Torah and Pagan Influences

Answer

Hi! Since you wrote a lot, I’m going to try to summarize your words into a few key points, and then try to respond to them.
You said:

1. Sacrifices were not only for forgiveness but also for many other purposes.
2. There are quotes from the Bible that imply that G-d did not want sacrifices.
3. Great Torah sages have said that sacrifices were only for the purpose of weaning Israel from idolatry.
4. Sacrifices are voluntary, not obligatory.
5. Other kinds of service to G-d are more important than sacrifices.

Let me deal with 1) right off the bat. I guess I was not clear enough in my response. You had asked me specifically about the concept of a scapegoat, so that was what I was responding to and explaining. Indeed, there were many other types of sacrifices. Some of them were brought as a joyful expression of thanksgiving, or as a part of the communal festival; in all those the aspect of giving a present as a way of growing closer (which I also mentioned) was the central point.

Before I deal in detail with the other issues, I’ll say something in general. I hope I don’t offend you; I think you’re seeking truth, and I just want to be helpful. Sometimes a person has a certain point of view, something he wants to show. Then, when he’s looking through a set of facts, he tends to see the ones that say what he wants, or that he thinks might say what he wants. He can then even take a large body of material saying exactly the opposite, cherry-pick through it finding a piece here and a piece there, and come out with a presentation with which not one of the people he quotes would agree. It can be completely unintentional; maybe it can happen to all of us. Still, this is something that anyone who loves truth must avoid.

With all due respect, I think that’s what happening here. You quoted from Jeremiah, but none of the authorities you mentioned agrees “that we can clearly make out that G-d did not institute those rituals”. Certainly Maimonides never could: He says in the section Laws of Fundamentals of the Torah that any prophet who disagrees with any law written in the Torah is automatically disqualified and rejected from being considered a prophet at all. And he lists the rules of sacrifices as laws in the Torah; three full books of his compendium of law deal with the Temple and its sacrifices. Thus, he could not understand the verse in Jeremiah the way you said.

Indeed, he explains it differently in Guide of the Perplexed, III(32). So does R’ David Kimchi on the verse itself, and the Malbim there, and Rashi there. They all say the same basic idea: There are ends, and there are means to the ends. Things in the Ten Commandments, or given at Marah before Mount Sinai, are the most fundamental – things like belief in G-d and treating other Jews fairly. Other things, like the sacrifices, are means to strengthen the more fundamental things. That doesn’t mean they are not obligatory or important; it just helps to put them into perspective.

This is what every one of the verses you brought is trying to say. A time had come where the service in the Temple had ceased to be an aid to service, and had instead become a replacement – a way for Israel to congratulate themselves and fool themselves, instead of fixing what was really wrong. The prophets were warning Israel to remember the closeness to G-d and willingness to serve that the sacrifices were designed to enable. You’ll see that I said in my earlier letter, that sacrifices help a person IF he’s sincere. If not, they can become a distraction. By the time it was destroyed, the Temple, which should have been so central in aiding service to G-d, had become a barrier instead.

You brought R’ David Kimchi on Jeremiah, but he does not say that sacrifices are optional. Let me quote some of his words there that you were using: “Even when [G-d] spoke about sacrifices, he did not command, but rather ‘A man when he brings from you a sacrifice’ – when he does it, of his own will.” But here is the continuation of his words: “And the daily sacrifices, which he did command, are for the glory of the Temple and were brought by the congregation. But an individual was never commanded to bring a sacrifice in the same way as he was commanded to do justice or other commandments, unless he sinned by mistake, in which case he was commanded…”

The Rashi you quoted is the same – some sacrifices are voluntary, but there are others that are obligatory. See Maimonides’ compendium for detail on which and when.

You’ll see that it’s a little bewildering for me to be writing this letter. Mostly I’m quoting verses you yourself mentioned, only you skipped the context, or the end of the sentence, or the fact that that statement must be taken in conjunction with many other things that that sage said. Even Rav Kook (in whose writings I am in no way expert) surely taught all the laws of sacrifices in his studies, as does any yeshiva that has ever been. Whatever he felt might be true after the nature of the world and mankind has changed, when lions eat grass again, he definitely agreed that the Torah right now is unmistakeable. As Maimonides says in the passage of Guide of the Perplexed that I mentioned: “The largest part of the commandments is concerned with these things [sacrifices and the Temple].”

