Avodat HaShem: From Korbanot to T’fillah
(A Shavuot Teaching led by Student Rabbi Maayan Lev on May 26, 2023)
My teaching this Shavuot has to do with korbanot (sacrifices). Why choose to talk about sacrifices, of all things?
Because while we all love Torah (as we should), for many of us, there are often parts of the Torah that make us a bit uncomfortable. These are the parts we prefer not to focus on. But the fact of the matter is, large chunks of the Torah are dedicated to the point that G!d seemingly expected us to make regular animal sacrifices (via the kohanim, our priests) as the primary mode of worship.
It’s worth asking ourselves:
- How do we feel about the idea of sacrifices?
- And whatever it is we feel, how often have we really taken the time to address those feelings instead of pushing them away?
For many of us, we simply haven’t. (If you have, then all the credit to you!) When listing our favorite sections of the Torah, I’ve never heard anyone talk about how much they enjoy hearing about the sacrifices.
I think a lot of us breathe a sigh of relief knowing that without the holy Temple in Jerusalem, we aren’t expected to make those sacrifices anymore. But it turns out, even in the days of sacrifices, there was ALWAYS another way to worship and communicate with G!d: prayer.
If we look at the following snippets from the story of Hannah, we see a significant contrast between prayer and sacrifice:
I Samuel 1:3, 13, 12
וְעָלָה הָאִישׁ הַהוּא מֵעִירוֹ מִיָּמִים יָמִימָה לְהִשְׁתַּחֲוֺת וְלִזְבֹּחַ לַיהֹוָה צְבָאוֹת בְּשִׁלֹה
וְחַנָּה הִיא מְדַבֶּרֶת עַל־לִבָּהּ רַק שְׂפָתֶיהָ נָּעוֹת וְקוֹלָהּ לֹא יִשָּׁמֵעַ
וְהָיָה כִּי הִרְבְּתָה לְהִתְפַּלֵּל לִפְנֵי יְהֹוָה וְעֵלִי שֹׁמֵר אֶת־פִּיהָ׃
Elkanah used to go up from his town every year to worship
and to offer sacrifice to A-d-nai Tzva’ot at Shiloh, while Hannah was speaking from her heart; only her lips moved; her voice could not be heard.
She kept praying before G!d, as Eli watched her mouth.
Let’s consider the context here. Hannah desperately wanted a child, and her husband Elkanah was supportive of that wish. Both went to G!d looking for help, but they went about this request in very different ways. Elkana appealed to G!d via sacrifices, while Hannah chose prayer. Hannah was granted a son, who turned out to be Samuel, the last of the judges and the first of the classical prophets.
If Hannah didn’t pray, she probably wouldn’t have been granted a child. In the end, Elkana’s sacrifices didn’t accomplish much and, ironically, the priest, Eli, wasn’t able to recognize a sincere prayer when it was right in front of his eyes! Eli didn’t speak the language of prayer. All Eli had been trained to understand was sacrifices.
That takes us to our second source, Jeremiah 7. According to this source, Eli had clearly misread his training manual, because it turns out G!d never commanded us to make sacrifices at all!
Jeremiah 7:21-24
כֹּה אָמַר יְהֹוָה צְבָאוֹת אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל עֹלוֹתֵיכֶם סְפוּ עַל־זִבְחֵיכֶם וְאִכְלוּ בָשָׂר׃ כִּי לֹא־דִבַּרְתִּי אֶת־אֲבוֹתֵיכֶם וְלֹא צִוִּיתִים בְּיוֹם הוֹצִיאִי אוֹתָם מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם עַל־דִּבְרֵי עוֹלָה וָזָבַח׃ כִּי אִם־אֶת־הַדָּבָר הַזֶּה צִוִּיתִי אוֹתָם לֵאמֹר שִׁמְעוּ בְקוֹלִי וְהָיִיתִי לָכֶם לֵאלֹהִים
וְאַתֶּם תִּהְיוּ־לִי לְעָם וַהֲלַכְתֶּם בְּכׇל־הַדֶּרֶךְ אֲשֶׁר אֲצַוֶּה אֶתְכֶם לְמַעַן יִיטַב לָכֶם׃
וְלֹא שָׁמְעוּ וְלֹא־הִטּוּ אֶת־אׇזְנָם…וַיִּהְיוּ לְאָחוֹר וְלֹא לְפָנִים׃
Thus spoke the G!d of Israel, HaShem Tzva’ot: Add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices and eat the meat! For when I freed your ancestors from the land of Egypt, I did not speak with them or command them concerning burnt offerings or sacrifice. Just this is what I commanded them: Do My bidding, that I may be your G!d and you may be My people; walk only in the way that I enjoin upon you, that it may go well with you. Yet they did not listen or give ear…They have gone backwards, not forwards.
