Pesachim V

1:
Our tractate is following a strict timetable, starting with events that must take place on the evening
after Nisan 13th (the search for ĥametz and associated laws). It then continued to events that are
associated with the morning of Nisan 14th up to noon (and some associated laws). Chronologically, the
next item on the Pesaĥ agenda is the slaughter of the paschal lambs which, as we have already noted on
several occasions, took place after noon on Nisan 14th.

2:
When we studied tractate Tamid we learned in considerable detail the way the daily morning sacrifice was
offered in the Bet Mikdash. Our present mishnah is referring to the other daily sacrifice, the Minchah,
which was offered during the afternoon every day. The main point of our mishnah is that since the
slaughter of the paschal lambs that the masses of the people brought to the court of the Bet Mikdash
could not begin until after the Minchah (afternoon) sacrifice had been offered, it was logistically
necessary to offer the regular sacrifice and hour earlier than usual, and sometimes two hours earlier in
order to accommodate the thousands whose lambs had to be slaughtered before sundown.

3:
On all regular days, regardless whether it was a weekday or Shabbat or YomTov, the Minchah sacrifice was
slaughtered at 'eight and one half hours' and incinerated on the main altar in the Courtyard of the
Priests one hour later. In common with almost all rabbinic time-keeping, these hours are not 'clock'
hours of 60 equal minutes, but each hour represents one twelfth of the time that lapses between sunrise
and sunset on any given day. Since Pesaĥ always falls on the day of the full moon immediately after the
spring equinox, when the number of hours of daylight is about the same as the number of hours of the
night, we can more or less translate the 'hours' of our mishnah directly.

4:
Thus, the Minchah was usually offered at around 3.30 pm, but on Nisan 14th it was offered at 2.30 pm; if
that day was Shabbat then it was offered at 1.30 pm. Sunset in Jerusalem around that time of the year is
at 6 pm approximately. This means that the priests had about three hours in which to slaughter all the
paschal lambs that the people brought. Obviously there must have been a general conscription of priests
to deal with this situation effectively. The logistics of the activities on that afternoon are detailed
in mishnayot 6-8 later in this chapter.

The last mishnah of Chapter 4 was concerned with certain deeds of the biblical King Hezekiah for which
the sages expressed their approval or disapproval. Albert Ringer writes:

A question on method. The text says they did (not) protest and we read 'sages' for they,
just as with the previous texts. However, in Hezekiah's time, the sages did not exist, it was still the
period of the prophets. Moreover, the halacha you quote in the name of Rabban Shim'on ben-Gamli'el is
from the second century, about a millennium apart from the time of Hazekiah. How does the tradition
interpret the word 'they' in this text? How should we interpret it?

I respond:

Albert is reading these texts with modern eyes. We have a historical appreciation and use rational
criticism to evaluate a text (any text). The sages, however, are less concerned with historicity than
they are concerned with tradition. According to tradition it was Moses who created the very first
Sanhedrin during the desert wanderings [Numbers 11:16ff], and there was an unbroken chain
throughout the ages. Some leaders and kings were seen as cooperating with the sages of the Sanhedrin,
others were seen as doing the opposite. In short, to the Tannaitic sages the Sanhedrin was an institution
that reached back through the ages to Moses at Sinai. This is the essential meaning of tractate Avot 1:1.

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On February 7th we had occasion to mention the 'poor law' of the Torah – the donations that farmers were
required to allocate for the poor and the indigent. Mike Mantel writes:

Is there a Halachic implication for non agrarians in the poor laws today?

I respond:

From the strictly halakhic point of view these laws are held to be in abeyance for reasons that need not
detain us here. For the past 1500 years or so the concept of Tzedakah has functionally replaced the old
agrarian laws. Every Jew is required by Torah law to set aside from his net annual income up to (but no
more than) 20% for charitable purposes. The sum usually set aside by pious people is 10%.

1:
Thousands of people thronged the courtyard of the Bet Mikdash during the afternoon of Nisan 14th, each
bringing a lamb to be slaughtered and then taken away and roasted in readiness for the Seder service that
evening. When people perform a ritual act in such numbers it is inevitable that while some will have
altruistic reasons others may be bringing their lamb simply because everyone else is and they don't want
to be different. If such a person acquires a lamb for that very purpose (even if it is for social
reasons, for instance) then there is no halakhic problem. But if they already possessed a lamb which
they had bought for another ritual purpose and they did not make the necessary switch of purpose in their
mind there is a halakhic problem.

2:
For the paschal lamb to be valid as such, all the ritual acts connected with its preparation must be done
for the specific purpose of fulfilling the mitzvah of the paschal lamb. The ritual acts that were
performed in the Bet Mikdash were the actual slaughter of the lamb (by slitting its throat), collecting
the blood that gushed from that wound in a basin, and carrying that blood to the altar where it was
splashed against the side of the altar. All these acts had to be performed with the mitzvah of the
paschal lamb as the conscious purpose. (As we shall see in the next mishnah, these acts had repercussions
not only for the person bringing the lamb, but for others as well.)

3:
Our mishnah takes the trouble to explain what it means by 'specific purpose'. If the person slaughtering
the lamb thought, at the moment of slaughter, that he was doing so for the purpose of a goodwill offering
the lamb is not fit to be used as a paschal lamb. People regularly brought offerings to the Bet Mikdash
for personal reasons. One of the most perspicuous of such private offerings was the goodwill offering.
This was an offering that people brought to the Bet Mikdash because they were happy or grateful for some
important development in their lives. Just like the paschal lamb, the animal was slaughtered in the Bet
Mikdash but the carcass was cooked and eaten elsewhere in a festive meal. Thus it was quite possible
that someone would get the two purposes mixed up in their mind.

4:
In the Talmud of Eretz-Israel [Pesaĥim 32a] this requirement of specificity is derived from
two biblical verses. Exodus 12:27 reads:

And Deuteronomy 16:1 reads:

The Gemara reads:

In a 'purple passage' I wrote: Shabbat is the most sacred ritual mitzvah that our Torah knows. (The
ramifications of its observance are so spiritual and ideological that I am not certain that it can
justifiably be classed purely as a ritual.) It is my conviction that the decision by the American
Conservative rabbinate of 50 years ago to permit the use of the automobile on Shabbat was a grievous
error…

Keith H. Bierman writes:

Well said! In addition it should be noted that Conservative Schuls (and the Rabbis who serve there)
seldom (never in my experience) invest any effort into educating the congregation as to the serious
limitations the ruling placed (e.g. no purchasing of fuel, no side trips, travel to the closest schul
only, etc.). While I agree with you the ruling was itself a mistake, it is greatly compounded by the lack
of care in it's application. In addition to the halachic reasoning, it seemed to me (it's been a long
time since I read the text of the ruling), that the conservative sages were attempting to bring in
'extra-halachic' reasoning in that in the suburbs of the US it might not be feasible to get a minyan of
walkers, therefore…. The problem (if, in fact, that was part of their motoviation/reasoning) is that
this heter has largely ensured that people will drive. In my experience, US Conservative
Jews seldom make the effort to live near the shul and when picking locations for new schuls seldom focus
on the proximity to desirable housing. As an example, in my congregation, the schul has been in the same
place for something like 40 years – with the exception of a handful of congregants and the rabbi,
everyone drives. Many of the members have been members for decades, and despite the proximity of nice
housing with ample yards, have never moved to within walking distance. So the effect of the
heter, as I see it, has been to increase the distance between congregation and
schul, and typically between congregants. Thus there is never any chance of an eruv, and the typically
lower density of observant families has obvious shortcomings for shabat social and weekday business
activities.

