[First posted on August 19,2013. This is from: Pentateuch & Haftarahs, reformatting and highlights added.–Admin1.]
THE SACRIFICIAL CULT
I. SACRIFICE: HEBREW AND HEATHEN
According to the Bible and Talmud, the institution of sacrifice is as old as the human race. The study of primitive man, likewise, traces its origins back to the very beginnings of human society, and declares sacrificial worship to be both an elementary and a universal fact in the history of Religion.
Apart from various unconvincing theories as to the rise of sacrifice, there are two simple explanations as to the fundamental meaning of sacrifice.
- The first of these takes sacrifice to be an act of homage and submission to the Heavenly Ruler, or of thankfulness for God’s bounties; even as the suppliant expresses his submissiveness and his gratitude to an earthly ruler by gifts.
- The other declares that sacrifice arouse from primitive man’s yearning for reconciliation with the Deity. If for some reason the worshipper feared the he had forfeited Divine favour, he sought to propitiate it; and the giving up of things dearest to him—his first-born, his cattle, his possessions—was intended to effect this propitiation.
The existence of animal sacrifice as a virtually universal custom of mankind from times immemorial proves that the expression of religious feeling in this form is an element of man’s nature and, therefore, implanted in him by his Creator.
To spiritualize this form of worship, free it from cruel practices and unholy associations, and so regulate the sacrificial cult that it makes for a life of righteousness and holiness, was the task of monotheism.
In heathen Semitic religions,
- sacrificial worship was cruel, often requiring human victims.
- It was foul—licentious rites being an essential element in many kinds of sacrifice.
- It was immoral—covering crimes and deliberate iniquities against fellowmen.
- It was irrational—steeped in demonology and magic.
In absolute contrast to this degrading heathenism,
- the Torah banishes everything cruel, foul and unholy from the sacrificial cult.
- Moreover, the sphere of the efficacy of sacrifice is strictly limited; and, with a few specified exceptions (Lev. V, 1-6, 20-26),‘A deliberate moral obliquity is not to be obliterated by sacrifice.
- sacrifice atones only for sins committed unwittingly,
- if no human being suffers by them;
- viz., if restitution precedes the sacrifice.
- It must be punished under the penal law or forgiven by repentance, and for the individual there is no other means of atonement’ (Montefiore).
Moderns do not always realize the genuine hold that the sacrificial service had upon the affections of the people in ancient Israel.
- It was for ages the main outward manifestation of religion,
- as well as the vehicle of supreme spiritual communion.
- The Central Sanctuary was the axis round which the national life revolved.
- The Temple was the forum, the fortress, the ‘university’ and, in the highest sense, the spiritual home of ancient Israel.
- The people loved the Temple,
- its pomp and ceremony,
- the music and song of the Levites
- and the ministrations of the priests,
- the High Priest as he stood and blessed the prostrate worshippers amid profound silence on the Atonement Day.
As for the choicer spirits, their passionate devotion found expression in words like those of the Psalmist:—
‘How lovely are Thy tabernacles. O LORD of host,
My soul longeth, yea, fainteth for the courts of the LORD …
Happy are they that dwell in Thy house.’
‘As the hart panteth after the water brooks,
So panteth my soul after Thee, O God.
My soul thirsteth for God, for living God:
When shall I come and appear before God?’
‘O send out Thy light and Thy truth; let them lead me;
Let them bring me unto Thy holy mountain,
and to Thy dwelling-places;
Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto God, my exceeding joy.’
Religious ecstasy has rarely found nobler expression than in these lines of the Psalmist; and that words like these reflected the sincere and earnest faith of god-fearing men is beyond question.
However, ‘bad men also confided in sacrifice as an effective means of placating God, just as a gift might serve to corrupt a judge.
This confidence in the efficacy of sacrifice involved an immoral idea of God and Religion. Against it, therefore, the Prophets direct their attack’ (Moore).
II. DO THE PROPHETS OPPOSE SACRIFICE?
Widespread misunderstanding exists in regard to the attitude of the Prophets to the sacrificial cult, which attitude is often represented as an uncompromisingly hostile one. This is far from being the case.
The Prophets do not seek to alter or abolish the externals of religion as such.
- They are not so unreasonable as to demand that men should worship without aid of any outward symbolism.
- What they protested against was the fatal tendency to make these outward symbols the whole of religion;
- the superstitious over-estimate of sacrifice as compared with justice, pity and purity;
- and especially the monstrous wickedness with which the offering of sacrifice was often accompanied.
Thus, Amos denounces the people for their oppressions and impurities, warning them that as long as these are adhered to, the multiplication of sacrifices will not avert God’s threatened judgments.