This last part, about having gone backwards in time, not forwards, is probably what a lot of us think about sacrifices. If you don’t love sacrifices, then this source is really validating.
There is a glaring problem with this passage, however. What might it be?
The issue with this passage is that it is irrefutable that according to the explicit meaning (p’shat) of the text, G!d definitely commanded us to make burnt offerings. The proof can be found in multiple sections of the Torah. Nevertheless, this didn’t prevent the rabbis from finding creative ways to explain how this obvious contradiction was in fact not a contradiction at all!
This is what Abarbanel had to say on the above verse:
Abravanel on Jeremiah 7:22 (condensed and paraphrased)
G!d did not originally command us to make sacrifices when we left Egypt and stood at Mt. Sinai (other than the highly specific Passover offering). It is only because of the sin of the Golden Calf (which came later) that the sacrifices were instituted.
Abravenel makes a very clever point. The verse from Jeremiah states that G!d didn’t command us to make sacrifices when freeing our ancestors from Egypt. And, with the exception of the Passover sacrifice, he’s absolutely right. All of those commandments came later. The Passover sacrifice can be easily explained as a highly specific thing specific to the Exodus from Egypt. There was nothing there about other sacrifices.
Why would the commandments about sacrifices only come after the Golden Calf? To Abravanel, it’s to atone for our sins. But there’s another way to look at it. What, if after the Golden Calf, G!d was convinced that we wouldn’t be happy if we didn’t have something or someone to make sacrifices to?
Rambam discusses this idea in his Guide For the Perplexed. The Guide is purposely wordy, even when translated into English, but it states the following:
Rambam’s Guide for the Perplexed 3:32
The general custom among people in those days, and the general mode of worship in which the Israelites were brought up, consisted of sacrificing animals in those temples which contained certain images, to bow down to those images, and to burn incense before them. In those days, the religious and ascetic persons were those who were devoted to the service in the temples erected to the stars, as has been explained by us. It was in accordance with the wisdom and plan of G!d, as displayed in the whole Creation that G!d did not command us to give up and to discontinue all these manners of service; for to obey such a commandment would have been contrary to the nature of humanity, which generally cleaves to what it is accustomed to.…
Only one temple has been appointed, “in the place which HaShem shall choose” (Deut. 12:26); in no other place are sacrifices allowed. But prayer and supplication can be offered everywhere and by everyone!
Do we agree with Rambam’s assessment that our ancestors wouldn’t have been satisfied without the sacrifices?
I think it’s fair to imagine that even in days of old, at least some of our ancestors would have been uncomfortable with the bloodiness of the sacrifices. However, it was indeed the only method of worship they were familiar with. If something else were done in its place, it would likely have been too radical of a departure from what they were used to, and would have been seen as illegitimate in the eyes of the majority. If G!d didn’t understand this before the Golden Calf, G!d certainly understood it afterward! G!d probably knew this from the beginning, but still wanted to give us a chance to surpass expectations (or at least to allow us to feel as though we failed on our own terms, instead of on predetermined terms).
Rambam explained at the end of that last source that while we can’t make sacrifices without the Temple, we still have prayer. And prayer can be done by everyone, anywhere! It says in Hosea:
Hosea 14:3
קְחוּ עִמָּכֶם דְּבָרִים וְשׁוּבוּ אֶל־יְהֹוָה
אִמְרוּ אֵלָיו כׇּל־תִּשָּׂא עָוֺן וְקַח־טוֹב וּנְשַׁלְּמָה פָרִים שְׂפָתֵינוּ׃
Take words with you, and return to HaShem.
Say: “Forgive all guilt, and accept what is good.
Instead of bulls we will give [the offering of] our lips.
The offering of our lips refers to prayer. And this is exactly what happened for us. When the Temple was destroyed, sacrifices were replaced by prayer. While it was probably hard for prayer to achieve a significant following in the days of the Temple, in the absence of the Temple, people were probably much more willing to try new things. As the saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention. Suddenly, you didn’t need to be a priest to talk to G!d. Instead, we could all be like Hannah! But while it was great to have a method of worship that was accessible to all Jews, because we were used to depending on sacrifices, some folks were still probably highly suspicious of this new method of worship.
Our Sages had a vested interest in convincing us that we were meant to pray three times a day, and made a point of trying to show us that it was what G!d wanted from us. The standard explanation they made is that the different prayer services corresponded to the various sacrifices we were supposed to make each day during Temple times, with additional prayer services for the special sacrifices that would be made on festivals.
But if that explanation didn’t convince people, the rabbis offered another explanation. They tied the three daily services (Shacharit, the morning service, Minchah, the afternoon service, and Ma’ariv, the evening service) to verses about the patriarchs.
