״ש ועתה אם שמוע תשמעו בקולי וכו׳ (שמות י״ט:ה׳) א״כ זה העיקר והבאת הקרבנות היא כאחד מכל המצות שאין נחת בהם בזולת שמוע בקול ה׳:
(כב-כג) כי לא דברתי ולא צויתי את אבותיכם וכו' כי אם את הדבר הזה, ר"ל בעת שדברתי וצויתי את אבותיכם בעת שהוצאתי אותם מארץ מצרים שיביאו עולה וזבח כי כל ספר תו"כ מלא הלכות מהבאת הקרבנות, לא היה כוונתי על הקרבנות עצמם שיהיו תכליות לעצמם, רק בציוי של הקרבנות רק את הדבר הזה צויתי אותם לאמר שמעו בקולי, שעקר ציוי הקרבנות היה שישמעו בקולי שזה עקר המבוקש של הקרבן, שמעו בקולי, ר"ל בתכליות של הקרבנות כונתי ג' דברים, א. שישמעו בקולי כמ"ש נחת רוח הוא לפני שאמרתי ונעשה רצוני, ב. והייתי לכם לאלהים שהקרבנות הם כעין אות ביני וביניכם שאתם עמי ואנכי אלהיכם, כאילו אקבל מכם עבודה ומנחה כאשר יקבל המלך מן עמו, ג. והלכתם בכל הדרך שהיה ענינם להזכיר אתכם ללכת בדרכי ה', כמו קרבנות נדבה ועליה לרגל למען תלמד ליראה את ה', ובקרבנות חובה חטאות ואשמות שיזכור החוטא את חטאו ולא ישוב עוד לכסלה, ובכ"ז לא צויתי עניני הקרבנות לתועלתי רק לתועלתכם למען ייטב לכם:
כי לא דברתי, ביום הוציאי אותם מארץ מצרים. י"מ כי הוא המצוה הראשונה והוא מה שצוה אותם במרה שנאמר בו שם שם לו חק ומשפט והוא מה שאמרו רז"ל שבת ודינין במרה איפקוד ולא צוה על דבר עולה או זבח ויש לפרש גם כן כי עקר המצוה לא היתה על דברי עולה וזבח אלא שמעו בקולי והייתם לי לעם ובזה התנאי נתן להם התורה ואין בכל עשרת הדברים שהם כלל התורה כלה זכר עולה וזבח ואף כשידבר על הקרבנות לא צוה להם שיקריבו קרבן אלא אדם כי יקריב מכם קרבן אם יעשה מדעתו יהיה כך וכך והתמידים שצוה בהם הוא לכבוד הבית והיו באין לצבור אבל ליחידים לא צוה להקריב קרבן כמו שצוה ליחידים לעשות משפט ושאר המצות ולא צוה ליחיד לעשות קרבן אלא אם כן יחטא בשוגג וצוה בשרפת האימורין להשיב החוטא אל לבו לכוף התאוות הבהמיות לפי שתולדתם מחלב ודם ויהיה נזהר שלא יהיה שוגג במצוה כל שכן מזיד והתמידים גם בנין הבית לעבודה אפשר שהוא כמו שכתב מורה צדק רבינו משה ז"ל להעתיק הדעות הזרות ובנין ההיכלות שהיו לשם עכו"ם רצה להעתיקם לעבודת האל ושימחה שם עכו"ם מהם:
ובעבור זה הענין אשר גיליתי לך נמצא הרבה בספרי הנביאים שמוכיחים בני אדם על רוב השתדלותם והתחזקם להביא הקרבנות ובואר לכם שאינם מכוונים לעצמם כונה צריכה מאד ושהאלוה אינו צריך להם - אמר שמואל "החפץ ליי בעולות וזבחים כשמוע בקול יי? וגו'"; ואמר ישעיה "למה לי רוב זבחיכם? - יאמר יי וגו'"; ואמר ירמיה "כי לא דברתי את אבותיכם ולא צויתים ביום הוציאי אותם מארץ מצרים על דברי עולה וזבח - כי אם את הדבר הזה צויתי אותם לאמר שמעו בקולי והייתי לכם לאלוקים ואתם תהיו לי לעם". וכבר הוקשה זה המאמר בעיני כל מי שראיתי דברים או שמעתים ואמר איך יאמר ירמיה על האלוה שלא צוונו ב'דברי עולה וזבח' - ורוב ה'מצוות' באו בזה? אמנם כונת המאמר הוא מה שבארתי לך וזה שהוא אמר שהכונה הראשונה אמנם היא - שתשיגוני ולא תעבדו זולתי 'והייתי לכם לאלוקים ואתם תהיו לי לעם'; וזאת המצוה בהקרבה וכיון אל הבית אמנם היתה בעבור שתעלה בידיכם זאת הפינה ובעבורה העתקתי אלו העבודות לשמי עד שימחה שם 'עבודה זרה' ותתקים פנת יחודי; ובאתם אתם ובטלתם התכלית ההיא והתחזקתם במה שנעשה בעבודה והוא - שאתם ספקתם במציאותי "כחשו ביי ויאמרו "לא הוא" ועבדתם 'עבודה זרה' "וקטר לבעל הלוך אחרי אלוקים אחרים... ובאתם אתם ובטלתם התכלית ההיא והתחזקתם כמה שנעשה בעבורה והוא - שאתם ספקתם במציאותי "כחשו ביי ויאמרו "לוא הוא" ועבדתם 'עבודה זרה' "וקטר לבעל והלוך אחרי אלוקים אחרים... ובאתם אל הבית וגו'" - ונשארתם מכונים אל 'היכל יי' ומקריבים הקרבנות אשר לא היו מכוונים אל 'היכל יי' ומקריבים הקרבנות אשר לא היו מכוונים כמה ראשונה: ולי בפרוש זה 'הפסוק' פנים אחרים והוא מביא הענין בעצמו אשר זכרנוהו והוא שכבר התבאר בכתוב ובקבלה יחד שתחילת מצוה שנצטוינו בה לא היו בה 'דברי עולה וזבח' כלל ואין צריך שתטריד כלל שכלך ב'פסח מצרים' כי היא היתה לסיבה מבוארת גלויה - כמו שאני עתיד לבאר; ועוד שהמצוה היתה ב'ארץ מצרים' והמצוה הרמוז אליה בזה ה'פסוק' ואמר 'ביום הוציאי אותם מארץ מצרים' - כי תחלת 'צווי' שבא אחר יציאת מצרים' הוא מה שנצטוינו בו במרה - והוא אמרו לנו שם "אם שמעו תשמע לקול יי אלוקיך וגו' "שם שם לו חוק ומשפט חוגו'" ובאה הקבלה האמיתית "שבת ודינין במרה אפקוד" - וה'חוק' הרמוז אליו הוא ה'שבת' וה'משפט' הוא ה'דינים' והוא הסרת העול. וזאת היא הכונה הראשונה כמו שבארנו - רצוני לומר אמונת הדעות האמיתיות והוא חידוש העולם. וכבר ידעת שעיקר מצות שבת אמנם היא - לחזק זאת הפינה ולקימה - כמו שבארנו בזה המאמר. והכונה עוד עם אמיתת הדעות - להסיר העול מבני אדם. הנה כבר התבאר לך שהמצוה הראשונה לא היו בה 'דברי עולה וזבח' - אחר שהם על צד הכונה השנית כמו שזכרנו: וזה הענין בעצמו אשר אמרו ירמיה הוא אשר נאמר בתהילים על צד ההוכחה לאומה כולה בסכלה אז הכונה הראשונה ולא היתה מבדלת בינה ובין הכונה השנית. - אמר "שמעה עמי ואדברה ישראל ואעידה בך אלוקים אלוקיך אנוכי לא על זבחיך אוכיחך ועולותיך לנגדי תמיד לא אקח מביתך פר ממכלאותיך - עתודים". וכל מקום שנכפל זה הענין - זאת היא הכונה בו. והבינהו מאד והסתכל בו:
