A friend wrote this beautiful response to understanding animal sacrifices.
We recently met a single woman our age who observes some of the Jewish laws and customs, sometimes, in her own way. She told me that she is highly sensitive to the suffering of animals and therefor doesn’t eat meat, though she eats fish, and this whole thing with the sacrifices is a big turn off to her and a reason not to want to cozy up to God too much. (I guess the suffering of the fish with a hook In It’s mouth being dragged out water to suffocate doesn’t count as much).So I wrote this to her to explain a little more about it. I thought you might appreciate seeing it.
On the subject of korbanes (I can’t call them sacrifices, since that is not an accurate translation – more about that later), I don’t claim to understand it myself so I can’t explain it, nor can I defend God’s commandants regarding them since He doesn’t need me to give Him my seal of approval . The best I can do is give some random thoughts almost as bullet points since I don’t have the ability to weave them into a narrative.
I think we need to begin with the presumption that the 5 Books of Moses were the words of God, verbatim, as dictated to Moses. If one believes that they are instead the words of one particular human sage or philosopher, or disparate ones patched together over the centuries then one doesn’t need to wonder why God commanded us in korbanes, since God is a fiction, (God forbid) and the words attributed to Him have no legitimate claim on us.
Man (meaning human beings) were created last, after the vegetation and animals, and given dominion over all the world. To me this means that the potential within the human being is the ultimate reason God bothered to create something from nothing, and everything in the world, the forests, the seas, the minerals in the earth, the vegetation and the animals were created to allow man to survive, prosper and fulfill his mission.
But this is not a “free lunch”, as it were. Man has tremendous responsibility and many mitzvahs regarding the proper husbandry of resources, plants and animals. Did you know that it is a Mitzvah of the Torah that one who has an animal must feed it before he feeds himself.? Likewise, if a man who comes across a person who is distasteful to him whose beast of burden is struggling under the load it is a Torah commandment to stop and help redistribute the load.
There are only 7 Noahide laws that all non Jews are expected to adhere to. One of them is to “not tear a limb from a live animal”. When studied in detail this law has myriad applications. In addition, when a kosher animal is shected in order to have its meat be eaten the way the nerves are severed in the neck is the only known method where the animal feels no pain. I once heard a fascinating lecture that it was only in the twentieth century when animal anatomy was more fully understood did biologists and neurologists come to the conclusion that the precise procedures as detailed in the written and oral Torah indeed provide an instantaneous and pain free death.
The question of offering up an animal on the alter not withstanding, you can see that Judaism has great respect and concern that animals are treated properly. The fact that they are offered in itself does not indicate a cavalier and self-serving attitude by man.
You make the point about the “moral lines of taking life”. This raises the interesting and much discussed question of “what is morality”, is it crafted uniquely by each individual or is it shaped and accepted by all society. In our conversation we can ask is it relative, or is it absolute? If it is relative then it is malleable. What was moral in Egypt in 3,000 BC differs from morality in Alabama in 1850 or Berlin in 1940. What will be the standard of morality 500 years from now? Why does morality morph over time, who gets to say what is contemporary and what is old fashioned? The Victorian moral code of the nineteenth century was mocked and ridiculed by the adherents of “free love” in the 1960’s.
Perhaps “don’t kill” is a universally accepted moral stance across all civilizations at all times. If so why did God need to include it in the 10 commandments? And how come the Crusaders, the Cossacks, the Nazis, Stalin, Pol Pot and countless others didn’t get the memo? Just maybe “do not kill” is not a blatantly obvious moral stance.
For me, one of the most difficult tipping points in choosing to become a Torah observant Jew is the idea that there is indeed a universal code, but it is an absolute one, and was transmitted by God to man, initially at Mount Sinai, and in subsequent study hall sessions during the 40 years in the desert. Part of the privilege and responsibility of being a Jew is to be a light to the nations by living by the moral code gifted to us in the Torah.
When God said “don’t kill” I believe he was speaking of human against human. And of course we have seen that even this admonition has a myriad of nuances and conditions. Never does it say not to kill animals. In fact, from the time of Noah God allowed man to hunt animals for food, since He recognized in man the inherent bloodlust that we have witnessed erupt tragically time and again.
Clearly God sanctioned the killings of animals and commanded us in the mitzvah of korbones. it is axiomatic in Judaism that God is good, God is whole, complete and perfect and that the morality as presented in the Torah is the instruction manual for humanity to achieve its noblest spiritual purpose. So if my relative sense of morality sees the killing of animals as a korban to be immoral then it is my job to redirect my morality to be congruent with the absolute morality of God, not His obligation to bend His standards to fit mine.
