Wednesday, April 26, 2006

This is in the merit of my wonderful mother in honor of her birthday and in recognition of the boundless love she has shown me.





Tazria/Metzora





Very often, we find ourselves disagreeing with other people or with organizations. Very often, we feel that not only are they are wrong but that they are also causing great harm. Very often, we feel the need to speak out.



Assuming that our fears are founded and that we really do need to give criticism, how does the Torah say it should be given?



I believe that one important principle of criticizing can be found in this week's Torah reading.





The laws of tzaraas (commonly translated as leprosy but really understood by most classic commentators as some sort of spiritual disease) require that the priest pronounce the individual with tzaraas unclean (Leviticus 13:3) which requires that plagued individual temporarily dwell outside the camp. However, the priest must also leave the camp in order to purify the sick person (Leviticus 14:3-4).



On the basis of this, Rav Soloveitchik says that when we criticize others, we must also practically help them. (Fate and Destiny, by Rav Soloveitchik, translated from the Hebrew by Rabbi Lawrence Kaplan, page 40)





It is not enough to point fingers but rather we must be helpful, constructive, and beneficial. We must give them practical advice and aid them in repairing whatever went wrong.



Simply blaming might be the worst thing we can do because blaming usually results in counter-blaming and a deterioration of the situation. At the very least, we should refrain from focusing on blame. At the very least, things will not get worse and more importantly, by not thinking about blame, we will be able to focus on practical solutions (Harmony with Others, by Rabbi Zelig Pliskin, page 24).
This is in the merit of my Rav, R. Mayer Pasternak, and his family. I am sure that I can speak for my community that it is good to have them back.





The Counting of the Omer





“Immediately when the children of Israel left Egypt and passed the Sea of Reads, they came to Moses our Teacher with a contention: ‘Behold, you assured us that when we leave Egypt we would immediately receive the Torah like the verse says ‘Take out this take from Egypt so that they serve G-d on this mountain’ (Exodus 3:12) and if so, where is this mountain and where is this Torah?’ But Moses answered to them ‘It is impossible for a nation that until now was enslaved physically and spiritually to a harsh king and a hard nation-state – Pharaoh and Egypt – to immediately be prepared and ready for receiving the Torah and to reverse itself in an instant to be the chosen nation and kingdom of priests. Before it all, you need a number of preparatory weeks, that in this time you will labor in preparation of the soul and purification of its traits. And through this you will ascend from the level of a servant into order to be fitting for receiving the Torah.’… And for this reason it became a custom for all the generations after them, that also us, receivers of the Torah anew each year in the holiday of Shavuos, need to prepare to stand to receive the Torah by way of perfecting our traits…” (Emes L’Yaakov on Pirkei Avos, introduction, by Rav Yaakov Kaminetsky, translated by me)





Thus the time of counting the Omer is a time of self improvement, character refinement, and spiritual growth. There are customs to learn Pirkei Avos or specific concepts based on Avos 6:6.



However, if this is a time of growth, I believe that there is a great deal that one can learn about growth, how to grow, from the presentation of Sefiras HaOmer.



Let us start with the name ‘Omer.’ An Omer is a specific measurement of barely. While it is true that mitzvos have numerical quantities like Chanukah candles must burn for half an hour or one must drink a Revi’is of fluid for each of the four cups, none of these mitzvos are called by their measurement. (For example, we don’t refer to the four cups as Revi’is Cosos or something along those lines.) Yet regarding Omer it is called by its measurement. The Nesivos Shalom (I don’t remember where) asks why?



He gives an answer but I would like to give my own. I believe that by singling out the mitzvah of the Sefiras HaOmer, which corresponds to spiritual growth, by referring to it by its measurement, the Torah is teaching us that growth must be measured. We can’t do it all at once, it must be done in steps. (I highly recommend people see a one minute video by Aish HaTorah which really brings this idea home. http://www.aish.com/movies/highh.asp)





Another idea we can learn about growth comes from an insight of Rav Soloveitchik on the halacha of counting. (http://vbm-torah.org/archive/halak65/25halak.htm)



The BaHaG (The Baal Halachos Gedolos, an extremely old halacha book written around the year maybe 700 CE by a Gaon who’s name has been forgotten) says that if one forgets to count one night, one can count the next day without a blessing and can count all subsequent nights with a blessing. And since we make a blessing on each night, each night must be its own separate mitzvah.