Because of this principle which I explained to you, the Prophets in their books are frequently found to rebuke their fellow-men for being over-zealous and exerting themselves too much in bringing sacrifices: the prophets thus distinctly declared that the object of the sacrifices is not very essential, and that God does not require them. Samuel therefore said, "Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord" (1 Sam. 15:22)? Isaiah exclaimed, "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord" (Isa. 1:11); Jeremiah declared: "For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt-offering or sacrifices. But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my, voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people" (Jer. 7:22, 23). This passage has been found difficult in the opinion of all those whose words I read or heard; they ask, How can Jeremiah say that God did not command us about burnt-offering and sacrifice, seeing so many precepts refer to sacrifice? The sense of the passage agrees with what I explained to you. Jeremiah says [in the name of God] the primary object of the precepts is this, Know me, and serve no other being; "I will be your God, and ye shall be my people" (Lev. 26:12). But the commandment that sacrifices shall be brought and that the temple shall be visited has for its object the success of that principle among you; and for its sake I have transferred these modes of worship to my name; idolatry shall thereby be utterly destroyed, and Jewish faith firmly established. You, however, have ignored this object, and taken hold of that which is only the means of obtaining it; you have doubted my existence, "ye have denied the Lord, and said he is not" (Jer. 5:12); ye served idols; "burnt incense unto Baal, and walked after other gods whom ye know not. And come and stand before me in this house" (ibid. 7:9-10); i.e., you do not go beyond attending the temple of the Lord, and offering sacrifices: but this is not the chief object.--I have another way of explaining this passage with exactly the same result. For it is distinctly stated in Scripture, and handed down by tradition, that the first commandments communicated to us did not include any law at an about burnt-offering and sacrifice. You must not see any difficulty in the Passover which was commanded in Egypt; there was a particular and evident reason for that, as will be explained by me (chap. xlvi.). Besides it was revealed in the land of Egypt; whilst the laws to which Jeremiah alludes in the above passage are those which were revealed after the departure from Egypt. For this reason it is distinctly added, "in the day that I brought them out from the land of Egypt." The first commandment after the departure from Egypt was given at Marah, in the following words, "If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in His sight, and wilt give ear to His commandments" (Exod. 15:26)." There he made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved them" (ibid. ver. 25). According to the true traditional explanation, Sabbath and civil laws were revealed at Marah: "statute" alludes to Sabbath, and "ordinance" to civil laws, which are the means of removing injustice. The chief object of the Law, as has been shown by us, is the teaching of truths; to which the truth of the creatio ex nihilo belongs. It is known that the object of the law of Sabbath is to confirm and to establish this principle, as we have shown in this treatise (Part. II. chap. xxxi.). In addition to the teaching of truths the Law aims at the removal of injustice from mankind. We have thus proved that the first laws do not refer to burnt-offering and sacrifice, which are of secondary importance. The same idea which is contained in the above passage from Jeremiah is also expressed in the Psalms, where the people are rebuked that they ignore the chief object, and make no distinction between chief and subsidiary lessons. The Psalmist says: "Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, and I will testify against thee: I am God, even thy God. I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or thy burnt-offerings, they have been continually before me. I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he-goats out of thy folds" (Ps. 50:29).--Wherever this subject is mentioned, this is its meaning. Consider it well, and reflect on it.