‘I hate, I despise your feasts, and I will take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Yea, though you offer me burnt-offerings and your meal-offerings, I will not accept them, neither will I regard the peace-offerings of your fat beasts. Take thou away from Me the noise of thy song; and let Me not hear the melody of thy psalteries. But let justice well up as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream’ (V, 21-24).
God would not be the God of Holiness if He did not ‘hate’ and ‘despise’ sacrifices, hymns and songs of praise on the part of unholy and dishonourable worshippers. But there is no intimation that sacrifice, prayer and praise will continue to be ‘hated’, if the worshippers cast away their vile and oppressive deeds.
In the same exhortation, he pleads:—
‘Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the LORD, the God of hosts, will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph’ (v, 15).
Isaiah declares that the most elaborate ritual, if unaccompanied by righteous conduct, is both futile and blasphemous.
In this opening arraignment of contemporary Israel, he proclaims:—
‘Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity …
‘To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto Me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts …
‘When ye come to appear before Me, who hath required this at your hand, to trample My courts?
‘Bring no more vain oblations; it is an offering of abomination unto me; new moon and Sabbath, the holding of convocations—I cannot endure iniquity along with the solemn assembly.
‘Your new moons and your appointed seasons my soul hateth; they are a burden unto Me; I am weary to bear them.
‘And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide Mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood …
‘Put away the evil or your doings from before Mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow’ (Isa. I, 4, 11-17).
If this is to be taken as an absolute condemnation by Isaiah of all sacrifice, then that absolute condemnation must also include Sabbaths and Festivals; solemn Assemblies, i.e., public gatherings for worship, and the appearing before the LORD in the Temple: for all these are classed by him with ‘blood of bullocks’ and ‘fat of fed beasts’.
But, of course, to Isaiah, prayers and Sabbaths and solemn assemblies and Temple were noble and sacred institutions, indispensable to religious life, and it was only their intolerable abuse which he condemned.
The same thing applies to his view of sacrifices. The Prophet’s call is not, Give up your sacrifices, but, Give up your evil-doing.
A fair examination of the above words of Amos, the first of the literary Prophets, and of Isaiah, who utters what is taken to be the most sustained condemnation of sacrifice, bears out the considered opinion that ‘there was use, a seemly and beneficial use, of sacrifice, but there was also an abuse, a vile and God-dishonouring abuse. The Prophets made war upon the latter, but it does not follow that they objected to the former’ (Baxter).
The Prophets were orators, and made occasional use of hyperbole, in order to drive home upon the conscience of their hearers a vital aspect of truth which those hearers were ignoring. And when they were confronted by the pernicious belief that God desired nothing but sacrifice, and saw sacrifice being held to excuse iniquity, heartlessness and impurity—they gave expression to their burning indignation in the impassioned language of vehement emotion. . . .
The lesson which the Prophets laboured to impress upon the soul of Israel was nevermore forgotten. It is repeated by the sacred singers to whom we owe the Book of Psalms, ‘the hymn-book of the second Temple’; by the Sages, who teach that ‘the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD’ (Prov. XV, 8), that offerings made of goods wrung by extortion from the poor are like murder (Ecclesiasticus XXXIV, 20); as well as by the Rabbis, who declare that obedience to God and love of men are greater than sacrifice.
III THE RABBIS AND THE SACRIFICIAL CULT
To the Rabbis, the institution of sacrifice is a mark of the Divine love unto Israel.
- Its purpose is to bring peace to the world.
- Nevertheless, the sacrificial cult is not to them of preeminent importance,To the details of the sacrificial requirements they give symbolical meanings, and draw from them deep ethical and spiritual teachings.
- but is co-ordinated with the knowledge and study of the Torah, with Prayer, and with the performance of good deeds.
- Thus, the sacrificial ordinances prove that God is with the persecuted.
- Cattle are chased by lions; goats, by panthers; sheep, by wolves;
- but God commanded, ‘Not them that persecute, but them that are persecuted, offer ye up to Me.’
- In similar manner, Philo taught that ‘the perfection of the victims indicates that
- the offerers should be irreproachable;
- that the Israelites should never bring with them to the altar weakness or evil passion in the soul,so that God may not turn away with aversion from the sight of it.
- but should endeavour to make it wholly pure and clean;
- The tribunal of God is—God delights in fireless altars, round which virtues form the choral dance.’
- inaccessible to bribes;
- it rejects the guilty, though they offer daily 100 oxen, and receives the guiltless though they offer no sacrifices at all.
The Rabbis proclaim the cardinal importance, wellnigh the omnipotence, of Repentance in the spiritual life of man.
‘Men asked Wisdom, “If a man sin what shall his punishment be?”
Wisdom answered, “Evil pursueth the evil-doer.”
Men then asked Prophecy, the Torah, and God, “If a man sin what shall his punishment be?”