But if counting during the day is done without a blessing, and thus not a mitzvah, why count at all during the day? And why would such counting allow one to count later nights with a blessing?



“Rav Soloveitchik introduces another concept into the discussion: the simple act of counting. If a person forgets one whole night and day of the omer and then picks up the count on the next night, his count was, for instance, 26, 27, 29, 30. That is not a normal way of counting. Even if every night of the omer is a separate mitzva, this mitzva must be considered counting, a steady progression. Counting the omer is a mitzva act, but that mitzva act must entail simple counting! That means that one number must follow the next without skipping. This is the reason that the Behag says that if one forgot to count at night he should count during the following day - to make sure that his counting on the next night will be normal counting, one number after the other. Counting during the day after missing it at night is not a fulfillment of a mitzva. It is still relevant, though, because it allows you to retain a simple count so that the next night you are able to fulfill the mitzva. The Torah's expression "temimot tihiyena" - "they should be complete" - teaches us that the count must be a constant progression. The simple act of counting must be complete, without skipping. Therefore, he explains, when one misses a day, he cannot continue counting with a blessing. He is not counting. When he counts normally, though, every night is its own mitzva.” (www.vbm-torah.org/3weeks/mf.htm)



Based on this, we can say growth must be cumulative. It is not enough to work on one area, say laziness, and then move on to say not gossiping. At the very least, while no longer working on laziness, we must continue to guard ourselves to make sure that we don’t lapse into being lazy. And probably the best thing to is to always be working just a bit, moving forward just a tiny step, in each area which we have already worked on.





Biography of Rav Yaakov Kaminetsky http://chareidi.shemayisrael.com/archives5761/vayakhel/features2.htm







Have a good Shabbas,
Mordechai

Friday, April 21, 2006

This is in the merit of my Grandmother, Esther bat Mazal. May she have a speedy and complete recovery.





Parshas Shemini





Question:

“Fire came forth from before God and consumed the burnt offering and the choice parts on the altar. When the people saw this, they raised their voices in praise and threw themselves on their faces” (Leviticus 9:24).



Where else do we see similar religious reactions? What is the connection between these events?







Last week I messed up by not looking at a Jewish calendar (Shabbas during Passover has its own reading) and wrote on Parshas Shemini a week early. I am writing another devar Torah on the parshah.





Our parshah contains the death of Aaron’s oldest sons, Nadab and Abihu:



“Aaron's sons, Nadab and Avihu, each took his fire pan, placed fire on it, and then incense on it. They offered before God strange fire, which [God] had not commanded them [to offer]. Fire came forth from before God, and it consumed them, so that they died before God” (Leviticus 10:1-2).



Their sin would clearly appear to be that they offered “strange fire” but what made their fire “strange” and what motivated them to bring it?



Nechama Leibowitz (Studies on Leviticus, volume 1, page 123) quotes the Sifra which answers the second question:



“Overwhelmed by joy on perceiving the new fire [after the Tabernacle’s first official use] they sought to redouble their love, whereupon they ‘took each one his [firepan]’”



Thus, our Sages teach us that Nadab and Abihu were motivated by love of G-d. But if this is the case, what was their sin!? Why was their fire strange?





Nechama cites the Biur (page 124), a commentary written by Moses Mendelssohn in collaboration with other scholars which says that their fire was strange because “[God] had not commanded them [to offer it]” (Leviticus 10:1)!



This is a very scary proposition indeed. The very fact that the service had not been commanded invalidated it and deemed it foreign!