Understanding Sacrifice
By Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
One of the most difficult elements of the Torah and the way of life it prescribes is the phenomenon of animal sacrifices – for obvious reasons. First, Jews and Judaism have survived without them for almost two thousand years. Second, virtually all the prophets were critical of them, not least Jeremiah in this week’s haftarah.1 None of the prophets sought to abolish sacrifices, but they were severely critical of those who offered while at the same time oppressing or exploiting their fellow human beings. What disturbed them – what disturbed G‑d in whose name they spoke – was that evidently some people thought of sacrifices as a kind of bribe: if we make a generous enough gift to G‑d then He may overlook our crimes and misdemeanors. This is an idea radically incompatible with Judaism.
Then again, along with monarchy, sacrifices were among the least distinctive features of Judaism in ancient times. Every ancient religion in those days, every cult and sect, had its altars and sacrifices. Finally, it remains remarkable how simply and smoothly the sages were able to construct substitutes for sacrifice, three in particular: prayer, study and tzedakah. Prayer, particularly Shacharit, Mincha and Musaf, took the place of the regular offerings. One who studies the laws of sacrifice is as if he had brought a sacrifice. And one who gives to charity brings, as it were, a financial sacrifice, acknowledging that all we have we owe to G‑d.
So, though we pray daily for the rebuilding of the Temple and the restoration of sacrifices, the principle of sacrifice itself remains hard to understand. Many theories have been advanced by anthropologists, psychologists and Bible scholars as to what the sacrifices represented, but most are based on the questionable assumption that sacrifice is essentially the same act across cultures. This is poor scholarship. Always seek to understand a practice in terms of the distinctive beliefs of the culture in which it takes place. What could sacrifice possibly mean in a religion in which G‑d is the creator and owner of all?
What, then, was sacrifice in Judaism and why does it remain important, at least as an idea, even today? The simplest answer – though it does not explain the details of the different kinds of offering – is this: We love what we are willing to make sacrifices for. That is why, when they were a nation of farmers and shepherds, the Israelites demonstrated their love of G‑d by bringing Him a symbolic gift of their flocks and herds, their grain and fruit; that is, their livelihood. To love is to thank. To love is to want to bring an offering to the Beloved. To love is to give.2 Sacrifice is the choreography of love.
This is true in many aspects of life. A happily married couple is constantly making sacrifices for one another. Parents make huge sacrifices for their children. People drawn to a calling – to heal the sick, or care for the poor, or fight for justice for the weak against the strong – often sacrifice remunerative careers for the sake of their ideals. In ages of patriotism, people make sacrifices for their country. In strong communities people make sacrifices for one another when someone is in distress or needs help. Sacrifice is the superglue of relationship. It bonds us to one another.
That is why, in the biblical age, sacrifices were so important – not as they were in other faiths but precisely because at the beating heart of Judaism is love: “You shall love the L‑rd your G‑d with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” In other faiths the driving motive behind sacrifice was fear: fear of the anger and power of the G‑ds. In Judaism it was love.
We see this in the Hebrew word for sacrifice itself: the noun korban, and the verb lehakriv, which mean, “to come, or bring close”. The name of G‑d invariably used in connection with the sacrifices is Hashem, G‑d in his aspect of love and compassion, never Elokim, G‑d as justice and distance. The word Elokim occurs only five times in the whole of the book of Vayikra, and always in the context of other nations. The word Hashem appears 209 times. And as we saw last week, the very name of the book, Vayikra, means to summon in love. Where there is love, there is sacrifice.
Once we realize this we begin to understand how deeply relevant the concept of sacrifice is in the twenty-first century. The major institutions of the modern world – the liberal democratic state and the free-market economy – were predicated on the model of the rational actor, that is, one who acts to maximize the benefits to him- or herself.
Hobbes’ account of the social contract was that it is in the interests of each of us to hand over some of our rights to a central power charged with ensuring the rule of law and the defense of the realm. Adam Smith’s insight into the market economy was that if we each act to maximize our own advantage, the result is the growth of the common-wealth. Modern politics and economics were built on the foundation of the rational pursuit of self-interest.
There was nothing wrong with this. It was done for the highest of motives. It was an attempt to create peace in a Europe that had for centuries been ravaged by war. The democratic state and the market economy were serious attempts to harness the power of self-interest to combat the destructive passions that led to violence.3 The fact that politics and economics were based on self-interest did not negate the possibility that families and communities were sustained by altruism. It was a good system, not a bad one.
Now, however, after several centuries, the idea of love-as-sacrifice has grown thin in many areas of life. We see this specifically in relationships. Throughout the West, fewer people are getting married, they are getting married later, and almost half of marriages end in divorce. Throughout Europe, indigenous populations are in decline. To have a stable population, a country must have an average birth rate of 2.1 children per female. In 2015 the average birth-rate throughout the European Union was 1.55. In Spain it was 1.27. Germany has the lowest birth-rate of any country in the world.4 That is why the population of Europe is today rendered stable only on the basis of unprecedented rates of immigration.
Lose the concept of sacrifice within a society, and sooner or later marriage falters, parenthood declines, and the society slowly ages and dies. My late predecessor, L‑rd Jakobovits, had a lovely way of putting this. The Talmud says that when a man divorces his first wife, “the altar sheds tears” (Gittin 90b). What is the connection between the altar and a marriage? Both, he said, are about sacrifices. Marriages fail when the partners are unwilling to make sacrifices for one another.
Jews and Judaism survived despite the many sacrifices people had to make for it. In the eleventh century Judah Halevi expressed something closer to awe at the fact that Jews stayed Jewish despite the fact that “with a word lightly spoken” they could have converted to the majority faith and lived a life of relative ease (Kuzari 4:23) Equally possible though is that Judaism survived because of those sacrifices. Where people make sacrifices for their ideals, the ideals stay strong. Sacrifice is an expression of love.