1:
In order to understand our mishnah we must accept that there were certain conditions imposed upon the
paschal lamb that was to be eaten as part of the Seder service. The first condition was subscription.
The Torah [Exodus 12:3-4] states:

From this it was clear to the sages that people were to subscribe to a group that would together eat a
paschal lamb. Obviously, one person could not consume a whole lamb by themselves, and probably not even
one family. Since the Torah [Exodus 12:10] also says that none of the lamb should be left
over until the following morning it was necessary to create a group of people who would club together in
advance to share a lamb. The Hebrew translated above 'contribute' really means something more like
'number off'.

2:
The verse from the Torah quoted above includes the phrase 'according to what each household will eat'.
This is a mistranslation. The Hebrew reads 'each person according to what he can eat'. This meant for
the sages that only people who would actually eat from the lamb could be a part of the subscription group.
This would exclude invalids, the aged and youngsters – anyone who could not be expected to eat the minimal
amount of lamb, an olive's-bulk. [See Chapter 3, Mishnah 2 for a discussion on this
measurement.]

3:
The prohibition against the uncircumcised is specific in the Torah [Exodus 12:48], which
reads:

4:
The prohibition against the ritually impure is clearly implied in a different part of the Torah
[Numbers 9:4-14], which reads:

Since specific provision is made for an alternative Passover on Iyyar 14th for those who were ritually
impure on Nisan 14th it must imply that those ritually impure may not be be initial subscribers to a
lamb.

Concerning a translation in this shiur Ze'ev Orzech asks: What is the reason for transliterating 'aviv'
as 'abib'?

I respond:

For several years I gave my own translations of biblical (and rabbinic) texts; recently, however, I
started quoting biblical texts from the translation of the Jewish Publication Society. I am beginning to
wonder whether that was a wise decision, since often that translation does not reflect the understanding
of the biblical text that the sages had. Since almost invariably the biblical quotations are brought by
the rabbinical sources in order to justify a ruling of the sages it seems more sensible to quote these
passages in a translation that reflects their reading of the text. A case in point is the mishnah that
is the subject of our present shiur. The sages understood the Hebrew Beyn ha-Arbayyim
[Exodus 12:6] as referring to 'afternoon' and not 'twilight'. Your comments are welcomed.
Another case in point in our present mishnah is what the JPS translated as 'contribute', which the sages
understood as meaning 'subscribe'.

5:
We note that there is a surprising difference between the statement of the previous mishnah and the
present one. The reason why the paschal lamb is invalidated when it is not slaughtered for that specific
purpose, as stated in mishnah 2, is that – as in the case of all sacrifices that are within the category
of Kodashim – it is not only the act of slaughter itself which validates or invalidates the
sacrifice, but the intention of the slaughterer has the same effect. Our present mishnah refers to four
kinds of people who, even if they eat of the paschal lamb, have not fulfilled the mitzvah. They are, as
already detailed by us, those who cannot eat even the minimal amount of the meat, those who are
uncircumcised, those who are ritually impure, and those who were not subscribed to this particular lamb.
A lamb which was slaughtered specifically for a party which consisted only of such people is invalid.
The reason why our present mishnah validates a lamb which was slaughtered for a party which included both
qualified and unqualified participants is that the participation of the unqualified people does not
affect the legitimacy of the lamb for those qualified to eat it: it is not a question of intention, but
of consequence.

6:
Another reason for invalidating a paschal lamb is the time when it was slaughtered. The Torah
[Exodus 12:6] requires the lamb to be slaughtered during a period determined as being
beyn ha-arbayyim. While this is usually rendered in English as 'twilight' the sages certainly did
not understand it so. The Hebrew means 'during the period of the two [lights] being mixed' – the full
light of day and the weakening light after noon when the shadows begin to lengthen. Thus beyn
ha-arbayyim is defined by the sages as the time between noon and sundown (and not the period between
sundown and dark – twilight – which is termed beyn ha-shemashot, 'between the two suns'). Thus,
for a paschal lamb to be valid it must be slaughtered during the afternoon of Nisan 14th and not before.

7:
The last statement of our mishnah is also connected with the time of the slaughter of the paschal lamb.
The last statement of the first mishnah of this chapter indicated that the paschal lamb is to be
slaughtered after the daily afternoon sacrifice, Minchah, had been concluded. Our present mishnah
qualifies that statement. It is my opinion that our present mishnah reflects something of the pressure
that there was in the Bet Mikdash on the afternoon of Nisan 14th. So many people were waiting with their
lambs to be slaughtered (and, as we know, Jewish people are not always patient when they have to wait in
line!) that some of the slaughtering may have begun before the conclusion of the Minchah ceremony. The
qualifying act of sacrifice is not the slaughter of the animal but sprinkling some of its blood on the
sides of the main altar. Thus our present mishnah eases the pressure: if a lamb was slaughtered before
the Minchah ceremony was concluded it was valid provided that its blood was sprinkled on the side of the
altar after the sprinkling of the blood of the Minchah. In order for this to be possible someone had to
be responsible for constantly stirring the animal's blood (which had been collected in a basin) so that
it would not congeal; it could then be sprinkled on the sides of the altar when the appropriate time
arrived.

We return to the problem of translation. Ze'ev Orzech writes:

I agree with your sentiments about translations. All too often, to paraphrase Robert Frost speaking of
poetry, the meaning 'is what gets lost in translation.' However, I am still puzzled by the practice of
transliterating the letter 'veit' as a 'B' (as in abib, negeb, nebo, etc. etc.). Where does that come
from?

I respond:

This is standard non-Jewish transliteration. Look at any biblical name: Batsheva becomes Bathsheba,
Kalev becomes Caleb, Rechav'am becomes Rehoboam… To this day, scholarly non-Jews pronounce Hebrew in
this way.

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Albert Ringer writes:

I remember there was a discussion some time ago on the question if the Pesaĥ-sacrifice was done outside
or after the Beth Hamikdash was destroyed. I stumbled on a book by Baruch M. Bokser, a Neusner pupil,
called The Origins of the Seder. The Passover Rite and Early Rabbinic Judaism, Berkeley
1984… Appendix A is called Roasted meat or sacrifices after 70 CE?. The writer brings
together six texts from the Mishnah and Tosephta that speak on the subject… The texts tell us that
roasted meat is permissible on Pesaĥ, as long as any confusion on the status of the meat is taken away.
It should be a either a calf and not a lamb, or not roasted as a whole. The impression is given that
there was a need to stress the difference. Most clear on the subject is a text from the Tosephta, 2:15
that reads: … Said R. Yoah, Todos of Rome directed the Romans to take lambs on the nights of
Passover and they prepared them roasted whole. They said to him, And he borders on feeding them holy
things outside, because they called them Pesaĥin. One might read that the Jews of Rome did what
Shemot requires them to do: slaughter an animal in each Jewish house as a Pesaĥ. As the text tells us,
the sages knew and didn't like it.

I respond (briefly):

Whether or not the paschal lamb was eaten outside Jerusalem was discussed by us in Pesaĥim 3 and 6. In
Pesaĥim 6 Naomi Koltun-Fromm described a particular way of roasting associated (possibly) with the
paschal lamb. As the Tosefta quoted above indicates the sages frowned an any ceremonial that suggested
an imitation of the sacrifice of the paschal lamb; they certainly would have disapproved of such a
sacrifice in Rome or elsewhere outside Jerusalem, since the Torah itself [Deuteronomy 16:5-6]
specifically requires the paschal lamb to be slaughtered 'in the place which God chooses'. In Deuteronomy
this is synonymous with 'Jerusalem'.