Our great teacher, Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch, discusses how this flows out of the very nature of the Tabernacle and Temple service. He says “The Jewish offering means to place the offerer at God’s service, i.e., he wants to fulfill God’s wishes through his offering. All offerings are therefore forms of Divine demands which the offerer through his offering accepts as the guidelines for his future conduct. Self-devised sacrifices would destroy the truth which i[t] meant to achieve[,] man’s submission to [God] by [way of] the very sacrifice [being brought], and would mean the glorification of arbitrary subjectivity and [making] it [arbitrary subjectivity] the [prime goal of life] which should [instead] be dedicated wholly and exclusively to obedience to God” (cited by Nechama, page 125). (I have previously discussed the translations in Nechama’s studies.)



Thus, he concludes “There is no room for any subjective discretion in any part if the sacrificial service in the Sanctuary. Precise limits and forms are prescribed which must be adhered to. The closeness of and approach to God, which we seek with every offering, may only be found through obedience to and acceptance of God’s will…”



This same interpretation is also advanced by Nechama Leibowitz’s brother, Professor Yeshayu Leibowitz (although with a slightly different connotation) and he says that the worship of G-d has the potential to be twisted into idolatry. (Accepting the Yoke of Heaven, by Yeshayahu Leibowitz, page 105)



This would also most likely be a manifestation of Adam 1 infiltrating the Adam 2 community discussed by Rav Soloveitchik near the end of The Lonely Man of Faith.



[This should not be taken to mean that there is no room for volunteerism at all, half of Rav Soloveitchik’s book Halakhic Man is devoted to Halakhic Man’s creativity! There can often be a fine line between what is allowed and encouraged and what is utterly forbidden. I do not know of a way to draw a philosophically clear line and the matter requires much further thought. However, we can be certain that when halacha is being violated, deep down inside, one is not acting with the proper motivation. Accidental violations become even harder to categorize. This all requires further thought.]



I already discussed in Parshas Re’eh how we are to channel our feelings through the halacha and let them guide and give expression to our thoughts and emotions.



Nechama Leibowitz herself expressed this opposition to subjective religiosity in opposition to Jewish feminism. The following is an excerpt from Tales of Nechama, by Leah Abramowitz:



“Rachel Kosofsky recalls an argument she once had with Nechama. Nechama had seen a picture of a woman praying and wearing a tallit. It offended her. Rachel tried to defend the woman and the movement behind her. Nechama was adamant, ‘They don’t wear the tallit for spiritual uplifting,’ she declared. ‘They just want to make a feminist statement.’ Rachel mentioned that for some women wearing a tallit improved their davening (praying). ‘You go to shul to daven, not to get a spiritual uplifting,’ Nechama retorted. ‘If you want to get high you take drugs.’ She thought the whole tumult was just a by-product of American feminism, creeping into Israeli society.”

“Rachel pointed out that one of the biggest poskim (halachic authorities) in Jerusalem did not unambiguously reject the custom of women wearing tallitot. This didn’t impress Nechama. She saw it as a first step on the slippery slope to religious deterioration. ‘Women have enough mitzvot, they don’t have to wear a tallit to fulfill their commandments,’ she continued. The issue so engaged her thoughts that she called Rachel up later that night to continue the argument. ‘My brother goes to synagogue every morning at 5:00 a.m. He doesn’t do it to get high, or to improve his kavanah (concentration). He goes simply to fulfill a commandment to pray. I don’t have to go to shul at 5:00 a.m. I can visit sick people in the hospital or do other mitzvot’” (page 72).



[I copied correctly. The name was Rachel Kosofsky, not (Morah) Rachel Kosowsky, who was a student of Nechama.]



It is worth noting that my Rosh Yeshiva, R. Pesach Wolicki told me that his father, R. Yosef Wolicki (who was a very close student of Nechama) had told him, that Nechama knew the Talmud but you would never know. He said the reason was not because she feared people criticizing her but rather because of her tremendous humility. It seems to be to be apparent that she did not view intensive Talmud study for women, or at least for individual women, to be part of feminism, which she was vehemently opposed to. Regardless, we would all do well to learn from her and not show off what we know.