Not all sacrifice is holy. Today’s suicide bombers sacrifice their lives and those of their victims in a way I have argued (in Not In G‑d’s Name) is sacrilege. Indeed the very existence of animal sacrifice in the Torah may have been a way of preventing people from offering human sacrifice in the form of violence and war. But the principle of sacrifice remains. It is the gift we bring to what and whom we love.
Footnotes
1. Jeremiah 7:22, “When I freed your fathers from the land of Egypt, I did not speak with them or command them concerning burnt offerings or sacrifice” – a remarkable statement. See Rashi and Radak ad loc., and especially Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed, III: 32.
2. The verb “to love” – a-h-v – is related to the verbs h-v-h, h-v-v and y-h-v, all of which have the sense of giving, bringing, or offering.
3. The classic text is A. O. Hirschman, The Passions and the Interests, Princeton University Press, 1977.
4. The Observer, 23 August 2015.
By Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
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Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks is an international religious leader, philosopher, and respected moral voice. The author of over 30 books, Rabbi Sacks has received multiple awards in recognition of his work including the 2016 Templeton Prize. He is the recipient of 18 honorary doctorates, was knighted by Her Majesty The Queen in 2005 and made a Life Peer, taking his seat in the House of Lords in October 2009. He served as the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth from 1991 to 2013.
To read more writings and teachings by Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, please visit www.rabbisacks.org.
Are You Really Planning to Bring Back those Animal Sacrifices?
By Tzvi Freeman
Question: Please explain all this business about animal sacrifices in the Temple. Are you really planning to re-initiate this at some point?
Answer: Cain and Abel made vegetable and animal sacrifices. Noah made animal sacrifices. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—all highly enlightened people—made animal sacrifices. And the Torah prescribes a whole slew of sacrifices to be made in the Tabernacle in the desert, and then later in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. And guess what? In our prayers, for the past 2,000 years, weve been asking for G‑d to let us rebuild that Temple so that we can start doing those sacrifices, just like He asked us to. So there’s got to be something deep going on here, more than meets the eye.
Q: But the whole thing doesn’t make sense! Charity, prayer, study . . . all those I can understand. But why on earth would G‑d want us to burn animals on an altar?
A: Now, don’t get the idea that you’re the first one to have difficulty with this. It puzzled the students of Maimonides in the 12th century. It puzzled the students of the rabbis of the Talmud. In the Zohar it’s written that the secret of the sacrifices reaches to the secret of the infinite. It’s one of those things that if it doesn’t puzzle you, you just haven’t gotten the facts straight. I think we need to look at this from a very different perspective to make sense of it.
Q: It all looks like just a holdover from pagan rites.
A: It’s clear that there are some major distinctions between the sacrificial order of the Torah and your typical ancient-world pagan rites. For one thing, the rules and regulations were spelled out right there for all to read. In fact, every Jew has an obligation to study the details of the Temple rites. Even little children are supposed to learn everything those priests are to be doing. That’s a far cry from the cult of secrecy that empowered the priestly class of other nations.
There were some other major distinctions: The Temple was considered the property of the people, and daily communal sacrifices reinforced that fact. There were no male or female prostitutes wandering around the courtyards, no orgies or drunken revelry—or self-mutilation. The priests wore modest, standardized clothes, and were held accountable by a people’s court that sat right there at the edge of the Temple complex. Most of the meat was eaten—a lot less waste than what goes on at Safeway or Stop & Shop. And animals were slaughtered in a humane fashion. Definitely a sublime relief from ancient standards. All in all, it must have seemed a very strange place for the average Joe Ancient.
Q: But not to our standards today. If the whole point was to wean the people off sacrificial cultism, then it was good for then. But why should we be praying for it to return? Sure, it’s cool to have a central place for prayer and meditation, with the menorah, the incense, the tablets that Moses brought . . . but why the butcher shop?
A: The main act of a sacrifice was not the physical act of slaughtering an animal. You understand that the sacrificial service was principally a spiritual one.
Q: In what way?
A: Well, for one thing, when a person brought a sacrifice, his mental focus was crucial. If his mind was not focused on the correct meaning and intent of the sacrifice, the whole thing could be deemed useless, or worse.
Q: What sort of meanings?
A: Well, if it was being brought to atone for some inadvertent sin, he had to have in mind some remorse over what had happened. But it went far beyond that: The priests would focus their minds on the higher spiritual spheres, according to esoteric traditions. That explains why they had the Levites singing and the musicians playing. After all, if it was all just a grand barbecue, what need was there for inspirational music? Rather, it was a deep spiritual experience for all involved. You went away truly elevated.
Q: Okay, I can see the experiential quality of it all: an ancient temple with heavenly music and mystical song; priests in flowing robes deep in meditation; mesmerizing, choreographed ritual. It’s an image I hadn’t realized before.
A: Most people don’t.
Q: But I think we could get the elevation without the blood and guts.
A: Well, in fact, today our prayers are in place of the sacrifices. So the principal aspect of the sacrifices was never terminated. Just the outer aspects that the Torah also demands, those are temporarily suspended.
Q: So, if we can have the spiritual experience without dicing meat on the altar, why go back to it?
A: So we need to come to a deeper understanding of what the sacrifices and the Temple are all about.
Q: If you have an explanation, I’m open.
A: Well, perhaps our problem is that we are looking at it from a flat perspective.
Q: Flat?
A: I mean, like trying to understand a multidimensional process from only one dimension.
Q: ?
A: Here’s an analogy: Let’s say you never heard of a telephone, and you’re watching someone walking along the street in an intense conversation. Except that there doesn’t appear to be any second party to this conversation. In fact, he appears to be deeply engaged in an argument with . . . his wrist.
Q: Because his hand is cupped to his ear?
