PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS WEEK’S MOREH IS TWICE AS LONG AS USUAL; THAT IS BECAUSE NEXT WEEK I WILL BE JOINING A UJC (UNITED JEWISH COMMUNITIES) SOLIDARITY MISSION TO ISRAEL. FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO READ THIS WEEK BY WEEK, PLEASE STOP IN THE MIDDLE AND SAVE THE SECOND HALF FOR NEXT WEEK, WHEN NO SHIUR WILL BE MAILED.

THE BEIT HAMIKDASH, CONTINUED

Until this point in the chapter, we had been discussing ways in which the Mikdash was differentiated from places of idol worship. One last set of such differentiations was in the area of nudity, which Rambam notes was a focus of Pe`or worship. It is for that reason that Priests were required to wear pants, but in addition to which the Torah prohibited steps going up to the altar. The verse in the Torah explicitly explains the need for a ramp rather than steps as a function of a desire to avoid nakedness; since the priests were wearing pants, though, the verse is difficult. Rambam’s explanation, that the sensitivity to nakedness was heightened by Pe`or worship, suggests that the Torah means that even an act that on other occasions would lead to nakedness is to be avoided, so that the Temple carry none of the overtones of the pagan places of worship.

GLORIFYING AND EXALTING

Many other practices of the Temple, in Rambam’s presentation, were in order to exalt the Sanctuary. The role of the Priests and Levites in walking around the Mikdash as guards, was to insure that people would not go to the Temple inappropriately. Interestingly, Rambam includes in that a prohibition to go to the Mikdash in torn clothing and with unkempt hair. Although he does not discuss the issue at length, he uses phrasing that comes up in the Torah a couple of times—the metsora (the leper, in the incorrect common translation) is required to tear his clothes and allow his hair to be unkempt, while the High Priest (at all times of history) and Aharon and his sons (after the deaths of Nadav and Avihu), are warned not to have either of these be true of them.

That means—and indeed he codifies this for priests—that Rambam thought there was a general problem with entering the Temple in this state of dress. One could have read the verses in the Torah as referring to specific people whose status—as a leper or mourner-- would prevent them from entering the Temple, with the clothing and the hair being a physical expression of the status. Rambam, however, seems to see the physical state itself as the problem, with it being the job of the priests and Levites to make sure that the general populace respected those standards—there was a dress code at the Beit haMikdash, in Rambam’s view, as part of creating the proper atmosphere. Along the lines of the dress code, Rambam sees the bigdei kehunah, the garments of the priest, as a means of inspiring awe in those who saw them.

One more example of a rule of entry that fosters awe is that even Priests who are fit to serve in the Temple may not sit down, nor may they enter without any specific service to perform. Going one step further, they may not enter the Holy of Holies, except for the High Priest on Yom Kippur.

Moving on to the second group of functionaries in the Mikdash, Rambam explains the Levites role as singing, to inspire those who heard it in three ways, through the words, the melodies, and the musical accompaniment.

While music affects the sense of hearing, the incense was burned in the morning and at night in order to insure that the Temple was a sweet-smelling place; otherwise, it would smell like a slaughterhouse and people would have treated it as such. Rambam cites a Mishnah that says the incense could be smelled in Jericho, which may or may not have been hyperbole, but at the very least justifies his claim that it was strong enough to fully counteract the smell of the slaughtered animals.

Anointing priests was partially to provide a pleasant smell for them, at least on the day of their anointing, but was also to make them special, so that others would treat them as such, which is also the reason that it was prohibited to make and/or use anointing oil or incense for any purpose other than the Temple service.

SPECIALIZATION

One more interesting point in Rambam’s presentation is his assumption that specializing jobs and places would help the Temple. In terms of jobs, he thought the prohibition against one person doing the job that another generally did was in order to insure that everything went smoothly and was correctly performed—those who do the job all the time are the ones we can trust to do it correctly each time. Hundreds of years before Henry Ford came up with the assembly line, or studies showed that it is better to go to a doctor who has performed a procedure many times than to a newcomer to it, Rambam already knew to go to a specialist.