My primary goal was not to write a polemic against feminism but rather to give a real practical example of a religious principle that the death of Aaron’s sons is coming to teach us.


Have a good Shabbas,
Mordechai




-------



Feminism within Orthodoxy is a very difficult topic which although I personally have strong feelings, not being female, I feel that it is not my place to voice my opinions. One the one hand we have http://www.ou.org/publications/ja/5760winter/dancing%20on%20the%20edge.pdf but we also have http://www.ou.org/publications/ja/5760winter/orthodox%20feminism.pdf.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Parshas Shemini



This is in the merit of my grandmother, Esther bat Mazal. May she have a speedy and complete recovery.





Question:

What was perhaps the first dietary in the Torah?





Kashrus



This week's Torah portion contains the details of the Jewish dietary laws, Kashrus. This devar Torah will focus solely on the types of animals allowed and forbidden for consumption. What purpose do these commandments serve?



Two classic answers are given:

1. For health, we must abstain from unhealthy foods

2. To separate us from non-Jews



The first answer just does not hold up to intellectual scrutiny and even more so, we know that it cannot be true. While today Kosher food can often more healthy, this is only because for example maggots and all sorts of other critters aren't put into our Kosher tuna fish. Really, there are plenty of unhealthy Kosher foods and healthy non-Kosher foods.



And Nechama Leibowitz (Studies on Leviticus 152-153) cites Rav Dovid Tzvi Hoffman who demonstrates that the second reason is not supported by the verses:



"…I am God your Lord who has separated you out from among all the nations. You must therefore separate out the clean animals and birds from the unclean. Do not make yourselves disgusting through animals, birds or other creatures that I have separated out for you as being unclean. You shall be holy to Me, for I, God, am holy, and I have separated you out from among the nations to be Mine.'" (Leviticus 20:24-26)



While no doubt Kashrus does socially separate us from non-Jews, the Torah seems to be saying that because we are different in some way (for a different discussion, but certainly it has nothing to do with any elitism), we cannot eat certain foods.





So why are these restrictions on animals here?



I believe we can answer based on a comment from the Chasam Sofer quoted by Nechama (page 155).



"'These are the animals which you shall eat' (11:12). Scripture opens with the permitted foods and thus also concerning the fishes and grasshoppers, implying that in principle we ought not to eat any living being. Hence the introduction: 'Speak to the children of Israel saying, these are the living things which you may eat' which constitutes an innovation"



In other words, because of our mission as a "kingdom of priests and a holy nation" (Exodus 19:6), perhaps we really should not eat any creatures at all. The prohibition of paining animals in indeed Biblical (heard from Rav Avishai David shlita, perhaps this is derived from Exodus 23:5). Thus, by only eating only Kosher animals, we are displaying a level of kindness to animals.



Or alternatively, the world is G-d's and we can't eat anything. G-d has decided to give us some animals to eat and without this permission, we would be prohibited from taking from His world. Thus, by eating only Kosher animals, we are demonstrating that G-d owns everything.





The Chasam Sofer http://www.ou.org/about/judaism/rabbis/sofer.htm




Have a good Shabbas,
Mordechai

Friday, April 07, 2006

This is in the merit of my Grandmother, Esther bat Mazal. May she have a speedy and complete recovery.



Question

Why in this week's parsha does the Torah repeat much information mentioned in last week's parsha? Pay attention to the differences in organization.





The Halachist and the Mathematician





While researching more on the topic of offerings, I looked into my Sim Shalom Siddur (Conservative) and noticed that they removed the prayers for restoration of the Temple Service without giving a source. Since it has been my experience with the Conservative Movement that they rarely do things without having some sort of something to rely on, I contacted a local conservative Rabbi in Baltimore hoping for something intelligent. He sent me a short essay written by somebody which was quite disappointing. (The essay and my short comments are below for those who want to read it.) This devar Torah will focus on one passage of this essay:



“Some see the renewal of sacrifices as a matter of immediate urgency and would go so far as to precipitate a major conflict with all of Islam in order to restore the Temple service. They go to great lengths to study how sacrifices should be brought and to reproduce the Temple vessels.”