1:
The Torah [Exodus 23:18] commands:

This command is repeated later on [Exodus 34:25] with a significant change which illuminates the
meaning of the previous command:

The juxtaposition of these two verses illuminates the meaning of the former. As Rashi (and others)
points out in his Torah commentary on the former verse, the Torah prohibits the slaughter of the paschal
lamb if the owner still possess ĥametz, and this prohibition is the negative command to which our
present mishnah refers. The Tosefta [Pesaĥim 4:4] adds an interesting rider:

The previous mishnah mentioned the uncircumcised and the paschal lamb. Sue Mackson writes:

I would like to know if this … bears on the subject of inviting non-Jews to participate in the Seder. A
number of years ago I learned that many (?), all (?) observant people exclude non-Jews from the seder. Is
this a prohibition that you observe, that you think should be observed?

I respond:

The mishnah which we were studying has nothing to do with the issue that Sue raises. A moment's thought
will indicate that this must be the case. A non-Jew is not commanded to eat of the paschal lamb at all,
therefore the legitimacy of including him or not including him in the party of subscribers to a paschal
lamb is completely irrelevant. The biblical verse upon which the mishnah bases itself is referring to a
Canaanite slave, who is considered a member of the family. During the first year of his servitude he is
a non-Jew in all matters; at the end of one year he must decide whether he wishes his Jewish master to
sell him off to a non-Jew or whether he wishes to embrace Judaism and remain with his master. If he
chooses the latter he must be circumcised and then he becomes liable for observing all negative
commandments and those positive commandments which are not linked to a specific time period. In
addition, there are certain other positive commandments which he is required to observe, one of them
being the eating of the paschal lamb. When Jews ceased owning Canaanite slaves the issue of the
uncircumcised became more restricted. Rabbi Ovadyah of Bertinoro, in his classical commentary, refers
the mishnah that we are discussing to an uncircumcised Jew. A Jew whose elder brothers died as a result
of circumcision (hemophiliacs?) may not be circumcised; therefore, he may not be included among the
subscribers to a paschal lamb unless there were also in the party valid subscribers.

As regards the modern question of whether or not it is permitted to have non-Jews present at the Seder
service: I can see no objection to this. They are present as onlookers because, of course, they are not
obligated to observe this ritual at all, and any participatory act that they may or may not do is
religiously meaningless. The prohibition against the participation of the uncircumcised in any case was
only with regards to the paschal lamb itself, which in this day and age is completely irrelevant.

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Our discussion concerning translations and transliterations has produced several comments. The general
gist was that it is preferable for me to make my own translations and transliterations. While I shall
present some of these messages next week I have already taken the advice and today's shiur includes
translations that are my own.

2:
Rabbi Yehudah ben-Ilai is of the opinion that on Nisan 14th even the Daily Minchah Sacrifice may not be
offered while ĥametz is still permitted. His reasoning is also based on the verses that we have already
quoted:

He holds that it is the Minchah that is 'my sacrifice', whereas the paschal lamb is 'yours' as it were.

3:
Rabbi Shim'on ben-Yoĥai agrees that if the lamb was slaughtered on Nisan 14th while ĥametz was
still permitted and it was slaughtered with the specific intention that it serve as a paschal lamb, that
the slaughterer has contravened the mitzvah of the Torah. But if the lamb was slaughtered without that
specific intention the slaughterer is excused because the lamb could not have been used anyway. He
further holds that the connection with ĥametz only applies to the paschal lamb: any other private
sacrifices offered that day while ĥametz was still permitted would not be an infringement of the mitzvah.

Still in connection with translations, Mike Mantel writes:

Isn't all translation interpetation? Since we are studying only redacted texts, they all have already
been interpeted? And Moshe acted in the same way. It seems to me, and this may be a drash, that the Torah
urges this kind of communication simply because of its literary structure.

I respond:

In a previous shiur 1988 I presented a long and thorough discussion on the literary origins of
Torah. (Since the topic is not really relevant to our present discussion I refrain from reproducing here
even part of it.) However, I think we should bear in mind that redaction does not necessarily presume
interpretation. It is possible to present original texts and let them speak for themselves. In this
sense, I believe that redaction is different from editing. In the matter of substance, I agree that, of
course, any translation is an interpretation. The sages themselves agreed with this. The prophet
Jeremiah [23:29] said: God says, 'Is not my word like fire, like a hammer splitting rock?'
On this text the Gemara [Sanhedrin 34a] comments: Just as the hammer blow emits many sparks
so one biblical verse can emit many interpretations. The Talmud of Eretz-Israel
[Sanhedrin 22a] went even further: It must be possible to interpret [a biblical verse] with
forty-nine interpretations in one direction and another forty-nine in another! However, to return
to the substance of Mike's message: my experience – limited as it may be – teaches me that this problem
is much more true of translations of texts of the sages, such as Mishnah, than of the text of the written
Torah. It is fiendishly difficult to translate even such a simple text as the mishnah which is the basis
of this shiur without annotation. I try to leave my translations as ambiguous as is the original, but
quite often that is just not possible since English will not permit all the possible nuances of a Hebrew
phrase and one must select. Often it then transpires that the discussion in the Gemara is based just on
that ambiguity of nuance!

Mike continues:

You have dealt in depth with the issue of the pesach sacrifice, yet the sedar deals with it only briefly,
secondarily. comment?

I respond:

It is not I who am dealing with the paschal sacrifice in depth; it is the Mishnah! As we shall see much
later on the eating of the paschal lamb is only one mitzvah to be observed on the night of Nisan 15th.
Another, no less important, is the narration to our children (and everyone is someone's child!) of the
wonders of the exodus from Egypt. That 'narration' is now more or less formalized in the 'Haggadah'
[= narration]. So it is the narration that only briefly touches on the paschal sacrifice, not the Seder
itself which originally included the eating of the paschal lamb.

I permit myself to also comment on the salutation which came at the end of Mike's message to me:
b'shalom. This is a mistake which I have noticed among many well-meaning American Jews.
The correct salutation should be le-shalom. The Gemara [Berakhot 64a]
points out that the salutation 'be-shalom' is only used of the deceased or those about to die, whereas
the salutation for the living is 'le-shalom'.

---

On the same topic: I wrote, This is standard non-Jewish transliteration. Look at any biblical name:
Batsheva becomes Bathsheba, Kalev becomes Caleb, Rechav'am becomes Rehoboam… To this day, scholarly
non-Jews pronounce Hebrew in this way.

David Bockman writes:

As I undertand it, this practice allows non-Hebrew readers to relate the non-dageshed form of a letter
and the dageshed form (oy, that is difficult!). Thus, if shabbat and shavat were transliterated in the
way I just wrote them, they would be pronounced correctly, but the people who were reading it would never
see the same shoresh [root], because in English 'B' and 'V' are completely separate letters. Thus you'll
get 'shabat' for shavat, and 'shabbat' (for the doubling of a dagesh) for shabat. Either way, it pays to
know Hebrew.

