Subject: Understanding Jewish Prayer
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World Zionist Organization
Student and Academics Department
Jewish University in CyberspacE
juice@wzo.org.il birnbaum@wzo.org.il
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Course: THE PRAYER BOOK: A WINDOW ON JEWISH THEOLOGY
Lecture: 2/12
Lecturer: Barbara Sutnick and Rabbi Reuven Sutnick
2/12 ORIGINS OF JEWISH PRAYER: SERVICE OF THE HEART
- Sacrifice as Antecedent -
"And to serve him with all your heart" -- is there such a
thing as 'service' with the heart? And what might such a
thing be? This is prayer.
Jerusalem Talmud, Berachot 4a
As modern readers, most of us do not find the expression
"service of the heart" to be an odd choice for describing
prayer. However, at the time that the above-quoted text was
written, just after the destruction of the Second Temple in
Jerusalem (70 C.E.) the word "service" (AVoDah) had a specific
technical meaning. It referred to the sacrificial rite that
had been central to Judaism for hundreds of years. Because of
the destruction of the Temple, and the prohibition against
performing the sacrificial rite in any other place, the rabbis
of the Talmud felt forced to redefine Jewish ritual. They
endeavored to define an alternative ritual which would be both
relevant and authentic to the religious purposes that had
been fulfilled by the sacrificial service. Thus a system of
prayer services, codified gradually over time, was built up,
using the sacrificial service (AVoDah) as a basis. The
identification of prayer with "service of the heart" was at
the time, a not-so-subtle transfer of religious meaning.
Prayer, in all its variety of mood -- thanks, petition,
penitence, praise, expiation -- became essentially a
replacement for the system of animal sacrifice outlined in the
Bible. (The specifically HISTORICAL process that this
transformation represents will be the subject of the next
Lecture.)
The above idea should surely give the modern reader
pause: are we really suggesting, through the wonders of the
INTERNET, the retrograde theory that animal sacrifice relates
to a wide range of human religious expression as does prayer
today? Not even the most ardent fundamentalist would claim
that animal sacrifice is the PHILOSOPHICAL antecedent to
prayer. However, after taking a brief look at the biblical
Jewish sacrificial system, the conceptual relationship between
it and prayer should become clear. This in essense is the
focus of the present Lecture.
First, it should be understood that biblical figures
expressed themselves religiously in rituals involving the
slaughter of animals. (There are also examples of biblical
prayer, and we will examine some of these below.) When
Abraham made a covenant with God, for example, he severed
animals in half and the essenceof God passed between the
pieces as part of the covenantal ceremony (Genesis 15).
Beginning with the book of Exodus and continuing into
Leviticus, sacrifices are incorporated into a larger framework
of fixed ritual sacrifice that served many functions.
Whatever its specific purpose, the sacrifice was prescribed by
the Bible as a way of "setting right" the relationship between
the worshipper and the Divine. Sacrifices were brought by
individuals, both men and women, and offered up by the
priests, whose inherited job it was to serve in the Temple.
There were sin offerings and guilt offerings connected with
both individual and community atonement. There were also
offerings connected with dedications, Thanksgiving Offerings,
Holiday Offerings, offerings pertaining to rites of passage,
offerings connected with purity and impurity and many more.
There were also regular daily offerings that were brought by
the priests morning, afternoon and evening. The most valuable
sacrifices involved animals of the herd; however birds,
grains, fruits, vegetables, oil and wine were also included
among the sacrifices. For each type of offering, the Bible
clearly prescribed its reason, what was to be brought and the
method of sacrificing. In each case, bringing a sacrifice
required the worshipper to give up something important to
him/her in service of and in obedience to the Lord. Later
Jewish legal texts spelled out in even further detail the
specific requirements of each offering. It should be pointed
out that much more clearly than with modern prayer, there was
a sense that properly executed sacrifices were EFFICACIOUS.
In other words, if one brought the correct sacrifice at the
correct time and offered it in the correct way ("correct" =
commanded by God) the belief was that IT WORKED. The
worshipper could be reasonably sure to have accomplished the
desired result of the sacrifice.
Without digging any deeper we can see that there is
remarkable overlap between the CATEGORIES of sacrifice and the
CATEGORIES of prayer (see definitions of prayer in Lecture I).
If we remove the peculiar ritual exercise of killing an animal
(or handing over produce) from sacrifice; and if we think of
prayer without the peculiar ritual exercise of reciting words,
we find a startling symmetry of concepts and functions.