It is indeed true that there is a group who would like to demolish the Dome of the Rock and start offering animals despite the fact that this would necessarily lead to war. Since the leading halachic authorities from across the religious world have forbade Jews from even ascending the Temple Mount (let alone restarting the Temple service), this group is quite small and quite fringe. (There is most unfortunately a much larger group which believes starting a war with the Arabs with bring the messiah and restore the Temple and this group has even received approval from some scholars from the Religious Zionist world. This sad fact is outside this devar Torah.)



However, learning the laws of offerings and the Temple service is a completely different matter. These laws are discussed in the Mishnah and analyzed in the Gemara, codified by the Rambam in his Mishnah Torah, etc. In fact, in Halakhic Man, Rav Soloveitchik spends several pages (23-29, and endnote 27 found on pages 147-148) discussing just a small fraction of scholars throughout the ages who learned, taught, and wrote on all areas of Torah, including those which are not applicable today because our sins have prevented the Temple’s rebuilding. Why would such bright people “waste their time” learning all this? Rav Soloveitchik compares halacha to math and provides us with a deep answer.



There are fundamental laws of math which govern even the laws of nature and mathematicians spend their lives attempting to comprehend these laws. These laws extend farther than Euclidian geometry into realms where the shortest distance between points need not be geometric lines.



So too with the Torah! It is the revealed will of G-d and it is the Law par excellence which underlies the spiritual reality. When a halachic man looks at the word, he does so through the eyes of Torah and halacha. Does this pool of water qualify as a mikvah? Has the sun set low enough to recite evening prayers? etc. (see pages 19-23) (This does not mean that one should not enjoy nature, this topic is discussed in The Lonely Man of Faith.)



Moreover, since the Torah is G-d’s will, when one learns and comprehends Torah, even if the law or concept cannot be immediately realized, he or she grabs hold of a piece of the infinite, a piece of G-d’s revealed will! This connection to G-d is at the heart of the concept of kedusha (holiness).



In Rav Soloveitchik’s own words:

“Kedusha is generated only by closeness to God. Who is holy? Whoever is touched by the Holy One, by God's hand. But, the question arises, how can man exist in the proximity of God? The gemara (Ketubot 111b) asks, "Is it possible for Man to cleave to the Holy Presence? Is it not a 'fire devouring fire?'" The gemara answers that we should associate with talmidei chachamim, with Torah scholars. How can one feel the hand of God resting on one's shoulder, feel the breath of eternity on his face? - through the Torah! Halakha does not favor mystical union, in which one's identity is negated. How can one get close to God and yet preserve the full sense of personality, of encounter? The answer is through knowledge, the study of Torah.

How does the study of Torah unite man with God, the human being with his Maker? How can it bring together finitude and infinity, temporal transience and eternity? The Rambam develops the idea of "achdut hamaskil ve-hamuskal" (the unity of knower and known, the subject and the object of knowledge). This is not only found in the Moreh Nevuchim, but in the Yad Hachazaka as well (Hilkhot Yesodei Hatorah, and, by implication, in Hilkhot Teshuva). The Sefer HaTanya writes about this doctrine of the Rambam that "all the sages of the Kabbala have agreed with him." I will not go into the philosophical explanation of this principle now, but we may immediately draw one conclusion. If the knower and the object known are merged into one, then two knowers whose minds are concentrated on the same object are also united. If a=c, and b=c, then a=b. People with common thoughts cannot long remain strangers, indifferent to each other. Wherever there is unity of thought, purpose and commitment, there is also personalistic unity. The Rambam (Commentary to Avot) concludes that the highest form of friendship is the unity of knowledge - "chaver ledei'a." In a like manner, when man becomes completely absorbed in God's thought, in His revealed WORD, then he is indeed united with God, there is friendship between man and God. The Tanya writes, "When a man understands with his intellect, and comprehends and digests the infinite and inscrutable will of the Almighty, there is the most marvelous union between God and man." The link between man and God is thought. God is the originator of thought, man embraces it. This is the great bond uniting man and God, finitude with infinity.” (http://www.vbm-torah.org/archive/humility.htm)