As the Talmud states:
BT Berachot 26b
תְּפִלּוֹת אָבוֹת תִּקְּנוּם.…כְּווֹתֵיהּ דְּרַבִּי יוֹסֵי בְּרַבִּי חֲנִינָא: אַבְרָהָם תִּקֵּן תְּפִלַּת שַׁחֲרִית, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״וַיַּשְׁכֵּם אַבְרָהָם בַּבֹּקֶר אֶל הַמָּקוֹם אֲשֶׁר עָמַד שָׁם״, וְאֵין ״עֲמִידָה״ אֶלָּא תְּפִלָּה,
שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״וַיַּעֲמֹד פִּינְחָס וַיְפַלֵּל״. יִצְחָק תִּקֵּן תְּפִלַּת מִנְחָה, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר ״וַיֵּצֵא יִצְחָק לָשׂוּחַ בַּשָּׂדֶה לִפְנוֹת עָרֶב״ וְאֵין ״שִׂיחָה״ אֶלָּא תְּפִלָּה, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר
״תְּפִלָּה לְעָנִי כִי יַעֲטֹף וְלִפְנֵי ה׳ יִשְׁפֹּךְ שִׂיחוֹ״. יַעֲקֹב תִּקֵּן תְּפִלַּת עַרְבִית,
שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״וַיִּפְגַּע בַּמָּקוֹם וַיָּלֶן שָׁם״, וְאֵין ״פְּגִיעָה״ אֶלָּא תְּפִלָּה, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״וְאַתָּה אַל תִּתְפַּלֵּל בְּעַד הָעָם הַזֶּה וְאַל תִּשָּׂא בַעֲדָם רִנָּה וּתְפִלָּה וְאַל תִּפְגַּע בִּי״
The prayers[1] were instituted by the Patriarchs.…It was taught in a baraita attributed to Rabbi Yosi son of Rabbi Ḥanina: Abraham instituted Shacharit, as it is stated “And Abraham rose early in the morning to the place where he had stood before HaShem”[2] …Isaac instituted Minchah, as it is stated: “And Isaac went out to converse in the field toward evening”[3] …Jacob instituted Ma’ariv, as it is stated: “And he encountered the place and he slept there for the sun had set”[4]
The rabbis essentially found a verse for each of the three patriarchs corresponding to a time of day, and then, using rabbinic hermeneutic principles, made the argument that in each of those verses, a patriarch was praying the standard prayers of their time.
Our Sages were very successful in getting us to pray three times a day, using the fixed words they provided for us. Over time, the words have changed a bit, but the core has remained the same. And naturally, many prayers have been added over the years.
Nonetheless, to Rabbi Eliezer the standardization of prayer was dangerous:
Mishnah Brachot 4:1
רַבִּי אֱלִיעֶזֶר אוֹמֵר, הָעוֹשֶׂה תְפִלָּתוֹ קֶבַע, אֵין תְּפִלָּתוֹ תַּחֲנוּנִים.
Rabbi Eliezer taught: One whose prayer is fixed, that prayer is not entreaty.
Rabbi Eliezer’s warning is essential to understand if we want to pray effectively. The sacrifices were supposed to be done by the book. But for all those instructions, there was often very little heart behind them! That’s why Elkanah and Eli failed, while Hannah’s prayer succeeded.
But Hannah’s prayer was highly personal. When you standardize prayer, and all we do is read the words on the page, the heart behind our prayer can be easily lost! Rabbi Eliezer reminds us not to get so caught up in the words of our siddur that we forget to make them our own.
When we pray, what are some strategies we can use
to bring the words to life for us?
There are a variety of ways we can bring the text of the prayer to life. They can include great melodies, inspiring framing devices and sermons by clergy, congregational participation, and many more. To me, the #1 way to bring the siddur to life is to remember to not become too set in our ways. It’s wonderful to have a favorite melody or a meditation ritual. But we must still remember to do the prayers differently from time to time, making sure we never allow them to become stale. Sometimes we run out of inspiration. When this happens, our inspiration can often come from people other than ourselves. As a future rabbi, I often look to other congregations in addition to CAH to see what I may be able to adapt for both CAH and my own private relationship with HaShem.
As we can see, prayer is not just a substitute for sacrifices! It has the potential to actually be an upgrade! Everyone can participate in prayer, and we can pray from anywhere in the world! But in order to get the most out of this upgrade, we have to approach prayer with care and intention.
Chag samei-ach!
[1] Probably referring specifically to the Amidah, the central prayer of every service and around which the other prayers were added.
[2] Genesis 19:27.
[3] Genesis 24:63.
[4] Genesis 28:11.