Second, the detailed list of levels of holiness in the Temple (the courtyard was more holy than the Temple Mount, etc.) given in the Mishnah was also a way for people to remain intimately aware of the different parts of the Temple and the need to treat it reverently. Fundamentally, then, the point of any law having to do with the setup of the Temple was to create the right attitude—to differentiate it from idol worship, to exalt it, and to have it be a place that inspires appropriate reactions. The center of the Temple, though, was sacrifice, which Rambam discusses in chapter 46.

CHAPTER 46

This chapter is meant to discuss the commandments of sacrifice, which Rambam notes he has discussed somewhat in previous chapters, but will discuss in full now. The first question he raises is the species of animals the Torah allows for sacrifice.

THE ANIMALS OF SACRIFICE

He notes that the Egyptians used to worship sheep, such that shepherds and those who ate sheep were an abomination to the Egyptians, as the Torah testifies. Similarly, his tradition is that the Sabians (the archetypal pagans, whom we have met before) believed that their gods could take the form of goats, and therefore would not slaughter goats. Finally, the Indians (as is still true today, I believe) would not slaughter oxen, since they believed in some way in their divinity. To counteract these pernicious notions, the Torah used these animals (and only these) in the exact opposite way, by saying that their slaughter was in fact the exact vehicle of bringing about one’s closeness with God.

A couple of points are worth noting here. First, Rambam refers to the pagan beliefs about animals as the disease, with sacrifice as the opposite action that will heal it. That echoes his opinion in the Mishneh Torah (Hilkhot De`ot) that the way to educate one’s character is by going to the opposite extreme from one’s current character, as a method of training. Thus, a person who is excessively frugal with his/her money should go to the other extreme for a limited period of time, to train oneself to loosen the purse strings a bit (and vice verse, for every character trait). He calls this a process of healing—just like, in his view, medicine fundamentally counteracts disease by the opposite, cooling down someone with a fever and so on.

Using that terminology regarding sacrifices suggests that he saw animal sacrifice as a way to cure humanity of the belief in the divinity of animals, explaining why only those species that were seen by somebody as divine qualified for sacrifice. Further, Rambam points out that many people could not offer an animal in sacrifice, an issue I think of whenever I see people rush to say birkat hagomel in shul. We generally recite hagomel on occasions when, had the Temple been standing, we would have brought a thanksgiving offering. It is, however, much easier to say a berakhah than it is to spend the hundreds of dollars on an animal for sacrifice.

In the times of the Temple, therefore, birds and flour were also acceptable (although for those, his reasoning does not work; there it would presumably be a cure for the pagan notion of sacrifice generally). Most importantly, though, he stresses that voluntary sacrifice (by making a neder) was unnecessary, and it was safer not to promise such sacrifices. While that does not explain the situations where sacrifice is required, such as the public daily sacrifices and the sacrifices for sins legislated by the Torah, it does point out that sacrifice is less crucial to personal religiosity than some might think.

Along the same lines—discussing the foods that were appropriate for sacrifice—Rambam notes that idolaters used to bring bread and honey in sacrifice. This explains for him the prohibition against having bread or honey on the altar (indeed, only one kind of offering involved bread at all, for all the rest it was matsah), and the requirement to have salt at every offering—as the opposite to honey. Presumably, they wanted to sweeten their sacrifices to make them more pleasing to God, while we recognize that it is not the specific foodstuffs that count (or their taste), but our responsiveness and sincerity in listening to the Divine Command.

PRESERVING THE EXALTED STATUS OF SACRIFICES

Rambam sees a whole slew of laws of the Torah as dedicated to guaranteeing the appropriate attitude towards the sacrifices. Before we mention a few of those (the whole list is on page 583 in the Pines edition of the Moreh), I would note that two of the verses he quotes come from the first chapter of Malachi. In that chapter, the prophet (speaking for God) chastises the people for their dereliction in the area of sacrifice. It is worth paying attention to the prophecy, since so many other prophecies stress God’s disinterest in sacrifice, when compared to other religious activity. We might think, then, that God does not care about sacrifice really, so that our proper respect for the sacrifices is largely unimportant. Malachi shows, however, that even granting the importance of interpersonal relations and other such acts, sacrifices must be handled with all appropriate care as well.