Prophecy answered, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die,”
The Torah answered, “Let him bring a guilt-offering, and his sin shall be forgiven him.”
God answered, “Let him repent and it shall be forgiven him.”
‘ Henceforth, Repentance becomes the sole condition of all expiation and Divine forgiveness of sins: ‘Neither the sin-offering, nor trespass-offering, nor the Day of Atonement is of any avail, unless accompanied by Repentance.’
With the cessation of sacrifices, study of the Torah, Prayer and Beneficence definitely take the place of the Temple Service.
- It is for this reason that the disappearance of the Temple did not in any way cripple Judaism.
- When the Temple fell, there still remained the Synagogue—
- with reading and exposition of the Torah,
- and congregational worship without priest or sacrificial ritual.
- The Temple was only inJerusalem,
- while the Synagogue was in every village, the expression of the Jew’s religion day by day and week by week. ‘The Temple was the altar, the Synagogue was the hearth, and the sacred fire burned on each of them.
- With the fall of the Temple,
- the fire was quenched on the altar,
- stamped out under the heel of the conqueror;
- but it is glowed on the hearth …
In all their long history, the Jewish people have done scarcely anything more wonderful than to create the Synagogue. No human institution has a longer continuous history, and none has done more for the uplifting of the human race’ (Herford).
IV. JEWISH INTERPRETATIONS OF SACRIFICE
Rabbinical Judaism accepted the law of sacrifices without presuming to find a satisfactory explanation of its details.
‘The sacrificial institutions were an integral part of revealed religion, and had the obligation of statutory law. It was of no practical concern to inquire why the divine Lawgiver had ordained thus and not otherwise. It was enough that he had enjoined uponIsrael the observance of them’ (Moore).
Sometimes, the Rabbis resorted to symbolism, though to a far lesser extent than Philo. Their attitude toward sacrifices has remained that of the main body of Jews in all generations, and has found eloquent expression in the writings of Yehudah Hallevi during the Middle Ages, and of S. R. Hirsh and D. Hoffmann in modern times.
According to the last-named,
- sacrifices are symbols of man’s gratitude to God
- and his dependence on Him;
- of the absolute devotion man owes to God,
- as well as of man’s confidence in Him.
Alongside the symbolic interpretation of sacrifice is the so-called juridical. It is advocated by Ibn Ezra and to some extent by Nachmanides.
Its essence is:
- As a sinner, the offender’s life is forfeit to God;
- but by a gracious provision he is permitted to substitute a faultless victim,
- to which his guilt is, as it were, transferred by the imposition of hands.
Many Christian exegetes adopted this interpretation, and built the whole theological foundation of their Church upon it.
Quite otherwise is the rationalist view of sacrifice held by Maimonides and Abarbanel.
- Maimonides declares that the sacrificial cult was ordained as an accommodation to the conceptions of a primitive people, and for the purpose of weaning them away form the debased religious rites of their idolatrous neighbours. (See on Lev. XVII, 7.)
- Hence the restriction of the sacrifices to one locality,
- by which means God kept this particular kind of service within bounds.
- By a circuitous road, Israel was thus to be led slowly and gradually up to a perception of the highest kind of service, which is spiritual.
- Abarbanel finds support for Maimonides’ view in a striking parable of Rabbi Levi recorded in the Midrash.
- ‘A king noticed that his son was wont to eat of the meat of animals that had died of themselves, or that had been torn by beasts. So the king said, “Let him eat constantly at my table, and he will rid himself of that gross habit.”
- So it was with the Israelites, who were sunk in Egyptian idolatry, and were wont to offer their sacrifices on the high places to the demons, and punishment used to come upon them.
- Thereupon the Holy Ones, blessed be He, said, “Let them at all times offer their sacrifices before Me in the Tabernacle, and they will be weaned from idolatry and thus be saved.” ‘
Notwithstanding these views, the Rabbis and such thinkers as Maimonides and Abarbanel did not cease to look forward to a restoration of the sacrificial cult in Messianic times.
‘Even those laws which have been enacted by human authority remain in force till they are repealed in a regular and legal manner.
Whether any of these laws of the Torah will ever be abrogated we do not know, but we are sure that in case of such abrogation taking place, it will be done by a revelation as convincing as that on Mount Sinai.
On the other hand, the revival of the sacrificial Service must, likewise, be sanctioned by the divine voice of a prophet’ (M. Friedlander).
The Rabbis, however, hoped that with the progress of time, human conduct would advance to higher standards, so that there would no longer be any need for expiatory sacrifice.
Only the feeling of gratitude to God would remain. ‘In the Messianic era, all offerings will cease, except the thanksgiving offering, which will continue forever’ (Midrash).