Prayer is "service" (AVoDah) of the heart, precisely because
it serves the same religious roles as did sacrifice. As a
substitute for dedicating our living possessions to the
"service" of God; with prayer we dedicate our time,
intentions, and intellectual/emotional efforts. Furthermore,
the Jewish practice of praying three times a day -- morning,
afternoon and evening -- is directly parallel to the set of
regular daily sacrificial offerings mentioned above.
- Can Prayer Ever Be Good Enough? -
An important question is raised in the words of a quote from
the special Additional Service for Rosh Hashanah:
And because of our sins (the main religious explanation
in Jewish sources for the destruction of the Temple)...we
are not able to fulfil our obligations in the Chosen
House (Temple), the great and holy House, which is
dedicated in your Name.
According to this prayer excerpt, the Jewish people find
themselves in a Catch-22 predicament. The Temple was
destroyed because of our sins (a type of confession). Yet
this also means that our traditional AVENUE FOR EXPIATION for
sin (the Temple) became lost to us too. (Remember, the Bible
tells us that sacrifices will help us atone for sin; we find
no similar biblical statement about verbal prayer.) The
author of the prayer above wonders if prayer can help us
achieve atonement with the same degree of certainly that was
ascribed to the sacrifices. Can the "service of the heart"
adequately replace the Temple service? In other words, is
there a level at which prayer can accomplish the original
intent of the Torah's ritual system?
The great Jewish legalist and philosopher, the Rambam
(Moses Maimonides), grapples with this question. It should be
noted that to this 12th century rationalist, the sacrificial
service was just as foreign as it is to us today. He points
out:
It is a positive commandment to pray every day, as it is
written (in the Bible) "And you shall serve the Lord,
your God." We learn from the oral tradition (which
comments on the Bible) that this "service" is
prayer...But, there is no number of prayer services
specified in the Bible, no set text and no set time for
prayer."
(Laws of Prayer 1:1)
On the one hand, the Rambam reassures us here: prayer is
to be counted among the 613 MiTZVot (commandments of Jewish
law). This gives it religious weight independent of any
connection to the sacrificial service. After all, if prayer
is one of God's commands, we can logically conclude that
prayer is considered worthwhile and even efficacious in
Judaism. However, Rambam alarms us somewhat by pointing out
that all the details of prayer (i.e. its content, time, how to
do it, etc.) are not specified in the time-honored Bible.
Unlike the sacrifices, spelled out in exquisite detail, the
Bible leaves us in the dark about how to do prayer right.
Later Jewish legal texts, which comprise the Oral Law, provide
all the detail one could want about how to pray. Yet nobody
will argue that they are just as authoritative or as close to
the Source (God) as are the biblical commandments concerning
sacrifice. (N.B. Nonetheless, Orthodox Jews hold that the
Oral Law is to be observed as faithfully as the biblical
Written Law.)
In the end, Rambam helps us with our present predicament
(Can Prayer Ever Be Good Enough?) in his major philosophical
work, Guide For the Perplexed. He argues that God recognized
that the ancient Hebrews became a nation at a time when
sacrificial rites were the norm in the world around them. God
allowed them to maintain the forms with which they felt
comfortable, while trying to wean them over to a different
understanding of what communication between humans and the
Deity was supposed to be like:
...the general mode of worship in which the Israelites
were brought up consisted of sacrificing animals...It was
in accordance with the wisdom and plan of God...that He
did not command us to discontinue these manners of
service...The sacrificial service is not the primary
object of the commandments about sacrifice. While
supplications, prayers and similar kinds of worship are
nearer to the primary object, and indispensable for
obtaining it...
(Guide, III, 32)
Maimonides' (Rambam's) conclusion is unmistakable:
prayer replaces sacrifice totally. In fact, prayer is for the
Rambam closer to an ideal form of Jewish worship. In other
words, "service of the heart" is not meant to be merely a
nostalgic recollection of the sacrifices: it comes closer to
"proper" service than do the sacrifices themselves. Why,
then, do the details of the sacrificial service remain so
important to us that they are studied to this day in
institutions of advanced Jewish learning? It is because these
details establish the times, categories, content, etc. of
prayer -- elements that are actually more essential than the
fact of killing offerings.
While Maimonides may have made friends among the animal
rights groups; among the non-rationalist schools of Jewish
thought he rubbed some fur the wrong way!!! The primary
objection to his analysis is that if God wanted to command us
in the Bible to have a prayer service, He would have. It is
hard to believe that an entire network of commandments (and
there are very many which deal with sacrifices) would be so
detailed, if it were God's intent to replace them with prayer.