---

If I have understood him correctly, Jim Feldman takes the opposite view to that of David Bockman:

I will grant you that the goyem have indeed butchered our language, but why should we follow suit? I
think that if you use rather standard English use of Roman letters to transliterate Hebrew, we would all
be happier. Some of the biblical transliterations are bizarre. How the translators got Zebulon out of
'Zvuloon' I cannot fathom. [I have a cousin from Argentina who lives in Kibbutz Daphna. Our only common
tongue is Hebrew but in e-mail, we have to spell it out in Roman letters. He uses Roman letters as a
Spaniard would. As a proper anglophile, I say Oi! But it works and is sort of fun. But since both Hebrew
and English have both B and V sounds, it is not clear what advantage changing all v's to b's obtains.]

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Yiftah Shapir writes on this same topic:

It is interesting to note that a great scholar of the Hebrew language, Prof. Tur-Sinai (Tortchiner), in
his book Ha-Lashon ve-ha-Sefer (Vol I pp. 147-152), is of the opinion that in the period of
the first temple all 6 letters were hard = bet, gimel, dalet, kaf, peh and tav were – B, G, D, K, P, T.
He then says that during the period of the second temple pronounciation changed, to agree with the
pronounciation of the Babylonians: bet, gimel and dalet always hard, (B, G, D ), whereas kaf peh and tav
were always soft (Kh, Ph, Th ). He thinks that only when Jews began to speak Aramaic, each letter
aquired both a soft and a hard pronounciation. So – the non Jewish prononciation has some basis: if he
is right – then our ancestors did pronouce it Abib rather than Aviv – although it is possible that by the
time the Mishna was written – people already pronounced it Aviv…

1:
With our present mishnah we come to the details of the logistics of the actual slaughter of the paschal
lamb. The Gemara [Pesaĥim 64b] tells us that on one occasion King Agrippa, who reigned between
40-44 CE, wished to know how many people actually visited the Bet Mikdash on these occasions (probably
for security purposes). Since it is forbidden to make a direct count of Jews he instructed the High
Priest to take the kidneys from each lamb. When this harvest was counted it was found to contain six
hundred thousand pairs of kidneys! The Gemara itself recognizes that this is a typological number: the
bible tells us that 600,000 Israelites left Egypt. Be that as it may, it obviously indicates
'a lot of people'. Our present mishnah describes the arrangements that the management of the Bet Mikdash
made for dealing with such large numbers of people, who all needed to be attended to within a very
limited time frame.

I wrote a response concerning the presence of non-Jews at the seder service. Art Werschulz writes:

I have heard the following explanation for not inviting non-Jews to the seder: On Yom Tov, it is
permissible to cook for Jews, but not for non-Jews. Hence, one should not invite non-Jews to the seder,
lest one come to cook something specifically for the non-Jew (e.g., boil water for a hot beverage
specifically for the non-Jew). FWIW, I don't think that such an eventuality is very likely, given that
most people tend to cook food by the vatfull for their sedarim! However (assuming that the concern is
valid, which I'm not in a position to determine), this might be a case of lo p'lug. In addition, there's
also the issue that certain passages (e.g., sh'foch when we open the door for Eliyahu) may be
rather uncomfortable in the presence of a non-Jew. This gets us to the question of to what extent Pesaĥ
is particularistic (freeing b'nei Yisrael from Egypt to serve God) and to what extent it's universalistic
(people deserve religious freedom). This balancing act might be another determining factor. OTOH (we're
maybe up to three hands now?), I would imagine that YA mitigating factor would be inviting an intermarried
couple, or an interdating couple in which the non-Jewish partner is seriously interested in conversion,
or (for that matter) any non-Jew who's considering gerut. YMMV, CYLHA (consult your local halachic
authority), and all that.

I respond:

I agree with Art that the argument concerning the preparation of food on YomTov is a very weak one indeed.
In order to clarify this matter for those who may not understand it let me briefly explain. On Shabbat
we are forbidden by the Torah to cook anything: all food must be prepared before the beginning of Shabbat.
As regards YomTov, however, the Torah [Exodus 12:16] makes a distinction:

The first and seventh days you shall decree as holy days on which no work shall be done: but what each
person needs to eat, that alone shall be done by you…

It is permitted to cook food on YomTov – but only food intended for consumption on that day. (Food left
over may certainly be eaten after YomTov, but it is forbidden to cook food on YomTov that will be eaten
entirely after the festival.) It is certainly permitted to let non-Jews share food that has been cooked
for Jews on YomTov. Assuming that the non-Jews are healthy and in no danger, it is not permitted to cook
food especially and only for them on YomTov, since the cooking was permitted on YomTov only for the sake
of the Jews celebrating; by definition, non-Jews are not required to celebrate the festivals. It becomes
immediately clear that the argument about cooking for non-Jews on YomTov is merely a lame justification
for not inviting non-Jews to the Seder.

The argument of 'lo pelug' to which Art refers is the principle that when the sages permit or prohibit
something that prohibition is blanket with no exceptions intended. One could just as easily use that
argument in the opposite direction: since the Torah permits cooking for Jews it does not exclude cooking
for non-Jews. However, the argument of 'lo pelug' never refers to Torah legislation, only rabbinic.

If a Jewish host feels that non-Jewish guests might be embarrassed by certain passages in the Haggadah he
or she would know better than to invite them. Certainly no changes should be made in the traditional
Haggadah simply to avoid embarrassing non-Jews who will be present. If a candidate for conversion might
object to the negative reference to non-Jews in the Haggadah he or she should perhaps reconsider whether
they really want to join our people.

2:
Clearly, it was not possible to accommodate at one and the same time all the people who had brought their
lambs to the Bet Mikdash. However, it seems that there was a lingering feeling that the paschal lamb was
to be slaughtered by all Israel at the same time. This feeling was engendered, it seems, by the plain
meaning of the verse actually quoted by our mishnah: 'it [the
paschal lamb, and not the paschal lambs] shall be slaughtered by the whole community of the
congregation of Israel'. However, practical considerations made it necessary to overcome this
primal feeling. In order to justify the division of the people into groups that could be accommodated by
the facility – the Courtyard of the Priests – the verse was happily re-interpreted: 'it
[the paschal lamb of each individual present] shall be
slaughtered by the whole community [first group] of the
congregation [second group] of Israel
[third group]'. As we shall see later on, the masses were always
accommodated by only three groups.

3:
The main and largest courtyard of the Bet Mikdash was the so-called 'Courtyard of Women'. Here all the
people assembled with their lambs and their numbers must have been formidable. When the time came to
commence the process of slaughtering the great Nicanor Gate which gave access to the Courtyard of the
Priests was opened and the people began to surge forward, up the fifteen steps that led up to the gate
and into the holy Courtyard. There must have been priests on duty at the gates allowing the people in
and they let them in until the Courtyard of the Priests was completely packed. The Nicanor Gate was then
shut to prevent further access until it was time for the second group to enter. (Strangely, our sources
are silent about the logistics of getting the first group out of the Courtyard before admitting the second
group: presumably they exited through one of the side entrances that led from the Courtyard of the Priests
to the surrounding promenade.) The closing of the gate which also served to indicate that the slaughter
could begin was accompanied by the sounding by trumpets and shofarot of the sounds Teki'ah, Teru'ah and
Teki'ah which are familiar to us from the Rosh ha-Shanah ritual.

4:
When the people were admitted to the holy courtyard they found rows of priests already present and waiting
for them. Each row of priests consisted of men holding basins of gold or silver. These basins were to
hold the blood of the paschal sacrifice, which was to be sprinkled on the side of the main altar. In
order that it look impressive the rows of priests were uniform: one row held only silver bowls, the next
only golden bowls, the third row only silver bowls, and so on. These were special basins that had a
rounded bottom: this was so that no priest would be tempted to set down the basin containing the
sacrificial blood, but would pass it on down the line until it reached the altar.