I think I’ve dealt with categories 2),4), and 5). Lastly I’d like to discuss 3) a little, that sacrifices were commanded with the purpose of weaning Israel from idolatry:

The first proponent of this, of course, is that same Rambam you’ve mentioned (I expect you know that there are many who argue). Obviously, this doesn’t mean that the Rambam, or any of the others, did not accept sacrifices as obligatory, as I’ve already explained. More than that, though: People make a very big mistake in understanding these words of the Rambam. They think he’s explaining how the commandment of sacrifices works. Really he’s explaining how it came to be.

Let me explain what I mean. G-d set up a world built around the commandments of the Torah. If we listen, it will rain. If we don’t, no rain will fall. If we do such and so, G-d will be close to us, we’ll defeat our enemies, etc. If we fail to do so, the opposite.

The commandments have various non-miraculous impacts on us as well. A person who deals kindly with others will become a better person; the society will be improved, and so on. The mitzvos of the Torah live within a web of causes and consequences, built around the nature of humanity.

The laws of sacrifices are the same. They affect people in many of the ways that I discussed in my first letter, fulfilling the natural human need to bring presents to the King, and to bring ourselves to repentance. In addition, they are called a “sweet smell” – they bring G-d closer to us. He will treat us more kindly, they will help him forgive our sins. This is what I meant, how the commandment of sacrifices works.

Maimonides knew this as well as anyone. He said with as much fervor as we do, or more, “Return the Service to the room of your House, and accept the fire-offerings and prayers of Israel with love and liking,” which we say in every prayer, and which Maimonides listed in his compendium of our daily prayers. He said with as much fervor as we do the additional Musaf prayer every Sabbath and Yom Tov, which lists all the sacrifices that should have been brought and prays to G-d that we should be able to bring them again. He knew that we need to bring sacrifices, and are sorely missing the opportunity today.

The issue before the Rambam was an entirely different one. Given that bringing a present to the King is a natural feeling of humanity – but it comes too close to crossing the line of dealing with G-d as physical. Of course, pagans did it – but how can we? Unlike the gods they believed in, G-d doesn’t need our presents, doesn’t eat or drink our sacrifices. And yet the entire Temple service is built similarly to the sacrifices of the other nations. It is described in many places in the Torah as “bread of our G-d”, and “drink-offerings”, etc. We are supposed to be bringing sacrifices as if they were consumed, gaining the benefits as if we had pleased the King by feeding him a fine meal. One of the major topics of the entire Guide of the Perplexed is to remove any implications of G-d’s physicality (indeed, according to the Rambam, this is one of the major functions of the entire Torah); how could such a thing be in the Torah?! To this the Rambam gives his famous answer. The Torah has to be designed for the people who will receive it. The Torah needed to be the way it is, including sacrifices, in order to reach properly its audience, to whom sacrifices were the norm. We need to walk a tight-rope, to avoid being misled, to bring sacrifices and at the same time to understand the non-physicality of G-d.

But please understand me; this in no way lessens the web of causes and consequences which I have described for this commandment. Knowing how something came to be doesn’t change how it works. The Torah is eternal, and has been given, and we all follow it to be the best we can be. If we could bring sacrifices, and could do so with the right intentions, the world would be a better place in infinitely many ways. We would be much closer to G-d, and he to us; that’s how the world is built. Today, without sacrifices and without the Temple, the world is missing a tremendous part of its perfection.

It may be a side point, but I’ll just mention to you that Rabbi Hertz’s Pentateuch is not necessarily a good guide to his point of view. He was a wonderful person, but he wrote his book for a very assimilated and sometimes hostile audience. He did the best he could to pick ways to explain the Torah that they could deal with. He was the first to tell people who wanted to know Torah truly that his book was not written for them.

Best wishes,
Michoel Reach

Answer

Hello again. Please don’t worry at all about wasting time; this is a very worthwhile discussion.
For sure Jeremiah was a prophet. If you look again at the explanations I brought, you’ll see that the Sages understood that Jeremiah was not contradicting the Torah at all. Rather, they understood his words differently from the way you did, as I explained. This is an important principle in understanding the Torah. The entire Torah is a connected whole; no part of it contradicts any other. Where they seem to disagree, that’s okay; G-d knew that we would know that both parts are true, and will work out the correct understanding that includes them both.

The second part of your question is harder for me to answer. The Rambam says in the sixth chapter of the Laws of Dei’os (feelings or personality characteristics or attitudes), “The way a man is created is to be drawn in his feelings and his actions after his comrades, to behave like the people of his country.” Our attitudes toward things are built on a level below consciousness. They form the atmosphere and the context in which we live.

Probably your situation is different than mine, but I grew up and live in America, so I’ll give American examples: When I was young, everyone took for granted that certain types of sexual sins were “abomination”, absolutely repulsive. We had no problems with those parts of the Torah that described them that way; it was all quite understandable.