A: Yes. And he’s nodding his head, waving his other arm. Then shouting. Then quiet. Then laughing, and suddenly quiet again . . .
Q: Looks totally nuts.
A: But people do it all the time.
Q: Okay, but it makes sense because we know there’s someone else on the other end.
A: The other end of what?
Q: The phone.
A: That looks even more preposterous. Where exactly is that someone hanging from?
Q: You know what I mean. There’s a mobile phone network. There are signals traveling through the air.
A: Where?
Q: We can’t see all those things, but it connects people over large distances. It’s only our ignorance of those signals and that network and all the sophisticated technology behind it that makes this guy look silly.
A: Exactly. And that’s the same problem we have with sacrifices. We have to realize there’s a whole other dimension here that we don’t see. From that dimension, everything makes sense.
Q: Whose dimension is that?
A: Well, there are higher planes of reality than our own. Spiritual realms. And beyond. There’s a whole chain of worlds working down from the plane of the infinite light until arriving at us and our little physical cosmos down here.
Q: Kabbalah stuff.
A: It’s in the Talmud, too—lots of details in tractate Chagigah about the seven heavens, etc.
Q: So, with sacrifices . . .
A: Rabbi Isaac Luria, the Arizal, explains that the sacrifices were a way of elevating the matter and vitality of this world up to a higher plane.
Q: You know, I read a story about some tzaddik who would meditate and carry his consciousness up to higher places.
A: Actually, anytime someone meditates and prays with focus, he or she is doing that, to some small degree.
Q: So we’re back to square one: Who needs the barbecue?
A: Because that elevates only the human soul. The human soul has many layers. The G‑dly. The rational. The animal within. The sacrifices in the Temple elevated those, plus a whole real animal. It touched not just the spirit, but the body as well.
Q: So the animal became holy?
A: Thereby having a general effect on all the animals in the world—plus the flour and wine that was used with it, which pulled along all the vegetable world; plus the salt and water, which pulled the inanimate realm along with it . . .
Q: Let me get this straight: you’re saying that what prayer accomplishes on a spiritual level, the sacrifices accomplished with the physical world? You’re saying that the Temple was a sort of transformer, to beam up physical stuff into the spiritual realms?
A: You’re getting it. That’s why the space of the Temple was so important. You know that there is a tradition that the place where the altar of the Temple stood, that was the place from which Adam was formed. Cain and Abel made their sacrifices there. Noah made his sacrifices there after the flood. The binding of Isaac took place there . . .
Q: So, why did they all have to use that spot? What’s so special about it?
A: It’s the spot where Jacob had his dream about the ladder and the angels going up and down. He said, “This is the gateway to heaven!”
Q: Hmmm. You mean like what we call in ’Net jargon a portal.
A: Right. Or a transformer. The interface between the physical and the spiritual. That’s what the rabbis mean when they say that when G‑d went about creating this world, the place he started from was the place of the Temple Mount. So, you’ll say, there was no space when G‑d started creating the world. But what they mean is that this is the first link from the higher worlds to this world. Thats where “above” stops and “below” begins. Heaven to Earth. And so, that’s where the transmission line between the two is situated. The portal.
Q: What happens when all this meat and wine gets up there?
A: Obviously, it’s no longer a chewy steak when it’s in a spiritual domain. But we are physical beings, so we can’t really imagine what spiritual roast beef looks like. But there are conscious beings that have no physical bodies, and they are on the receiving end of all this.
Q: You mean angels?
A: That’s what they’re called in English.
Q: I find it hard to relate to the angel thing. I know there are plenty of references to them in the Bible and rabbinical literature . . .
A: Ramban (Nachmanides) says that our souls are more closely related to the angels than to the animals. After all, human beings live principally in a world of ideas and abstractions, more so than in the visceral, tangible world.
Q: Depends who you’re speaking about, rabbi.
A: At any rate, there is no reason not to believe that there is consciousness that is not associated with a physical body. And if we would ask one of those conscious beings whether the Temple sacrifices make sense to him/her/it, it/she/he would likely exclaim that it is one of the few things human beings do that make any sense at all! And I bet they’re real peeved that it’s been stopped all these years.
Q: What do they get out of it?
A: According to the Kabbalah, returning energy.
Q: You mean, like energy bouncing back? What do they need that for? Don’t they get enough when it’s on its way down?
A: Because the energy they get is only direct energy, filtered down through many steps. We get the final, most condensed creative energy to sustain our existence in this world. But, since we are the final stop, we also have the essence of that energy. That’s something they can get only when we elevate matters of our world up to theirs.
Q: You’re telling me those angels have a real interest in our sacrifices?
A: They have a real interest in anything good we do. Any mitzvah we do elevates some aspect of the material world—perhaps not to such an extent as the sacrifices. But the sacrifices provide a paradigm to understand what all mitzvahs are really about.
Q: So are these bodiless conscious beings involved in that as well?
A: Without them, not a single mitzvah would ever get done. The Talmud says that whenever a person does a mitzvah, it is only after the Holy One sends His angels to set everything up for him to do it. And they complete the job, as well. Often, our entire input is no more than making the conscious decision that yes, I want to do this mitzvah.
Q: So really, all of our mitzvahs happen within this larger, multidimensional context.
A: Which is why so many of them are so hard to understand. Like trying to make sense of a single instrument playing its part out of a whole symphony. That’s what each of our mitzvahs is like. Because we see only the material plane.
By Tzvi Freeman
Tzvi Freeman is the author of Bringing Heaven Down to Earth and, more recently, Wisdom to Heal the Earth. Subscribe to The Daily Dose of Wisdom and Freeman Files for regular updates.