Translating this into emotional terms and practical expectations, Rav Soloveitchik’s son in law, Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, writes beautifully:



“The attachment to Torah must be brimming with love, yearning, and passion - specifically for that which has not yet been learned. One who labors at three orders of the Talmud must feel that he is missing the other three; the emotional attachment to and longing for Torah consumes him simply by virtue of its being Torah, given to Moshe and to each individual Jew by God. The thirst for Torah, to be connected with it, to acquire it, should exist with respect to many things which appear distant, as it were, no less than with respect to those things which are, practically speaking, closer. One should feel with all his heart and soul that he is no more exempt from Uktzin [laws of the impurity of fruit stalks] than from Bava Kama [laws of damage]. Of course, not everyone achieves the same amount. But woe to the person who feels that he is exempt from aspiring to expand his horizons, utterly exempt from an entire subject. The spiritual attachment - the interconnectedness with and cleaving to Torah, the joy, the involvement - is the foundation of any serious effort to discover the truth that is in the Torah, to find the imagination within it. This is one pillar, one aspiration of the ben-Torah.” (http://vbm-torah.org/archive/sichot66/06-66ben.htm)



I believe we have adequately shown the basis for attempting to master all of Torah.



Of course, we should start from the beginning and that there are priorities. But Torah is Torah and it is there for us to learn.



“You are not required to complete the task, yet you are not free to withdraw from it” (Pirkei Avos 2:21).



Have a good Shabbas,
Mordechai







The essay:





[My comments will be in brackets.]



[Readers should note the utter lack of citing sources to back up ideas. This fact is most disturbing and raises many eyebrows and questions; I have, where I could, filled in sources. Readers should also note that it does not actually answer my question about the changing of the liturgy.]



When we read this week’s Torah portion of Tzav, we become aware of exactly how difficult the tasks of the kohanim, the priests were. We see them cleaning up the ashes, slaughtering the sacrificial animals, cutting up the meat and dashing the blood, a far cry from the more pleasant tasks of kohanim today who dispense blessings and participate in pidyon haben ceremonies. Of course it has been nearly two thousand years since they were called upon to offer sacrifices.



The question arises: How relevant is the sacrificial system to us today? For those who do not see in the Torah or mitzvot a binding way of life, the answer is obvious. But within the community of believers there are also differences of opinion. Some see the renewal of sacrifices as a matter of immediate urgency and would go so far as to precipitate a major conflict with all of Islam in order to restore the Temple service. [See above] They go to great lengths to study how sacrifices should be brought and to reproduce the Temple vessels. [See above. Also, it is worth noting that this specific idea of kohanim (priests) learning so that they can perform the Temple service was greatly pushed by the saintly Chofetz Chaim, Rabbi Yisroel Meir Kagan]



Others believe that the system will be restored again in one way or another but only in the future, in God’s good time. Yet others believe that, as important as sacrifices were, they are not appropriate for our time and should not be reinstated. To paraphrase Rabbi Haim Hirschensohn, a culture cannot go backwards. [Please provide source. See http://www.biblical.edu/images/connect/PDFs/Restoration%20.pdf for this idea’s use by a Protestant scholar] Therefore it is unimaginable that we could return to sacrifices as our primary method for worshiping God.



There is no question but that sacrifices were an integral part of worship in ancient days. However, regardless of how we feel about their relevance for today, we would do well to examine carefully the question of their importance and their role in the fabric of Jewish observance. I believe we would then discover that they were not the essence of Judaism but only one part of Judaism’s system of religious living, and not the most important at that. [It would appear from Pirkei Avos 2:1 that one cannot truly make such a comparison. Though there are rules of what takes priority, this is hardly the same thing as importance.]