In a previous mishnah we noted that a paschal lamb was not invalidated by the presence in the subscription
group of people who were not entitled to eat of its meat. Albert Ringer writes:

I suppose that the rationale behind the Mishnah's ruling is, that the individual member of a group should
not find it necessary to check the ritual status of the other members. As long as he knows he is allowed
to participate, the Pesaĥ is valid. If I understand the mishnah well, it is more lenient then the Torah,
the Torah states that non-circumcised strangers are not allowed to eat Pesaĥ. The Mishnah does not
invalidate the sacrifice and so effectively makes it possible for non-circumcised to be part of a group.

I respond:

In both cases I think that Albert's assumptions are not borne out by the sources. Firstly, the classical
commentators assume that the presence of 'invalid participants' will be noted by the valid members of the
subscription group and they will see to it that those not entitled to share the roast lamb will not do so.
Secondly, I have already pointed out that the rule of the Torah prohibiting the uncircumcised from
participating was directed by our classical commentators to full Jews who had not been circumcised for
perfectly valid halakhic reasons and to Canaanite servants who had not yet been circumcised but were
considered as part of the family.

1:
Our mishnah continues with the logistics of the slaughter of the paschal lamb. Let us imagine that we
are one of the people bringing their lamb for slaughter. We represent a group of people (probably around
10) who had joined together to subscribe to this lamb and we will all get together this evening to eat
the lamb roasted as part of our Seder service. (It is this lamb which is symbolically represented at our
Seder today by the shankbone.) As we come through the Nicanor gate we have the enormous building of the
sanctuary ahead of us at the far end of the priests' court. To our left is the huge main altar and to
our right are the tables, slabs and posts which are the accoutrements of the place of slaughtering.
Between the place of slaughtering and the altar rows of priests are arranged, ready to act like a
conveyer belt.

2:
In an almost regimented way we are swiftly conducted to one of the places of slaughtering. We have
brought our own slaughtering knife and, as our mishnah suggests, we are expected to do our own
slaughtering. (Originally, it seems, the slaughtering was done by priests [Ezra 6:20]; when the
numbers of lambs grew this task was taken over by the levites [2Chronicles 30:17 and 35:11]; when
this too became too cumbersome the person bringing the lamb had to do the job himself. A priest stood by
us and as we slit the lamb's throat and the blood gushed out the priest would collect the lifeblood in
the silver or golden bowl that he was holding (see previous mishnah). This bowl he would swiftly pass on
to the priest standing next to him, who would pass it on down the row of priests until it reached the
priest standing nearest to the altar. This last would splash the blood on the side of the altar, with
one swift movement, gauged to that the blood would splash on the base of the altar. He would then pass
back the now empty bowl down the line so that it could be used again for another slaughtering. This
process would continue until all the members of our group had been accommodated. There were post-
slaughter activities that had to be performed on the lamb, but these are the subject of a later mishnah.

Some time back Mike Mantel mentioned in passing the seeming fixation of our tractate on the sacrifice of
the paschal lamb, and I responded to his comment. Now Amit Gevaryahu writes:

I. J. Yuval, in his new book (in Hebrew) 'Shnei Goyim Be-Vitnekh', explains the mixup in the
mishnah, and its general focus on sacrificial issues. It seems that this was the main focus of passover,
and even after the Ĥurban it continued to be so, for the tosefta tells us our favorite story about
the sages in Bnei Braq, except that they were discussing the sacrifice. The story in the
mishnah is probably there to endorse a new custom, intended to polemicize with the christian custom of
recreating christ's suffering on Easter – which used to be identical with passover.

I respond:

The Tosefta does not tell 'our favourite story about the sages in Bnei Braq'. The reference in all
probability is to Tosefta Pesaĥim 10:8, where there are similarities, but the differences are many –
different sages, different place, different topic and so forth.

---

In our last shiur I wrote:

Clearly, it was not possible to accommodate at one and the same time all the people who had brought
their lambs to the Bet Mikdash… In order to justify the division of the people into groups that could
be accommodated by the facility – the Courtyard of the Priests – the verse was happily re-interpreted…
the masses were always accommodated by only three groups.

Ed Frankel writes:

Is there not a tradition that one of the ongoing miracles of the Bet Hamikdash was that it managed to
have the capacity to fit all who needed to be there without overcrowding?

I respond:

Ed's memory fails him here. His source (which we once quoted in a similar context is in Tractate Avot 5:5,
which reads:

no person ever said there is no room for me to stay in Jerusalem.

Jerusalem, not the Bet Mikdash.

1:
The procedure that we described in our previous shiur was repeated for both the second and the third
groups, who were waiting in the Women's Court with their lambs until the previous group had gone.

2:
During this whole procedure the levitical chorus and orchestra were performing Hallel. When we were
studying tractate Tamid I wrote:

3:
Hallel is still a major element in our liturgy. It consists of Psalms 113 – 118. As we shall see when
we reach chapter 10, Hallel also accompanied the eating of the paschal lamb as part of the meal of the
Seder service. That is why we still recite Hallel at our Seder service; we divide it into two parts so
that the meal is sandwiched inside Hallel, as it were.

4:
If the levitical chorus finished singing Hallel and there were still people who had not slaughtered their
lambs Hallel would be repeated. In theory, it could even be sung a third time if necessary, but according
to Rabbi Yehudah ben-Ilai this was never necessary: the third group was always the smallest, it seems,
and the chorus never got beyond Psalm 116:1. In his commentary on our mishnah [Pesaĥim 64a] Rashi
says that what Rabbi Yehudah means is that the levites never managed to get further than Psalm 116:1 even
the first time through! I find this very hard to accept – unless, of course, the singing was very slow
and the slaughtering very fast.

Recently we had reason to mention the sounding of the shofar in the Bet Mikdash on Nisan 14th.
Mike Mantel writes:

Any sense of how we lost the shofar on Pesaĥ?

I respond:

As a mitzvah the shofar is only sounded (nowadays) on Rosh ha-Shanah. As a custom the shofar was sounded
regularly in the Bet Mikdash – not just on Rosh ha-Shanah and not just on the day before Pesaĥ. Shofarot
were sounded every single day, twice a day! When we studied tractate Tamid I wrote:

Apart from the trumpets, cymbals, harps and flutes already mentioned the Shofar was sounded daily
in the Bet Mikdash. The main function of the Shofar was to signal. According to the mishnah [Sukkah
5:5] the Shofar was sounded three times to announce the opening of gates, nine times during the
offering of the Tamid, and a further nine times when the sacrifice was repeated in the afternoon. On
special occasions there were even more Teki'ot. (A stone has been discovered with the words 'To the
Shofar Sounding Room' cut into it.)

So the sounding of the shofar, apart from Rosh ha-Shanah, was never a part of synagogue ritual. The
vestigial sounding of the shofar at the end of Yom Kippur is pure custom (and late), as we noted when we
studied tractate Rosh ha-Shanah.

---

Still with Mike Mantel! I permitted myself a comment about the different meaning the sages attributed to
the salutation be-shalom" and le-shalom". Arnie
Kuzmack writes:

This may reflect the usage in Talmudic times, but our usage is influenced by Yiddish. According to
Weinreich's standard dictionary, b'sholem means 'intact, safely, unharmed' in Yiddish. It does not even
list l'sholem. For that matter, in modern colloquial Israeli Hebrew, would you say hu xazar mehamilxamah
b'shalom or l'shalom?