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By Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
One of the most difficult elements of the Torah and the way of life it prescribes is the phenomenon of animal sacrifices – for obvious reasons. First, Jews and Judaism have survived without them for almost two thousand years. Second, virtually all the prophets were critical of them, not least Jeremiah in this week’s haftarah.1 None of the prophets sought to abolish sacrifices, but they were severely critical of those who offered while at the same time oppressing or exploiting their fellow human beings. What disturbed them – what disturbed G‑d in whose name they spoke – was that evidently some people thought of sacrifices as a kind of bribe: if we make a generous enough gift to G‑d then He may overlook our crimes and misdemeanors. This is an idea radically incompatible with Judaism.
Then again, along with monarchy, sacrifices were among the least distinctive features of Judaism in ancient times. Every ancient religion in those days, every cult and sect, had its altars and sacrifices. Finally, it remains remarkable how simply and smoothly the sages were able to construct substitutes for sacrifice, three in particular: prayer, study and tzedakah. Prayer, particularly Shacharit, Mincha and Musaf, took the place of the regular offerings. One who studies the laws of sacrifice is as if he had brought a sacrifice. And one who gives to charity brings, as it were, a financial sacrifice, acknowledging that all we have we owe to G‑d.
So, though we pray daily for the rebuilding of the Temple and the restoration of sacrifices, the principle of sacrifice itself remains hard to understand. Many theories have been advanced by anthropologists, psychologists and Bible scholars as to what the sacrifices represented, but most are based on the questionable assumption that sacrifice is essentially the same act across cultures. This is poor scholarship. Always seek to understand a practice in terms of the distinctive beliefs of the culture in which it takes place. What could sacrifice possibly mean in a religion in which G‑d is the creator and owner of all?
What, then, was sacrifice in Judaism and why does it remain important, at least as an idea, even today? The simplest answer – though it does not explain the details of the different kinds of offering – is this: We love what we are willing to make sacrifices for. That is why, when they were a nation of farmers and shepherds, the Israelites demonstrated their love of G‑d by bringing Him a symbolic gift of their flocks and herds, their grain and fruit; that is, their livelihood. To love is to thank. To love is to want to bring an offering to the Beloved. To love is to give.2 Sacrifice is the choreography of love.
This is true in many aspects of life. A happily married couple is constantly making sacrifices for one another. Parents make huge sacrifices for their children. People drawn to a calling – to heal the sick, or care for the poor, or fight for justice for the weak against the strong – often sacrifice remunerative careers for the sake of their ideals. In ages of patriotism, people make sacrifices for their country. In strong communities people make sacrifices for one another when someone is in distress or needs help. Sacrifice is the superglue of relationship. It bonds us to one another.
That is why, in the biblical age, sacrifices were so important – not as they were in other faiths but precisely because at the beating heart of Judaism is love: “You shall love the L‑rd your G‑d with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” In other faiths the driving motive behind sacrifice was fear: fear of the anger and power of the G‑ds. In Judaism it was love.
We see this in the Hebrew word for sacrifice itself: the noun korban, and the verb lehakriv, which mean, “to come, or bring close”. The name of G‑d invariably used in connection with the sacrifices is Hashem, G‑d in his aspect of love and compassion, never Elokim, G‑d as justice and distance. The word Elokim occurs only five times in the whole of the book of Vayikra, and always in the context of other nations. The word Hashem appears 209 times. And as we saw last week, the very name of the book, Vayikra, means to summon in love. Where there is love, there is sacrifice.
Once we realize this we begin to understand how deeply relevant the concept of sacrifice is in the twenty-first century. The major institutions of the modern world – the liberal democratic state and the free-market economy – were predicated on the model of the rational actor, that is, one who acts to maximize the benefits to him- or herself.
Hobbes’ account of the social contract was that it is in the interests of each of us to hand over some of our rights to a central power charged with ensuring the rule of law and the defense of the realm. Adam Smith’s insight into the market economy was that if we each act to maximize our own advantage, the result is the growth of the common-wealth. Modern politics and economics were built on the foundation of the rational pursuit of self-interest.
There was nothing wrong with this. It was done for the highest of motives. It was an attempt to create peace in a Europe that had for centuries been ravaged by war. The democratic state and the market economy were serious attempts to harness the power of self-interest to combat the destructive passions that led to violence.3 The fact that politics and economics were based on self-interest did not negate the possibility that families and communities were sustained by altruism. It was a good system, not a bad one.
Now, however, after several centuries, the idea of love-as-sacrifice has grown thin in many areas of life. We see this specifically in relationships. Throughout the West, fewer people are getting married, they are getting married later, and almost half of marriages end in divorce. Throughout Europe, indigenous populations are in decline. To have a stable population, a country must have an average birth rate of 2.1 children per female. In 2015 the average birth-rate throughout the European Union was 1.55. In Spain it was 1.27. Germany has the lowest birth-rate of any country in the world.4 That is why the population of Europe is today rendered stable only on the basis of unprecedented rates of immigration.
Lose the concept of sacrifice within a society, and sooner or later marriage falters, parenthood declines, and the society slowly ages and dies. My late predecessor, L‑rd Jakobovits, had a lovely way of putting this. The Talmud says that when a man divorces his first wife, “the altar sheds tears” (Gittin 90b). What is the connection between the altar and a marriage? Both, he said, are about sacrifices. Marriages fail when the partners are unwilling to make sacrifices for one another.
Jews and Judaism survived despite the many sacrifices people had to make for it. In the eleventh century Judah Halevi expressed something closer to awe at the fact that Jews stayed Jewish despite the fact that “with a word lightly spoken” they could have converted to the majority faith and lived a life of relative ease (Kuzari 4:23) Equally possible though is that Judaism survived because of those sacrifices. Where people make sacrifices for their ideals, the ideals stay strong. Sacrifice is an expression of love.