Among the rules Rambam includes are: the age of the birds brought for sacrifice, depending on whether that species is better when young (pigeons) or old (turtledoves); that flour sacrifices had to be mixed with oil; that the burnt offering was washed even though it was going to be entirely burnt; that an uncircumcised or ritually impure person could not eat the sacrifices; that there was a specific ranges of time and place within which to eat each sacrifice, depending on their level of sanctity; and the prohibition against gaining any pleasure or benefit from materials belonging to the Temple.

One final rule, clearly meant to preserve the sanctity of the Temple, has to do with redeeming materials donated to the Temple. Ordinarily such materials may be simply purchased from the Temple for their fair market value (so that if I donate stock to the Temple, for example, the treasurer of the Temple could sell that stock on the open market for its fair market value), if the person who donated it wishes to redeem it him(her)self, the Torah requires that person to add one-fifth (it’s really what we would call one-quarter, but that’s a different discussion) of its value in redeeming it.

Rambam explains that as protection against people’s tendencies to be cheap with their money. That tendency to hold on to one’s possessions will lead a person to underestimate the value of the object, or, at least, to not check out its value fully.

Rambam next devotes a paragraph to the law that a priest’s minhah (flour) offering had to be completely burnt. In other menahot, some of the flour was offered on the altar, and the rest belonged to the priest who had offered it. In the case of a priest offering a minhah, then, the priest himself would offer up some of it and then eat the rest, which does not have the form of a sacrifice at all. To avoid the appearance of the priests having this advantage (being able to convert the flour they eat into holy flour at will), the Torah mandated burning all of that sacrifice.

THE RULES OF THE PASCHAL SACRIFICE

Rambam explains central rules of the preparation and eating of the Korban Pesah (Paschal lamb) as a result of the desire to reproduce the hipazon of the original Paschal sacrifice. That is, in Egypt God commanded the Jews to eat the sacrifice be-hipazon, in haste. That haste required roasting the meat, since any other form of preparation is more complicated and therefore longer. It also led to the prohibition against breaking any of the bones of the sacrifice, since the breaking would be for the purpose of extracting what is within, again creating a delay. Finally, sending parts of the sacrifice to other households, and waiting for the messenger to return, would lead to further delay.

Such delay was a problem at the time of the Exodus, Rambam says, because it might lead some people to miss out on joining their brethren in leaving Egypt, and open them up to danger from the Egyptians. This strikes me as very odd; does Rambam really believe that even at that juncture of the Exodus story there was a chance that Egyptians would harm Jews? I have never understood the hipazon as a function of Jewish worry about the Egyptians, just as a function of their being required to be ready for the Exodus whenever the Master of the Universe chose to free them.

A second odd aspect of Rambam’s presentation is his reasoning, that these rules are meant to reproduce the hipazon of the Exodus. However, the laws surrounding this rule do not support Rambam’s rendition of it—for example, the prohibition applies to Pesah Sheni, the second opportunity for a Paschal sacrifice that comes a month after Pesah (but that has no connection to hipazon), but not to a sacrifice brought be-tum’ah, with the majority of the community being ritually impure (which theoretically should be be-hipazon, since that is the communal re-enactment of the Exodus for that year). For interesting contrast, see the Sefer haHinukh, who explains the mitsvah as insuring that we eat the sacrifice in a dignified manner, as befits princes, and not like ravenously hungry people (meaning that the point of the mitsvah was to make sure we weren’t too fast in our eating).