I respond:

The term 'be-shalom' has exactly the meaning that Arnie ascribes to it except when it is used as a
salutation. As a salutation, even in modern Israel, the term 'le-shalom' is correctly used in connection
with a greeting (hu beyrakh otah le-shalom, he greeted her).

1:
The procedure described in the preceding mishnayot was the one followed regardless of the day of the week.
If Nisan 14th fell on a Shabbat there was no deviation from the procedure outlined. The sages were of
the opinion that the priestly tradition was erroneous that this included the swabbing down of the priestly
courtyard.

2:
In his classic commentary on our mishnah Rabbi Ovadyah of Bertinoro explains that the floor of the
courtyard was covered in blood (as may be expected when so many animals are being slaughtered at the same
time and in a hurry). This is why the priests swabbed it down. Rabbi Ovadyah explains that there was a
water channel that ran through the priestly courtyard. What they did was to plug the channel's exit so
that the water swamped the floor of the courtyard. When the whole area was covered with water they pulled
the plug so that the water drained into the channel and the blood was washed away with it.

3:
The sages objected to this procedure on Shabbat. It is a commonplace that all the rules and regulations
of Shabbat do not apply to the worship and ceremonies of the Bet Mikdash. Any melakhah [action
forbidden on Shabbat] that was necessary for the continued offering of the sacrifices was to be ignored
(with divine approval). Thus it was permitted to tend to the fire stack on the altar and to slaughter
the sacrificial victims and burn their carcasses on the coals of the altar – and so forth. However, any
melakhah that was not absolutely necessary to the continued functioning of the sacrificial system
on Shabbat was not permitted. The Gemara [Pesaĥim 64a] explains that the sages were of the
opinion that the swabbing down of the priestly courtyard was not essential: the sacrifices could be
offered even if the floor was not washed down; the priests (who certainly were and interested party) had
a tradition that this was permitted.

4:
Rabbi Yehudah ben-Ilai was of the opinion that before the courtyard was swabbed down one of the priests
would fill a cup with some of the blood that was on the floor and sprinkle it on the sides of the altar.
The Gemara [Pesaĥim 64a] explains that this was because he was concerned that it was possible that
because of the extreme pressure it could be that in one or two cases the basin of blood did not reach the
altar, but its contents was spilled by accident on the floor as the basin was being passed down the line
from one priest to another. Previously, I explained:

A priest stood by us and as we slit the lamb's throat and the blood gushes out this priest collects
the lifeblood in the silver or golden bowl that he is holding. This bowl he swiftly passes on to the
priest standing next to him, who passes it on down the row of priests until it reaches the priest standing
nearest to the altar. This last splashes the blood on the side of the altar, with one swift movement,
gauged to that the blood would splash on the base of the altar.

The halakhah does not follow the opinion of Rabbi Yehudah.

I responded to a message by Ed Frankel that his memory had failed him as regards the fact that no one
ever complained that there was not enough room for him in the Bet Mikdash (the reference was to Jerusalem
as a whole and not just to the Bet Mikdash). Two people have sprung to defend Ed's honour!

Saul Davis writes:

I think that Ed Frankel was slightly less mistaken than you said. There was a miracle regarding the Beth
Hamiqdash which is in Avoth 5,5: 'omdim tsefoofim, wemishtaxawim rewaxim ( = people stood
tightly packed and kneeled down with room'). I do not think there was any kneeling to do during the
qorban pesax procedures, but there is this nice reference about the Beth Hamiqdish's 'capacity to fit all
who needed to be there without overcrowding'.

And Art Werschultz writes in similar fashion:

The mishnah in Chapter 5 of Avot mentions ten miracles that were performed for our ancestors in the Beit
Hamikdash. The eighth is om'dim tz'fufim, umishtachavim r'vachim, 'they stood crowded
together, yet they had enough space to prostrate themselves'.

I respond:

When we discussed this mishnah in the course of our study of tractate Tamid we suggested that the miracle
of having enough room to prostrate oneself was in connection with Yom Kippur and the miracle of never
running out of room to stay in Jerusalem was in connection with Pesaĥ. I agree that this is just a
surmise, and I certainly cannot gainsay what has been said above.

1:
Our mishnah describes what happens to the lamb after it has been slaughtered and its blood splashed on
the side of the altar. The owner of the lamb would now have to suspend it in order to be able to skin it.
In order to understand more easily (an understanding that our mishnah takes for granted) we can recall
what we learned when studying tractate Tamid. Mishnah Tamid 3:5 reads (in part):

In my explanations of that mishnah I wrote:

Each post was fitted with three hooks. These were used to suspend the carcasses while they were skinned
and dismembered. These iron hooks were either one on top of the other so as to accommodate animals of
various sizes, or they were placed on three sides of the post so that more than one person could be at
work.

2:
It now becomes clear that the owner of the lamb would take the carcass and hang it on a hook that was
fixed into one of many posts that were set up near the slaughterhouse. The animal's hind legs were tied
together and it was thus suspended on one of the hooks so that it could be skinned and the internal
organs removed. We shall return to this matter in the next mishnah. (So the squeamish can relax until
next week!)

3:
The pressure of numbers was obviously such that not everyone could find a hook on which to suspend their
animal. Therefore, our mishnah tells us that for those who could not find a hook there was an alternative.

The executive of the Bet Mikdash would provide 'smooth small sticks' – i.e. poles on which the animal
could be suspended. These poles were rested horizontally on the shoulders of two people with the animal
suspended from it (by its hind legs). Thus it could be skinned.

4:
Rabbi Eli'ezer says that this alternative for those unfortunate enough not to find a permanent hook was
problematic on Shabbat, since the use of these poles was not permitted on Shabbat. He is of the opinion
that these poles may not be carried on Shabbat, and that therefore the animal had to be suspended on the
arms of two people. Halakhah does not follow the opinion of Rabbi Eli'ezer. While such poles may not be
carried on Shabbat outside the Bet Mikdash, the rest of the sages hold that the prohibition does not
apply to the essential actions of worship inside the Bet Mikdash, as we explained above.

A couple of days ago I wrote: 'In his commentary on our mishnah [Pesaĥim 64a] Rashi says that what
Rabbi Yehudah means is that the levites never managed to get further than Psalm 116:1 even the first time
through! I find this very hard to accept – unless, of course, the singing was very slow and the
slaughtering very fast'.

Richley Crapo writes:

Either way, unless I've missed something, we seem to be talking about a relatively small percentage of
the total population participating in having a lamb sacrificed at the Temple. What is your estimate of
the possible number of sacrifices that were made in preparation for the Seder?

I respond:

Oh dear! I had hoped that such a question would not be asked, because I have been pondering it myself for
some time and have no answer so far. On the one hand there are indications both inside and outside the
Mishnah that there were enormous numbers of people involved; on the other hand the logistics seem to
indicate otherwise. So I ask your advice here. What parameters could we use to arrive at a suggested
number? – the number of people who could be crammed into the physical limits of the priestly courtyard,
perhaps? Please send me your suggestions. It is clear that there were a lot of people present: how does
one arrive at a reasonable definition of 'a lot' in this context?

1:
There are two distinct parts to this, the last mishnah of Chapter 5, and it seems that each part is to be
understood as dealing with a different situation. (In this interpretation I am following Rashi and Rambam.)
The Reisha [first part] of our mishnah is concerned with the treatment of the paschal lambs on any and
every day of the week, whereas the Seifa [last part] of our mishnah is concerned only with what happened
if Nisan 14th fell on a Shabbat.