Not all sacrifice is holy. Today’s suicide bombers sacrifice their lives and those of their victims in a way I have argued (in Not In G‑d’s Name) is sacrilege. Indeed the very existence of animal sacrifice in the Torah may have been a way of preventing people from offering human sacrifice in the form of violence and war. But the principle of sacrifice remains. It is the gift we bring to what and whom we love.
Footnotes
1. Jeremiah 7:22, “When I freed your fathers from the land of Egypt, I did not speak with them or command them concerning burnt offerings or sacrifice” – a remarkable statement. See Rashi and Radak ad loc., and especially Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed, III: 32.
2. The verb “to love” – a-h-v – is related to the verbs h-v-h, h-v-v and y-h-v, all of which have the sense of giving, bringing, or offering.
3. The classic text is A. O. Hirschman, The Passions and the Interests, Princeton University Press, 1977.
4. The Observer, 23 August 2015.
By Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
© Copyright, all rights reserved. If you enjoyed this article, we encourage you to distribute it further, provided that you comply with Chabad.org's copyright policy.
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks is an international religious leader, philosopher, and respected moral voice. The author of over 30 books, Rabbi Sacks has received multiple awards in recognition of his work including the 2016 Templeton Prize. He is the recipient of 18 honorary doctorates, was knighted by Her Majesty The Queen in 2005 and made a Life Peer, taking his seat in the House of Lords in October 2009. He served as the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth from 1991 to 2013.
To read more writings and teachings by Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, please visit www.rabbisacks.org.
Are You Really Planning to Bring Back those Animal Sacrifices?
By Tzvi Freeman
Question: Please explain all this business about animal sacrifices in the Temple. Are you really planning to re-initiate this at some point?
Answer: Cain and Abel made vegetable and animal sacrifices. Noah made animal sacrifices. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—all highly enlightened people—made animal sacrifices. And the Torah prescribes a whole slew of sacrifices to be made in the Tabernacle in the desert, and then later in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. And guess what? In our prayers, for the past 2,000 years, weve been asking for G‑d to let us rebuild that Temple so that we can start doing those sacrifices, just like He asked us to. So there’s got to be something deep going on here, more than meets the eye.
Q: But the whole thing doesn’t make sense! Charity, prayer, study . . . all those I can understand. But why on earth would G‑d want us to burn animals on an altar?
A: Now, don’t get the idea that you’re the first one to have difficulty with this. It puzzled the students of Maimonides in the 12th century. It puzzled the students of the rabbis of the Talmud. In the Zohar it’s written that the secret of the sacrifices reaches to the secret of the infinite. It’s one of those things that if it doesn’t puzzle you, you just haven’t gotten the facts straight. I think we need to look at this from a very different perspective to make sense of it.
Q: It all looks like just a holdover from pagan rites.
A: It’s clear that there are some major distinctions between the sacrificial order of the Torah and your typical ancient-world pagan rites. For one thing, the rules and regulations were spelled out right there for all to read. In fact, every Jew has an obligation to study the details of the Temple rites. Even little children are supposed to learn everything those priests are to be doing. That’s a far cry from the cult of secrecy that empowered the priestly class of other nations.
There were some other major distinctions: The Temple was considered the property of the people, and daily communal sacrifices reinforced that fact. There were no male or female prostitutes wandering around the courtyards, no orgies or drunken revelry—or self-mutilation. The priests wore modest, standardized clothes, and were held accountable by a people’s court that sat right there at the edge of the Temple complex. Most of the meat was eaten—a lot less waste than what goes on at Safeway or Stop & Shop. And animals were slaughtered in a humane fashion. Definitely a sublime relief from ancient standards. All in all, it must have seemed a very strange place for the average Joe Ancient.
Q: But not to our standards today. If the whole point was to wean the people off sacrificial cultism, then it was good for then. But why should we be praying for it to return? Sure, it’s cool to have a central place for prayer and meditation, with the menorah, the incense, the tablets that Moses brought . . . but why the butcher shop?
A: The main act of a sacrifice was not the physical act of slaughtering an animal. You understand that the sacrificial service was principally a spiritual one.
Q: In what way?
A: Well, for one thing, when a person brought a sacrifice, his mental focus was crucial. If his mind was not focused on the correct meaning and intent of the sacrifice, the whole thing could be deemed useless, or worse.
Q: What sort of meanings?
A: Well, if it was being brought to atone for some inadvertent sin, he had to have in mind some remorse over what had happened. But it went far beyond that: The priests would focus their minds on the higher spiritual spheres, according to esoteric traditions. That explains why they had the Levites singing and the musicians playing. After all, if it was all just a grand barbecue, what need was there for inspirational music? Rather, it was a deep spiritual experience for all involved. You went away truly elevated.
Q: Okay, I can see the experiential quality of it all: an ancient temple with heavenly music and mystical song; priests in flowing robes deep in meditation; mesmerizing, choreographed ritual. It’s an image I hadn’t realized before.
A: Most people don’t.
Q: But I think we could get the elevation without the blood and guts.
A: Well, in fact, today our prayers are in place of the sacrifices. So the principal aspect of the sacrifices was never terminated. Just the outer aspects that the Torah also demands, those are temporarily suspended.
Q: So, if we can have the spiritual experience without dicing meat on the altar, why go back to it?
A: So we need to come to a deeper understanding of what the sacrifices and the Temple are all about.
Q: If you have an explanation, I’m open.
A: Well, perhaps our problem is that we are looking at it from a flat perspective.
Q: Flat?
A: I mean, like trying to understand a multidimensional process from only one dimension.
Q: ?
A: Here’s an analogy: Let’s say you never heard of a telephone, and you’re watching someone walking along the street in an intense conversation. Except that there doesn’t appear to be any second party to this conversation. In fact, he appears to be deeply engaged in an argument with . . . his wrist.