Furthermore, animal sacrifice prevailed up until the
destruction of the Second Temple, nearly 1400 years after the
Torah (first five books of the Bible) was given at Mount
Sinai. This means that this practice was retained long beyond
what could be considered a reasonable transition period.
Finally, if the Temple had not been destroyed, would animal
sacrifice have been abolished? I think that even the Rambam
would have to answer not. Thus, without a program for phasing
sacrifice out, other than the calamity of the destruction of
the Temple, Maimonides does not explain how the Torah's
primary purpose is to be served.
However, Maimonides does direct us to one inescapable
conclusion: there are many places in the Torah in which
people are directed to worship verbally -- to pray. One is
the commandment to "serve God with all your heart"; another is
the commandment to bless after meals (Deut. 8:10). Others are
connected to sacrifices but retain their independence of
origin, such as "and he shall make atonement for himself and
for his family..." (see Leviticus 16). Here the High Priest is
directed to recite the confessional over the sacrifice for the
Day of Atonement. Expiation is at the core of both the
sacrifice and the prayer, the lattter being no less important.
The recitation accompanying the bringing of the First Fruits
(Deut. 26:5) also belongs in this list as does the commandment
to tell the story of the Exodus from Egypt (Exodus 13:8).
There are many others described just as directly.
There is an amazing story in chapters 33 and 34 of Exodus
which is told in the aftermath of the Sin of the Golden Calf.
The children of Israel have offended God horribly by building
an idol, so their leader Moses sets out to discover the secret
of Divine forgiveness. He begs God:
"And now, if I have indeed found favor in Your sight,
make known to me Your way, that I may know You, and
that I might find favor in Your eyes, for this nation
is Your people."
(Exodus 33:13)
The purpose of his request is to learn the way that one who is
out of favor with God can find the way back. In essence,
Moses asks God how to effect one of the primary functions of
prayer (and sacrifice): expiation from sin. Moses' request is
met. God passes before him reciting:
"The Lord, the Lord, God, manifest and gracious, long
suffering, full of mercy and truth; He is gracious to the
thousandth [generation], forgiving iniquity, sin and
transgression, but who will by no means clear guilt."
(Exodus 34:6-7)
An interesting midrash connects this event to an
important section of the Jewish prayer service:
R. Yochanan said: The Holy One, blessed be He, revealed
[the thirteen attributes of Divine mercy] in the
verse...This teaches that the Holy One, blessed be He,
descended from the mist like a "leader of prayer",
enveloped in His prayer shawl, and stood before the ark
and revealed to Moses the order of Selichot, the
penitential prayers.
Tannah d'Vei Eliyau Zuta, ch. 23
These famous "Thirteen Attributes of God" (Ex. 34:6-7) are
recited as part of the penitential service, both on fast days
and during the High Holiday Services. According to the
midrash, God modeled for Moses the secret of appealing to His
attribute of Divine Mercy. In other words, according to Rabbi
Yochanan, God revealed His essence by teaching Moses to pray.
Thus we see documented the ancient rabbinic view that the
revelation of the penitential prayer service is a biblical
PARALLEL to the expiative sacrifice, and NOT an outgrowth of
it.
To summarize, the origins of the Jewish prayer service
can be traced to antecedents both in the sacrificial rites and
to biblical prayers. The functions served by biblical prayers
is ideally served by verbal worship today. On the other hand,
there are cases in which verbal worship adapts to functions
served previously by sacrifice in the Torah. In such cases,
it is questionable whether verbal worship can serve as well.
As the passage cited above from the Rosh Hashanah service
indicates, prayer is actually only second best if we seek
GUARANTEED expiation from sin.
Regarding our discussion of Maimonides, my personal
inclination is to accept his analysis in large part. This is
admittedly because he speaks to me as a modern person. I have
to wonder, however, if other parts of his analysis reflect an
element of wishful thinking. Let's consider a few questions
to see what you think:
QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER THOUGHT
1. If the Temple in Jerusalem were rebuilt, do you think
Maimonides would advocate reinstituting animal sacrifice?
Would you?
2. We have seen that the Torah contains elements both of a
sacrificial system and a system of prayer. I could also argue
that since God commanded both, there must be some lack that
one fulfills in the other. What does prayer give us that
sacrifice doesn't; what does sacrifice give us that prayer
doesn't?
3. What do you think of God's answer to Moses when Moses asked
to know His "way" and to "know" God? Do you think a modern
religious leader would be satisfied with that answer?
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