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN CIRCUMCISION AND PESAH

Rambam also advances an interesting notion for why sources connect circumcision and Pesah. As Rambam notes, Hazal interpreted the verse that refers to the Jewish people as mitboseset be-damayikh, as wallowing in two types of blood, as referring to dam milah and dam Pesah, the blood of circumcision and the blood of the Paschal sacrifice. It has also been pointed out that these are the only two positive commandments that are punished by karet for their nonfulfillment. Rambam notes the tradition that the Jews had not circumcised themselves during their time in slavery in Egypt. He ascribes this neglect to a desire to assimilate with the Egyptians. To prepare themselves for the Paschal sacrifice, then, they had to circumcise themselves all at once, and there was so much blood that it mingled with the blood of the sacrifice.

Rambam does not explain any further, but it strikes me that in his model, the Jewish people thought they could both assimilate and remain part of the nation. If their neglecting circumcision was an attempt to assimilate and forego one’s Jewish identity, they should not have cared about the Paschal sacrifice. That they nonetheless circumcised themselves to join in that sacrifice means that, for all that they wanted to assimilate into Egyptian society, still thought of themselves as Jewish. In that reading of events, then, the milah and the Pesah were God’s way of showing the people that they could not in fact have it both ways—being Jewish means being separate and different in at least some important ways, and those two ceremonies were fundamental means of minimal national identification.

THE MEANING AND ROLE OF BLOOD

Rambam then gives a remarkable interpretation of the laws surrounding blood and sacrifice. I say remarkable because I am not sure that it is convincing, but as a feat of careful reading and synthesis of material, it is clearly worth noting. Rambam asserts that the Sabians used to think of blood as a vehicle for creating conversation with jinns (a term that Rambam does not define, but seems to mean nonhuman, somewhat devilish creatures who know the future). People wanted to associate with jinn so that they could know the future, and since jinn eat blood, eating blood was a good way. For those who simply could not force themselves to eat blood—since Rambam asserts that people have always found the eating of blood abhorrent—would slaughter the animal and collect the blood in a little pit, believing that the jinn would eat the blood, while they could eat the meat while sitting nearby, and thus achieve closeness to the jinn.

The Torah wanted to wipe out that whole practice, through several laws. First, it forbade the eating of blood in a way similar to the way it prohibits idolatry. According to Rambam, the Torah only uses the locution of God "putting my face against" someone for the sins of idolatry and eating blood. That proves to him that eating blood is also a sin of idolatry.

The problem with that claim is that the Torah also uses that phrase about ov and yid`oni, two prohibited forms of witchcraft, and at the beginning of the tokhahah, the sustained rebuke at the end of Vayikra. Unless we claim that witchcraft is a problem because it is similar to idol worship, and that the tokhahah focuses centrally on idol worship—both possible claims but not necessary ones—Rambam’s proof is not tenable.

Rambam notes that what we do with the blood was also sharply different from the Sabian practice. First, we use it as a means of achieving closeness with God, whereas the Sabians saw it as the food of devils. Second, we sprinkle it and pour it—for the Sabians, it was in collecting it that it had any value.

Another law that contributed to the defeat of blood-worship was the prohibition against eating meat in the desert other than that of sacrifice. Meat-eating, in Rambam’s conception, was an opportunity to congregate near the jinn and associate with them, especially in the desert, where the Sabians believed these jinns congregated. It was for that reason that elective meat-eating was prohibited there. Of course, if that were the reason , it should have applied at all times to eating meat in the desert. A second reason Rambam mentions for that prohibition is that the Jews needed to time to weaken their attachment to this practice. Again, however, that reasoning raises the question of why only this rule could be temporary (besar ta’avah was permitted when the Jews reached Israel), whereas other blood-rules were permanent.

I certainly have my own thoughts on the issue of blood and its meaning in Judaism, but this is not the place for that discussion. In terms of Rambam, however, he has presented a stimulating perspective grouping together many details of the Jewish attitude towards blood under one umbrella; even if we do not accept his entire framework, we can be sure that any whole picture of the Torah’s view of blood would have to grapple seriously with issues he has raised.

When I return from Erets Yisrael, be"H, we will finish chapter 46. See you then.