God gave us an amazing brain, intellect and imagination. In our lifetime Man has learned how to reach the moon, peer inside a molecule, split the atom, bring nitrogen to within a hair breadth of absolute zero. We have a tendency to think our mind is capable of understanding everything. Yet let’s not forget that our finite mind is nothing but a gift from the infinite Creator and the the gap between finite and infinite is not bridgeable. Even Moses, the greatest prophet, was told that no man can see the “face of God, but only His back”.
As for me, I am OK with the fact that I will never know the “under the hood” essence of korbanes, until the world to come (should I merit it). Then I will have all the time in the world to sit in God’s study hall and relish in the infinite curriculum. Each time I fly in a jumbo jet I marvel that this huge machine can stay aloft in the air. I will never understand the laws of aerodynamics, but I trust that the plane’s designers and pilot know what they are doing, so I get in and buckle my seat belt. When I need to go for a CAT scan or MRI I have no idea how the banging and clanging in this claustrophobic doughnut reveals the workings of my body in such detail but I enter it anyway.
The word korban is difficult to translate. In the Jewish tradition it doesn’t mean to give away something valuable thereby rendering me with less than I had before. It means to draw close, to approach, to connect. When I want to show my wife how much she means to me I give her a special gift, something which means a lot to me. If I had to work for a long time to save to buy the gift, it is not a sacrifice for me but a privilege to be able to give it. I won’t just carelessly shove it across the table to her, but will take care to wrap it beautifully and choose just the right time and setting to present it.
Similarly, the laws of karbones are extremely detailed and complex. Bear in mind that with one exception the meat brought up as a korban, once roasted is eaten by the temple priests. So it isn’t as though the animal was slaughtered and discarded. In addition when a korban was brought as a sin offering the petitioner received an atonement for the sin, an extremely significant part of the entire matter. Every Shabbat we say the Mussaf prayer near the end of services, which explicitly asks God to return the fire offerings to us when the temple will be rebuilt. It is not something that was simply done “in ancient times”, but the spiritual potency is real and contemporary and will regenerate again at the the proper time. Everyone I have ever spoken to, including myself, is either confused, puzzled or troubled by the emphasis of korbanos in Judaism, sometimes all three. But this doesn’t mean that God didn’t know His audience. It is not He that owes us an explanation; it is we that owe Him our faith that all He does is for our good. It we don’t understand or relate to this it is our shortcoming, not His.
These is something else I have thought about for a while regarding secular people, Jewish or not, who don’t eat meat for reasons similar to yours. Do they feel that is is immoral when an eagle swoops out of the air to catch a chipmunk as its prey, when a Grizzly bear plucks a salmon out the rapids with its paw, or when a lion catches the slowest zebra in the herd and rips it apart. I would suspect they would say “no, of course it is not immoral. They are just animals, taking their place in the food chain, just as nature intended.” To which I would then say “then why is it wrong for man to eat an animal?
If you are secular you believe that man is nothing but a smarter, more talkative ape. The eagle uses its keen eyesight and talons to catch prey, the bear uses his muscular arm, the lion his speed and strength. man has none of these. He uses the unique gifts that “nature” has bestowed upon him, the intellect that allows him to farm, tame animals, build production and distribution systems. What’s the difference? Each animal uses his attributes to feed himself.” “Ah”, they would say, “but man is different. He is the only thinking, speaking and rational animal. He should act moral. he should know right from wrong”. Really? But who gets to say what is moral, right and wrong? In Texas there are many people who think eating meat is manifestly moral, and mighty tasty to boot.
Which brings us back to our earlier discussion of morality. If man is simply a more evolved animal and the world somehow came to be due to a cosmic accident exactly when did morality enter the scene? I think I have an answer. I went to a high school run by a humanist religion called “Ethical Culture”. This religion has no believe in a higher power but posits that the truest morality comes through the collaborative efforts of the best minds of a generation. There was a proscenium on stage of the auditorium which said “The Place Where Men Meet to Seek the Highest is Holy Ground”.
So that’s very clear. There is no God. Whatever the Books of Moses are who knows, but it is not holy writ. And here we are back with the slave holders in 1850, and back again with the Nazis in 1933.
One person’s morality is another persons personal horror chamber. In America roughly half the people feel that legalized abortion is morally repugnant since it sanctions and many cases encourages murder. The other half feels equally strongly that it is morally repugnant to limit a woman’s “right to choose” how to control her own body. Can both moral stances be valid? If one is correct is the other wrong? How is this to be reconciled? Perhaps there is a higher authority, an absolute morality that can be the arbiter. Ah, this is where we came in.
David Comins