Q: Because his hand is cupped to his ear?
A: Yes. And he’s nodding his head, waving his other arm. Then shouting. Then quiet. Then laughing, and suddenly quiet again . . .
Q: Looks totally nuts.
A: But people do it all the time.
Q: Okay, but it makes sense because we know there’s someone else on the other end.
A: The other end of what?
Q: The phone.
A: That looks even more preposterous. Where exactly is that someone hanging from?
Q: You know what I mean. There’s a mobile phone network. There are signals traveling through the air.
A: Where?
Q: We can’t see all those things, but it connects people over large distances. It’s only our ignorance of those signals and that network and all the sophisticated technology behind it that makes this guy look silly.
A: Exactly. And that’s the same problem we have with sacrifices. We have to realize there’s a whole other dimension here that we don’t see. From that dimension, everything makes sense.
Q: Whose dimension is that?
A: Well, there are higher planes of reality than our own. Spiritual realms. And beyond. There’s a whole chain of worlds working down from the plane of the infinite light until arriving at us and our little physical cosmos down here.
Q: Kabbalah stuff.
A: It’s in the Talmud, too—lots of details in tractate Chagigah about the seven heavens, etc.
Q: So, with sacrifices . . .
A: Rabbi Isaac Luria, the Arizal, explains that the sacrifices were a way of elevating the matter and vitality of this world up to a higher plane.
Q: You know, I read a story about some tzaddik who would meditate and carry his consciousness up to higher places.
A: Actually, anytime someone meditates and prays with focus, he or she is doing that, to some small degree.
Q: So we’re back to square one: Who needs the barbecue?
A: Because that elevates only the human soul. The human soul has many layers. The G‑dly. The rational. The animal within. The sacrifices in the Temple elevated those, plus a whole real animal. It touched not just the spirit, but the body as well.
Q: So the animal became holy?
A: Thereby having a general effect on all the animals in the world—plus the flour and wine that was used with it, which pulled along all the vegetable world; plus the salt and water, which pulled the inanimate realm along with it . . .
Q: Let me get this straight: you’re saying that what prayer accomplishes on a spiritual level, the sacrifices accomplished with the physical world? You’re saying that the Temple was a sort of transformer, to beam up physical stuff into the spiritual realms?
A: You’re getting it. That’s why the space of the Temple was so important. You know that there is a tradition that the place where the altar of the Temple stood, that was the place from which Adam was formed. Cain and Abel made their sacrifices there. Noah made his sacrifices there after the flood. The binding of Isaac took place there . . .
Q: So, why did they all have to use that spot? What’s so special about it?
A: It’s the spot where Jacob had his dream about the ladder and the angels going up and down. He said, “This is the gateway to heaven!”
Q: Hmmm. You mean like what we call in ’Net jargon a portal.
A: Right. Or a transformer. The interface between the physical and the spiritual. That’s what the rabbis mean when they say that when G‑d went about creating this world, the place he started from was the place of the Temple Mount. So, you’ll say, there was no space when G‑d started creating the world. But what they mean is that this is the first link from the higher worlds to this world. Thats where “above” stops and “below” begins. Heaven to Earth. And so, that’s where the transmission line between the two is situated. The portal.
Q: What happens when all this meat and wine gets up there?
A: Obviously, it’s no longer a chewy steak when it’s in a spiritual domain. But we are physical beings, so we can’t really imagine what spiritual roast beef looks like. But there are conscious beings that have no physical bodies, and they are on the receiving end of all this.
Q: You mean angels?
A: That’s what they’re called in English.
Q: I find it hard to relate to the angel thing. I know there are plenty of references to them in the Bible and rabbinical literature . . .
A: Ramban (Nachmanides) says that our souls are more closely related to the angels than to the animals. After all, human beings live principally in a world of ideas and abstractions, more so than in the visceral, tangible world.
Q: Depends who you’re speaking about, rabbi.
A: At any rate, there is no reason not to believe that there is consciousness that is not associated with a physical body. And if we would ask one of those conscious beings whether the Temple sacrifices make sense to him/her/it, it/she/he would likely exclaim that it is one of the few things human beings do that make any sense at all! And I bet they’re real peeved that it’s been stopped all these years.
Q: What do they get out of it?
A: According to the Kabbalah, returning energy.
Q: You mean, like energy bouncing back? What do they need that for? Don’t they get enough when it’s on its way down?
A: Because the energy they get is only direct energy, filtered down through many steps. We get the final, most condensed creative energy to sustain our existence in this world. But, since we are the final stop, we also have the essence of that energy. That’s something they can get only when we elevate matters of our world up to theirs.
Q: You’re telling me those angels have a real interest in our sacrifices?
A: They have a real interest in anything good we do. Any mitzvah we do elevates some aspect of the material world—perhaps not to such an extent as the sacrifices. But the sacrifices provide a paradigm to understand what all mitzvahs are really about.
Q: So are these bodiless conscious beings involved in that as well?
A: Without them, not a single mitzvah would ever get done. The Talmud says that whenever a person does a mitzvah, it is only after the Holy One sends His angels to set everything up for him to do it. And they complete the job, as well. Often, our entire input is no more than making the conscious decision that yes, I want to do this mitzvah.
Q: So really, all of our mitzvahs happen within this larger, multidimensional context.
A: Which is why so many of them are so hard to understand. Like trying to make sense of a single instrument playing its part out of a whole symphony. That’s what each of our mitzvahs is like. Because we see only the material plane.
By Tzvi Freeman
Tzvi Freeman is the author of Bringing Heaven Down to Earth and, more recently, Wisdom to Heal the Earth. Subscribe to The Daily Dose of Wisdom and Freeman Files for regular updates.
More from Tzvi Freeman | RSS
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