The underlying purpose of the creation of the Tabernacle was not to enable sacrifices to be brought but so that God would dwell in the midst of the people. “Let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell amongst them”. [At best this is a vast oversimplification]



As the incident of the golden calf demonstrated, Israel was in desperate need of a physical symbol of the Divine Presence. The religious revolution that banned idols or any physical representation of God was difficult enough for a people that had lived for centuries in the very center of a civilization based upon such physical representations. To expect them to do without anything tangible, that assured them of God’s Presence, was impossible. [This comes from the Kuzari]



Similarly, at that time, worship without sacrifice was a virtual oxymoron. [This comes from the Rambam’s Morah Nevuchim. It is worth adding that the Rambam in hilchos Me’ila 8:8 and in his introduction to his commentary on the Mishnah says explicitly that the offerings will be reinstated in the future. When viewed along with what he writes in these sources, his statement in the Morah Nevuchim becomes far more clear. I want to thank my Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Pesach Wolicki, for showing me these sources.] Some of the Sages taught that the command to build the Sanctuary came only after the sin of the calf as a way of expiating that sin. [Some, see Nechama Leibowitz, New Studies in Exodus II, pages 469-470, note 5, for statements from Chazal which say the Tabernacle was not a response to sin but rather the ideal.] Had Israel not sinned, they would not have needed either the Sanctuary or the sacrifices. [Cain, Able, Noah, Abraham and othes offered offerings long before the golden calf] Sacrifices were taken for granted, but were not the heart of Israelite religion.



The Torah is filled with commandments and norms of life. Sacrifices are only one group of them, and hardly the most important. The laws of justice and civil norms are expounded before the sacrificial laws are detailed. [The laws of offerings however proceed the law to love your neighbor. It is clear that something coming first proves nothing.] The Ten Commandments give us the basic terms of the covenant and never mention sacrifices. [In Brachos we see Chazal setting down laws to combat such beliefs] As we all know so well, the prophets made it clear that justice and righteousness were far more important to God than sacrifices and that without them, sacrifices were utterly useless and even offensive to God.



Our society is so far from having attained the ideals of the Torah and achieving a life of morality and holiness that it seems ludicrous to spend so much time fantasizing about the sacrificial ritual [Briefly mentioning them in prayer is “so much time” and “fantasizing”?] when we should be concentrating on building the just society that the Torah describes. I do not mean to exaggerate, but for all the good things that we have achieved, and they are considerable, we still have a long way to go to become the society the Torah envisions.



Every day we see examples of lack of respect for other human beings, which is lack of respect for God since humans are created in God’s image. Our society is plagued with violence, with husbands killing their wives, with sexual predators and incest, with drivers who prefer speed to safety, with politicians who use their offices for personal gain. We have people living in poverty, homeless people wandering the streets, youth in danger, drug abuse, hatred of one group of Jews for another, women imported and sold as sex slaves, foreign workers mistreated by their employers.



The list of our failings is longer than we would like to think. If ritual is our concern, the most basic Jewish institution, Shabbat, is being called into question. [?] All of these demand our attention and should have priority in our concern.



I have the profoundest respect for the Torah’s descriptions of sacrifices. Israel’s sacrificial system was worlds apart from those of other groups and represented a monumental advance in human worship and in the concept of God. But I also believe that it must be seen in proportion and the lack of sacrifices must not be viewed as some cosmic catastrophe that must be corrected immediately regardless of the consequences.



What we have to correct is what the sacrifices stood for: a desire to draw close to God, a feeling of living with God in our midst, a recognition of the need to be grateful for all God has given us and a desire to share God’s bounty so that there will be no poverty and no suffering among us. Let us put our energies into the creation of that kind of a society that will itself be an expression of holiness on earth. Then God will indeed dwell amongst us.



[One should read http://www.masorti.org.uk/24-04-99.htm and see the mental gymnastics performed by the Conservative movement in an attempt to cope with this issue.]