Tefillah 081
of the Rabbinical Assembly in Israel
HALAKHAH STUDY GROUP
THE HALAKHAH OF TEFILLAH
They determined that the number of services should be the same as the number of sacrifices: two services daily corresponding to the two daily sacrifices, and for every day on which there is an additional sacrifice they determined a third service corresponding to the additional sacrifice. The service which corresponds to the morning sacrifice is called the Morning Service; the service which corresponds to the twilight sacrifice is called Minĥah. The service which corresponds to the additionals is called the Additional Service. [Rambam, Hilkhot Tefillah 1:5].
EXPLANATIONS (continued):
15:
In the previous shiur we noted how the Conservative Movement modified the text of the main paragraphs of the Musaf Amidah, thereby changing these paragraphs from a yearning for a restored sacrificial system to a recollection of the system now defunct. However, in the siddur published by the Masorti Movement and the Rabbinical Assembly in Israel, Va'ani Tefillati, a different course was adopted to deal with the same perceived problem.
16:
The basic premise of the siddur is articulated on pages 382-383. The premise is that while the great majority of Masorti (Conservative) Jews do not want a future restoration of animal sacrifice, yearnings for a building which will serve as a sole spiritual centre for the Jewish people certainly have not abated. The religious and emotional status of the Weatern Wall in the eyes of the public is ample evidence of that yearning.
17:
Concerning the content of the fourth benediction of the Musaf Amidah the explanatory note in the siddur says that
One may discern two basic approaches within the Masorti Movement. One approach views positively prayers for the construction of the Third Temple but not for the restoration of sacrificial worship. According to this approach the yearning for the construction of the Third Temple symbolises the yearning for the reunification of the Jewish people (including the reunification of hearts) and the realization of the values of peace and tolerance for all mankind that were envisioned by the prophets for "the end of days".
(The other approach is, of course, the one we discussed in the previous shiur and which was adopted by Conservative prayer books such as Sim Shalom.) The note in Va'ani Tefillati then goes on to explain that according to this view the manner of worship in a rebuilt Bet Mikdash will be essentially different from what we have known until this time:
Just as prayer became the dominant form of worship after the practical abolition of sacrificial worship with the destruction of the Second Temple, so we cannot know today, in advance, what kind of worship will be introduced some time in the future.
18:
The approach described above is based both on the vision of the prophets and on the teachings of Rambam. The prophets, as is well known, railed against the sacrificial cultus. Here are a few examples. Firstly, a 'purple passage' from Isaiah:
"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. When you come to appear before Me who asked you to trample My courts? Bring no more vain oblations, incense is offensive to Me. [Isaiah 1:11-13]
And another prophet [Hosea 6:6] says in God's name:
For I desire kindness, not sacrifice; obedience to God, rather than burnt offerings.
One more quotation will suffice for our present purpose:
With what shall I approach God, do homage to the Lord on high? Shall I approach Him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Would God be pleased with thousands of rams, with myriads of streams of oil? … He has told you, O man, what is good, and what God requires of you: only to do justice and to love goodness, and to walk modestly with your God. [Micah 6:6-8]
19:
Like very many modern Jews Rambam was philosophically bifurcated. In his great halakhic compendium, Mishneh Torah, he toes the halakhic line and goes into the fine details of all the sacrifices. However, in his magnum opus on religious philosophy, The Guide for the Perplexed, he has a different attitude towards the sacrificial system. In Chapter 32 of Part 3 Rambam sees the sacrificial cultus as a necessary sop to human frailty:
As sacrificial worship is not the primary objective, whilst supplications, prayers, and similar kinds of worship are closer to the primary objective, and indispensable for obtaining it, a great difference was made in the Torah between these two kinds of worship. The one kind, which consists in offering sacrifices … was not made obligatory for us to the same extent [as the other, prayer]. We were not commanded to sacrifice in every place, and in every time, or to build a temple in every place, or to permit any one who so desires to become priest and to sacrifice. On the contrary, all this is prohibited to us. Only one temple has been appointed, "in the place which God shall choose" [Deuteronomy 12:26]; in no other place is it permitted to sacrifice … and only the members of a particular family were allowed to officiate as priests. All these restrictions served to limit this kind of worship, and keep it within those bounds within which God did not think it necessary to abolish sacrificial service altogether. But prayer and supplication can be offered everywhere and by every person.
But Rambam does not stop there. He argues further about why the sacrificial cultus was introduced into Israel at all!
By this Divine plan [the sacrificial cultus] it was effected that the traces of idolatry were blotted out, and the truly great principle of our faith, the existence and unity of God, was firmly established; this result was thus obtained without deterring or confusing the minds of the people by the abolition of the [sacrificial] worship to which they were accustomed and which alone was familiar to them.
In other words, the people of Israel were not yet ready for a system of worship that was not sacrificial. They needed to be weaned away from idolatry in degrees and the first stage was not the abolition of the sacrificial cult, but utilizing it solely in the worship of God. Rambam says this quite specifically:
It is contrary to man's nature that he should suddenly abandon all the different kinds of Divine service and various customs in which he has been brought up, and which were so widespread that they were considered as a matter of course… In the same way the portion of the Torah under discussion [the sacrificial system] is the result of divine wisdom, according to which people are allowed to continue the kind of worship to which they have been accustomed, in order that they might acquire the true faith, which is the chief object of God's commandments.
In other words, the sacrificial system as introduced into Israel as an initial measure only, because the people were not yet ready for anything more sophisticated.
20:
Such are the philosophic bases for the changes that the Siddur Va'ani Tefillati introduced into the Musaf Amidah. God willing, we shall study these changes in detail in our next shiur.
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