2:
The Reisha is a direct continuation of the end of the previous mishnah. After the owner of the lamb had
slaughtered the animal, suspended it and skinned it, he would rip it open and remove certain internal
organs. In this matter it was no different from any other animal sacrifice. When studying tractate
Tamid we noted 4:2 as follows:

3:
The subject, 'he' of the first two sentences of our present mishnah, is different in each case. The
meaning is as follows: the owner of the lamb would slaughter it, suspend it, skin it and remove the
relevant internal organs. These internal organs he would put on a salver held by an attendant priest who
would then take them and burn them on the main altar. In his commentary on our present mishnah Rambam
identifies the organs that were separated off for incineration on the altar as being: the tail, the fat
surrounding the intestines, the kidneys together with their fat and the protuberance of the liver.

4:
The slaughtering of the animal, the splashing of its blood, and the incineration of the intestinal fat
and other organs completed the ritual of the paschal lamb in the Priestly Courtyard. At this point the
owner could pull down the carcass of his lamb and leave the Temple precincts and take his lamb home – or
to whatever place his group of subscribers had previously designated as the place where they would
celebrate their Seder. The manner of roasting the lamb will be described in chapter 7.

5:
According to Rashi and Rambam the Seifa of our mishnah is concerned with what happened at the end of the
ritual on Saturday afternoons. The owner could not take his lamb away as on other days because of the
restriction of carrying the lamb beyond the precincts of the Bet Mikdash on Shabbat. (Carrying
something, however heavy or however light, from one technical 'domain' to another, is one of the 39 prime
prohibitions of activity [Melakhah] that define the sanctity of Shabbat to a large extent.)

6:
Thus the owners with their meat ready for roasting would have to wait within the Temple precincts until
after the end of Shabbat. (In Jerusalem in March/April the sun sets at around 6 pm and three stars
appear at around 6.30 pm. Thus the people who were in the first group may have had to wait 3-4 hours,
while the members of the third group might only have had to wait around for an hour or so.)

I have received a very important message from Jim Feldman, and my response will follow. I am sure that
Jim's question, or comment, has been on the mind of many participants and it is worthy of a full treatment
on my part. In order to enable people to collect their own thoughts before reading mine, here is Jim's
message to me:

As a vegetarian I find this image of slaughter distinctly unpalatable but understandable at a primitive
level, but as a Jew, I cannot understand carrying out this butchering on Shabbat. Being squeamish about
holding up a pole on shabbat while you are killing, gutting and skinning an animal? This seems to me to
require an impenetrable wall between reason and action. You express great distress about someone igniting
some fossil fuel on Shabbat (driving) while not even discussing the whole population participating in a
slaughter on the sacred day in which 'neither thy maidservant nor thy manservant nor thy ox nor thy ass'
is supposed to labor. How can anyone rationalize this behavior or the rabbinical pontification on it?
Give me Isaiah (1:11): '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; And I delight not in the blood of
bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats' – to which I add: Amen.

I respond:

Dear Jim,

I am not a vegetarian; I am a vegan. This means that in addition to refraining from eating dead animals
I also refrain from consuming the natural (and processed) products of animals such as eggs and milk (and
cheese). Our discussion concerning the gory details of the sacrifice of the paschal lamb is only one of
the topics treated in Tractate Pesaĥim. Where were you, Jim, with this question when we studied
Tractate Tamid which was concerned with the sacrificial cult exclusively? I think that a careful reading
of my treatment of the sacrificial system in both tractates will reveal that I have never tried to conceal
the gore; on the contrary, almost invariably I have used terms and translations that emphasize the
problematica to modern susceptibilities of killing animals for worship.

I shall address your comments concerning Shabbat later on. But before doing so I want to address two
other points that arise from your message. Firstly, many great rabbis (far, far, far greater than me)
have been or are vegetarian or vegan and many more have shown great sympathy for the vegetarian way of
life. Among them we may include Rabbi Avraham Kuk the first Chief Rabbi of the holy land; there was also
Rabbi Shelomo Goren who was chief rabbi of IDF and later Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel; we may add the
present chief rabbi of Haifa and there are more. Rabbi Kuk wrote that when Mashiaĥ comes everyone
will be vegetarian.

I shall return to the historical aspect later. let me say at this juncture that 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. I once quoted in one of our shiurim:

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'
(Acharit 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.

More relevant to Jim's original question, I think, is what should be our attitude to the sacrificial
system as practiced by our ancestors (a system which has now been defunct for almost 1932 years). I do
not think that any reasonable person would wish to deny that our ancestors saw in the ritual killing of
animals an act of worship. Even less would such a person wish to pretend that such worship was never
practiced, that the Temple ritual is a historical fiction. On the contrary: it is a historical fact. It
is perhaps almost impossible for us today to comprehend the enormous love – yes, love – which our
ancestors had for the Bet Mikdash and its ritual. In many places our classical sources offer detailed
accounts of the minutiae of the system, accounts in such detail that they remind us of the ardour of the
fan, the lover. This too is a very important historical fact. At the time of the publication of the
Mishnah, nearly 150 years after the cataclysmic end of the sacrificial cult, the sages were still
dwelling lovingly over these details and ardently prayed for its restoration. (To this day, the orthodox
prayer-book retains specific please to God to restore the sacrificial cult.)

However, this historical perspective is only acceptable in our heads; in our hearts we have a deeper
problem. While we can recognize that our ancestors loved and cherished the sacrificial cult, we are
worried that the merciful Deity to whom we address our prayers and who is the object of our belief could
condone and require the killing of animals for this purpose. (Jim and I would agree to change 'this' to
'almost any'.) Yesterday I touched briefly on the way in which Rambam deals with this issue in his Guide
for the Perplexed. I shall now develop his response.

Rambam claims that the sacrificial system was a historical necessity. People – including us today! – are
influenced by behaviours which are generally practiced by honourable people. In the ancient world the
almost universal form of worship practiced by honourable and worthy people – of all faiths and all
nationalities – was the sacrifice of animals to the gods. Rambam claims that if God had denied Israel
this form of worship it would have been a psychological disaster: people would have felt spiritually
unsatisfied had they been denied worship by animal sacrifice, just as today people would feel spiritually
unsatisfied if they were denied verbal prayer as their act of worship. Rambam says that in all matters
involving the ritual killing of animals (for both food and worship) we must perceive a restrictive
process at work through an imagined permission. With great brevity: you can no longer kill any animal
you choose and eat it as you please. You can only kill certain animals for food, only in a certain way,
and you can only consume them under certain restricting circumstances. Thus Rambam suggests (and 750
years later Rav Kuk enthusiastically agreed) that we should see in the rules and regulations of kashrut
the first tentative stages of a process designed to wean Jews away from the consumption of dead animals
and back to mankind's pristine vegetarianism (culminating in world-wide vegetarianism in the messianic
age). Rambam applies the same thinking to animal sacrifice: the minutiae of the laws are really
restrictive rather than permissive.

Our study of the way in which the paschal lamb was slaughtered is historical: that is what was done and
the Mishnah describes how it was done. Our study does not imply approval.

Having said all this I hope it will now be clear why I do not accept that there is a connection between
our study of an ancient and now defunct sacrificial cult and our modern observance of Shabbat.