Today, everything has changed. A large part of the American population, even if they do not want to do these sins themselves, still think they’re perfectly normal and acceptable. They think any other attitude is actually immoral. “Let consenting adults do what they want!” And we actually feel ourselves on the defensive: “How am I going to explain this to people without being a bigot?” The Torah’s prohibition is now a “chok”, a law that humans must obey though they cannot understand it.

Another example – people here are beginning to talk about euthanasia for old people, whenever their “quality of life” declines far enough. In Europe this is already normal. But when I was younger, there was almost no one who didn’t see this as full-fledged murder.

I hope you see what I mean by the attitudes of the society and the context in which we live; I’m just giving examples.

When we learn the Torah, we have to try to grow past our societal attitudes. Instead of focusing on what we feel, we are trying to understand what G-d wants. He created us, and he knows better then we do what will work for us. Could be we only feel the way we do because of wherever we happen to be. I’m not saying it’s easy. We all have a tendency to see things the way we see them already. But then we won’t grow; instead of seeing G-d, we’ll only see a reflection of ourselves.

But if we try to learn his Torah honestly, willing to check our own assumptions against the truth of his words, we can grow closer to becoming G-d’s vision for mankind.

As to the particular case we’re talking about, I’m not going to try to answer you. I’ll just give you a few things to think about.

1. G-d does need our help. His goal in this world is not just to give us things; he could have done that without putting us here. His goal is that we should earn what he gives. Through Torah and mitzvos we become worthy of accepting; that’s what we mean by the World to Come. So while G-d can do anything, he won’t – he won’t give us things we haven’t earned, and he won’t forgive us if we don’t work to gain forgiveness. If he did, it would ruin us, ruin the whole point of our being here. It says in Psalms, “G-d is your shadow on your right hand.” Nefesh haChaim explains that what he does shadows what we do; he wants to give kindness to us, but it’s really up to us.
2. G-d made a world (at least after the time of Adam) in which animals kill and eat one another. How do you feel about that? And isn’t the value of even human beings determined by G-d, not by our own attitudes? If there were no G-d, and we were nothing but a complicated collection of electrons and quarks, indeed a man would have no more real value than a pile of chemicals of equal weight. There would be no reason at all not to eat or torture animals, or people. Our only real value is the value that G-d places on us; it’s not determined by our sentiments. He tells us how to treat animals, and how to treat people.
3. A Jew is supposed to be an outpouring of love, as his G-d pours out love to the whole world. But we have always required working at our level and within our limitations. I’d like to support all the world’s poor. But I can’t; I can’t even support all the poor of my city. So the Gemara says, your poor relatives come first. After that, your neighborhood, then your city, etc. We care about everyone in the world, but we care about Jews more, because they’re our brothers. It’s not wrong to care about my kids more – I’m supposed to. But I’ll grow: If I give my children a lot of love, my capacity to give love will increase, till I can give love to other people around me. Then that will increase my capacity more, and eventually perhaps I can give love to the whole city, and the whole world.
• But if a person starts backwards, generally he’ll end up with nothing. I’m always concerned, if I see someone running around after one of the “causes”. Say he wants to politically arrange a certain national program to care for poor people. Could be that’s a good thing (depending on the program), but he has to be sure that he’s not short-changing himself. Does he help a poor man on his doorstep or his cousin who’s out of a job? Or would he say, I’m doing enough! It’s no coincidence that Jews give more tzedakah and take care of people with problems better than anyone else. We focus on the small and the real, and then work our way out to the grandiose.
• We are all animal-lovers – it’s required by the Torah, and reflects a real aspect of a person’s humanity. But if an human being and an animal were drowning, is it clear to you that you would always save the human being first?
4. Don’t you think there’s a big difference between the following two people: The first lives in our days, and would like to do everything he can to come closer to G-d, but there are things he’s unable to do because there’s no Temple. He does whatever he can. The second lives in the time of the Temple, and he’s willing to repent in the ways he prefers, but wants to ignore the parts with which he disagrees. The first is trying to serve G-d. G-d decides; he obeys. The second is – doing what he wants.

Anyhow, these are just food for thought. Everyone has to come to understand the Torah at his own pace. If something is hard, learn more about it. The struggle to grow beyond one’s context is one at which we all must work. May G-d help reveal our eyes to see the depth of his Torah.

Best wishes,
Michoel Reach

Answer

Wish I could help, but I doubt anyone really understands what those times will be like. We will, after all, have a Sanhedrin again then, and they will decide. But I assume that it will have sacrifices, since we have been praying for them for all these years – see the Musaf (Additional) prayers for every Shabbos and Yom Tov.

Michoel Reach