Simon the Righteous was one of the last members of the Great Assembly. He was wont to say: The world stands on three things: on the Torah, on the Ritual, and on Acts of Kindness.
Today we continue with the discussion generated by the consideration of the sacrificial system. While there are yet more messages on this topic to be considered, hopefully, in our next shiur we shall also move on to the next mishnah.
Alan Marcus writes:
In one of your recent shiurim on Avot, you emphasized how the ancient Israelites loved the Beit Mikdash and its attendant sacrificial cult. Certainly, the mourning period that runs from the 17th of Tamuz and culminates with Tisha B'Av bears witness to this great love. At the same time, however, it seems somewhat inconsistent for a people who loved this institution so much to have been castigated so often and so severely by many of the prophets for engaging in acts that desecrated the sanctity of the very institution they purported to love. Am I misunderstanding part of the prophetic message or were the prophets simply addressing their message to that segment of the Israelite population that was actually committing these acts of desecration?
I respond:
Firstly, a very minor point: I don't think that we can bring the annual mourning period which culminates in Tish'a b'Av as evidence of the affection which the people had for the Bet Mikdash in its heyday since, obviously, these are days which reflect the sadness felt by Israel after the demise of the Temple. The love evinced in the sentiments of these days is surely a love expressed in terms of nostalgia.
But Alan is right: the people really did love the Bet Mikdash and its ritual. The Bet Mikdash was a national institution as well as a religious institution. It was not only the place where Israel worshipped, but it was also held to be the sacred seat of God omnipotent on earth. This was God's house in a very real sense, and the people who thronged there had come to visit God, as it were, as well as to worship the Deity.
Alan mentions 'acts of desecration'. Obviously, in the eyes of the prophets the people were desecrating the sacred institution; but the desecration was a matter of ideology and theology and not deliberate acts of desecration to express a denigration of God, as we would understand the term today. What the people were doing they were doing out of a familiarity born of love and custom, not derision. The prophets railed against something else, less tangible. Let us bring just two examples in order to explain what I have just said.
In the second half of the 8th century BCE the prophet Isaiah, speaking in the name of God, castigates the people for the manner of their worship [Isaiah 1:11-17]
"What need have I of all your sacrifices?" says God. "I am sated with burnt offerings of rams, and suet of fatlings, and blood of bulls; and I have no delight In lambs and he-goats. That you come to appear before Me – who asked that of you? Trample My courts no more; bringing oblations is futile, incense is offensive to Me. New moon and sabbath, proclaiming of solemnities, assemblies with iniquity, I cannot abide. Your new moons and fixed seasons fill Me with loathing; they are become a burden to Me, I cannot endure them. And when you lift up your hands, I will turn My eyes away from you; Though you pray at length, I will not listen. Your hands are stained with crime – Wash yourselves clean; put your evil doings away from My sight. Cease to do evil; Learn to do good. Devote yourselves to justice; aid the wronged. Uphold the rights of the orphan; defend the cause of the widow."
A careful reading of this text (which, most appropriately, is part of the haftarah for the Shabbat preceding
Tish'a b'Av) will reveal that what has raised the prophet's ire is not the ritual as such but the fact that the moral behaviour of the people is not consonant with the ritual. If the people are doing wrong, practicing and condoning violence and injustice, if there is not social justice for the weak and downtrodden then the whole panoply of the Temple ritual, so beloved of the people, is just an empty show. The impressive ceremonies of the
Bet Mikdash have become for the people a spectacle, they have become separated in their collective mind from the moral and ethical requirements detailed in God's law. In our own day and age too we know how easily this can happen: too many well-meaning Jews attend synagogue services because they love the ritual, but they do not let the meaning of the ritual influence their behaviour in every-day life. Isaiah is saying that under such circumstances the ritual is meaningless, and even abhorrent. The people, of course, would respond that they love the ritual – and they do! But it is the ritual that they love, not the God who commanded the ritual.
A second example, from the prophet Jeremiah. The prophet must have delivered this speech [Jeremiah 7:8-11] in the sacred precincts towards the very end of the 7th century BCE or even possible at the start of the 6th century BCE.
"But just look at you! You are putting your confidence in a false way of thinking that will not help you at all. You steal. You murder. You commit adultery. You lie when you swear on oath… Then you come and stand here in my presence in this house I have claimed as my own and say, 'We are safe!' You think you are so safe that you go on doing all those hateful sins! Do you think this house I have claimed as my own is to be a hideout for robbers? You had better take note! I have seen for myself what you have done! says God."
In this passage the disparity between the devotion the people show for the ceremonial of the
Bet Mikdash on the one hand and the ethics evinced in their social and political behaviour on the other are clearly demonstrated. By the time of Jeremiah the
Bet Mikdash had also become a symbol of sovereignty and was held to be a kind of insurance policy against disaster. God would never permit the destruction of his earthly throne! And as long as the Temple stands the safety of the nation is assured. That is why the prophet continues [
verses 12-15]:
"So, go to the place in Shiloh where I allowed myself to be worshipped in the early days. See what I did to it because of the wicked things my people Israel did then. You have done all these things, says God, and I have spoken to you over and over again. But you have not listened. You have refused to respond when I called you to repent. So I will destroy this house which I have claimed as my own, this temple that you are trusting to protect you. I will destroy this place that I gave to you and your ancestors just like I destroyed Shiloh. And I will drive you out of my sight just like I drove out your relatives, the people of Israel."
Indeed, the people loved the Bet Mikdash, but the prophets held that this love, in a sense superficial and misplaced, was not enough.