Much of what I have written above is adumbrated in a message received from Naomi Koltun-Fromm.
Here is what she has written:

I have been reading (rather slogging through) Jacob Milgrom's 3 vol Anchor Bible commentary to Leviticus.
His theory or understanding of the Priestly notion of sacrifice and that of the dietary laws is that
eating meat was a divine concession to human hunger for flesh. The first concession is with Noah – when
humans are allowed for the first time to eat meat, but that they must pour the blood on to the ground.
The dietary laws of Lev 11 (clean and unclean animals) is a means to restrict the kind of meat an
Israelite can eat – thereby restricting the overall consumption of meat. The last layer of the Priestly
texts (H in Milgrom's opinion) restricts all meat consumption to sacrificial meat – that is one cannot
consume meat that has not had its blood dashed against the altar. The rationale for all this is the
priestly belief that all life is sacred and taking the life of an animal is close to murder, and hence
the blood – the animal's life force – must be 'returned' to God as an acknowledgement of the life taken.
It is an interesting theory – and works well for those who wish to forgo meat on religious grounds. What
doesn't work for me is the fact that the priests then end up with an over abundance of meat!

I comment:

'It is an interesting theory' – which Milgrom seems to have cribbed directly from Rambam!

I have received many messages in appreciation of my comments on the ethical problematica concerning the
restoration of the sacrificial cult. They are far too many for me to be able to respond to each one
personally, so please accept this as my thanks for your kind words. However, I have also received some
messages that contain disagreement at one level or another, and I wish to conclude this series with what
some of them have written.

Ed Frankel supports the restoration of animal sacrifice:

While I am not a vegetarian, I can understand Jim's views. At the same time, though, to me the most
glorious aspect of our tradition is the idea that we are serving God. Frankly, I have no great desire to
offer animal sacrifices ever, and yet if the Temple were rebuilt with animal sacrifice as part of our new
worship, I am not sure that I would abstain from participating in the sacrificial cult.

Mike Rodin while appreciative would like to see the method expanded:

The discussion about the sacrificial cult and its relationship to modern Judaism, and modern Jews, was
most instructive, and I thank you for it. The issue of 'coming to grips' with the fact that our religion
is an ancient one with its historical and theological roots firmly planted in a ancient, and in some
respects, more barbaric time is one with which many of us must struggle often. (I say in some respects
more barbaric, we can certainly do much more damage to our fellow humans and the world now than the
ancients could even imagine, except when thinking of what G-D could do). This issue of our roots and how
the modern plant that has sprung from them should be cultivated, extends not only to the sacrificial cult,
but the status of women, and dare I suggest, the brit milah. For me, the process of inquiry and
considering these things is as important as the conclusions reached either by the current Conservative
movement, or by each of us as individual Jews.

I respond:

I believe the Conservative Movement has gone a long way in the past three decades towards equality of the
sexes. The door is open. many women have chosen to enter it. As for the rest, the decision is theirs.

I wrote:

Rambam suggests (and 750 years later Rav Kuk enthusiastically agreed) that we should see in the
rules and regulations of kashrut the first tentative stages of a process designed to wean Jews away from
the consumption of dead animals and back to mankind's pristine vegetarianism (culminating in world-wide
vegetarianism in the messianic age).

Yiftah Shapir demurs:

Allow me to disagree on that particular issue of 'return to mankind's pristine vegetarianism'. It is a
romantic belief which has little to do with reality as science sees it today. Recent scientific research
shows that Neanderthals were almost totally carnivores. Unlike Neanderthals Homo Sapiens consumed more
vegetarian food but have always been omnivores (like chimpanzees, bears and pigs) (some company we have…).
Our digestive system is by no means the digestive system of totally vegetarian animals.

I respond:

I think you have misunderstood (probably because my syntax was wanting). Neither Rambam nor Rav Kuk were
proposing a scientific conceptualization, but a halakhic-ethical one: In Genesis [1:29] man is
authorized only a vegetarian diet. Rav Kuk adds that man will return to this state at the culmination of
human history in the messianic age. The comments have a religious etiology, not a scientific one: mythos,
not logos.

Yiftah continues:

Going from biology to ethics – I believe that on one hand humans have a moral obligation to get above
their pristine drives – but on the other hand they should never try to escape their nature altogether.
Take sexual behaviour for exapmle. Like all animals we have sexual drive. On one hand we are required to
abstain from some types of sexual behaviour – copulating with our offsprings for example. But on the
other hand we should not abstain from sex altogether. This attitude is of course the attitude of the
Halakha all along the way, and in this particular issue of sexual behaviour it is diametrically opposed
to the attitudes of christianity. I apply the same moral thinking to consumption of meat and the use of
animal products. I don't see it as morally wrong. on the contrary – I see this longing for a
'pristine period' of vegetarianism as an attempt to escape our own nature rather than just restricting
it. At any rate – the use of animal products is deeply ingrained in our religious customs. Even vegans
read from Torah scrolls made of animal skin, put on tefillin every day – and in two weeks from today will
put Zeroa and Beitza on their Seder plate.

I respond:

As to the last point: not so! Rav Huna in the Talmud [Pesaĥim 114b] gives vegetable alternatives
for the shankbone and the egg! Most religious vegans try to buy tefillin made from animals that died
naturally, rather than having been put to death.

Yiftah's message also had a last paragraph which I omit because the idea expressed in it is also contained
in this message from Derek Fields:

I read your response on the sacrifices with great interest but ultimately found it unsatisfying. It is
relatively easy for vegetarians and vegans to agree that 'that was then, and this is now' and that what
might be interesting from the point of view of communal history need have no direct bearing on present
day practice. However, for the vast majority of us who eat 'dead animals', the study of the sacrificial
system has (or should have) more direct importance. As a meat eater, I am able to participate directly
in Mitzvot that vegetarians do not. Without meat, most of the laws of kashrut become meaningless: there
is no meat to separate from milk, there is no selection of clean and unclean animals, no need to worry
about killing that animal as humanely as possible, no issue about draining blood or not eating certain
cuts. I do not eat meat only in order to perform Mitzvot, but each time I do eat meat, I do so in the
context of G-d's commandments on how I can eat a dead animal and still participate in G-d's covenant.

I respond:

If one accepts the thrust of modern biblical scholarship on the one hand and Jewish religious thinking
from such stalwarts as Rambam on the other we see that in the Torah meat-eating was grudgingly granted to
man and hedged around with precautionary mitzvot. The most humane treatment of animals is not to kill
them at all, and if one respects their life by not consuming their flesh the lesson is just as
meaningful – maybe more meaningful – as eating their flesh with certain halakhic proscriptions.
However, we must be very careful to point out that from the strictly halakhic point of view carnivorous
habits are not only condoned by the Torah, but assumed.

Derek continues:

I am baffled by other meat eaters who express revulsion about the sacrificial system. I think that it is
not the loss of the sacrificial system, but the fact that killing animals is now done out of the sight of
most of us that leads to this view. As you point out, hundreds of years later, Rabbis were enamored with
the sacrifices, so the loss of the sacrificial system itself did not cause people to become squeamish
about killing animals. It is with the industrialization of slaughterhouses, when we are able to get our
meat nicely packaged with little tags that ensure us that all Kosher laws were observed, that people
become uncomfortable with description of blood and gore. We no longer personally bloody our hands; we do
not ourselves take a living creature and slit its throat, thereby taking its life; we do not drain the
blood or salt the meat. We just go to our Kosher butcher or supermarket, pick up a package, cook it and
eat it. The study of the sacrifices reminds those of us who eat meat of both the gravity and the
permissibility of what we do. It reminds us that even now, when the slaughter is far removed from our
daily experience, we have a moral obligation to acknowledge what has been done for our benefit and with
our consent. For me, this is what studying the sacrifices means.

This concludes our study of Chapter Five.