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.
3:
In earlier comments on mishnah 1 we have already discussed at great length the concept of Torah to which Simon the Righteous refers in our present mishnah. This is not the case with the second item in his list of elements of Judaism upon which "the world stands": the sacrificial cult. For Simon and for many generations that came after him – until the destruction of the sacrificial system together with the physical destruction of the Bet Mikdash in the year 70 CE (about 300 years after Simon's time) – the Bet Mikdash and the sacrificial cultus for which it existed were physical expressions of the glory of God, physical expressions that were beloved and cherished to a degree that perhaps no one living today is capable of appreciating. Neither the formerly Sadducean Simon nor his new-found Pharisaic colleagues in the Great Assembly could have imagined at that time Judaism without the Bet Mikdash in Jerusalem.
4:
But what was for the pious Jews of the 2nd century BCE the most glorious and inspiring expression of God and man's love of God is for the vast majority of pious Conservative Jews living in the 21st century CE an almost incomprehensible fixation on a barbarous and cruel practice. When we discussed this matter previously (two years ago) I wrote as follows:
I feel that the great issue for Conservative Judaism today is not how we relate to the sacrificial system of the past, but to the sacrificial system of the future. I devoted great thought to this issue when I edited the Musaf service for the Siddur
Va'ani Tefillati for the Masorti Movement. This siddur was published for the use of Masorti Jews in Israel: it is, as far as I know, the only Conservative Siddur ever published which contains not one word of English. Here is an expurgated rendition into English of the relevant material:
The fourth Berakhah of the Amidah on Shabbat and Yom Tov is termed by the sages Kedushat ha-Yom (the sanctity of the day). When the Bet Mikdash was still standing, on those days on which nowadays we recite the Musaf (additional) Amidah they would offer the special sacrifices for that day. Since the destruction of the Bet Mikdash the Musaf Amidah contained a prayer for the rebuilding of the Temple and the restoration of its sacrificial cultus; and within the Berakhah Kedushat ha-Yom specific mention was made to the particular sacrifices associated with that day, quoting them from the text of the Torah. Few in the Masorti Movement today hope for the restoration of the sacrificial system at some time in the future. But the sincere yearning for a single, solitary, religious centre has not waned, as the status of the Kotel (Western Wall) in the eyes of the general population demonstrates.
We can distinguish two main attitudes in the Masorti Movement concerning the contents of Kedushat ha-Yom. One attitude regards praying for a Third Temple positively, but not for the restoration of the sacrificial system. According to this attitude, the yearning for a Third Temple symbolizes a yearning for the reunification of the Jewish people (including a reunion of emotions) and the realization of the values of universal peace and tolerance enshrined in the prophetic visions of the 'culmination of history' (Aĥarit ha-Yamim). The manner of worship in such a future Temple will be substantially different from what we have known thus far – just as worship by prayer ritual became the dominant form of worship after the sacrificial system had become impossible because of the destruction of the Bet Mikdash. We cannot know today, in advance, what new manner of worship will come about in the future. This attitude is based on the visions of the prophets and on the words of Rambam in his book Moreh Nevukhim (The Confused Man's Guide) – mainly chapter 32 of part three.
The other main attitude in the Masorti Movement sees the sacrificial cultus as an historical stage in the spiritual development of the Jewish people – a stage that received God's blessing in the Torah through the multifarious details of its observance. Accordingly, we should not deny this stage in our history, but we should relate to it in the past tense and not as something desired for the future. This attitude was the dominant one in American Conservative Judaism since the third decade of the twentieth century, and many see it as a tradition that has been hallowed by time.
Obviously, just as the two attitudes are not identical neither are they mutually contradictory. There will be worshippers who will find the one attitude more to their liking than the other and there will be others who will wish to adopt both attitudes simultaneously."
To be continued.
The last element of mishnah 1 encouraged us to "make a fence around Torah".
Jim Feldman writes:
In reading the current paragraph from Avot in the Hebrew (particularly in the current hullabaloo over the separation fence), I was struck by the choice of syag instead of the more common gader for a fence around the Torah. Any enlightenment etymologically or otherwise for the Anglophiles?
I respond:
The Gemara says that when Israel is righteous our work is done for us by others. Today I am righteous, since Amnon Ronel is doing my work for me! He writes:
Seyag also means a border, a wall (hence modern Hebrew expressions for reticence – histaygut – and retreat – nesigah – come from this same root). I think that the sentence means that where the words of the Torah are not clear we must set up a border around them – define them – by explanation and commentary. Different sages will set up different 'borders', some more rigorous and others less so, leading to rifts – for the sake of heaven or for the sake of politics. My impression of these words is that the more one creates prohibitions the better, and it is just this which deters and alienates sinners like me from Torah.
