From the Sources by Eliezer Segal: From Moses to Moses…

By Eliezer Segal

(AJNews) – That archetypal Jewish heretic Baruch Benedict Spinoza was not very impressed with the institution of sacrifices as they are set down in meticulous detail in the Torah. He insisted that true religion must originate in a divine imperative; and God would not impose commandments on humanity unless they were designed to achieve “blessedness” by instilling theological truths and moral virtues. Spinoza did not discern any of these qualities in the biblical rites of slaughtering animals and burning them on an altar.

“So why did the Patriarchs sacrifice to God? It was not because some divine law told them to, or because the universal foundations of divine law taught them to—but because it was the custom at that time. If any command came into it, it was the command of the laws of the state in which they were living, by which they were also bound.”

Indeed, the authority for sacrifices, as argued in Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise, is not rooted in spiritual wisdom or divine revelation, but ultimately derives from political considerations. The Hebrews were ordered to observe the sacrificial worship and the other precepts of the Torah only because Moses declared them to be the law of their nation; and in that respect they were like most normal nations.

As Spinoza understood the historical situation at the time of the Torah’s giving, the Israelites suddenly found themselves released from the dominion of Egypt or of any external authority. This multitude of unruly slaves was unequipped to devise a completely new legal system, so they delegated that responsibility to a single leader, their liberator Moses, who was gifted with the theological and political acumen necessary for the establishment of a new nation with an ideal government.

In order to motivate the Israelites to obey the laws, Moses struck a balance between promising rewards for obedience and severe punishments for insubordination. But his plan went beyond that. He introduced a minutely detailed regimen of rules that would prevent them from ever acting according to personal choice.

“So that is what ceremonies were for: to bring it about that men did nothing by their own decision, and everything according to the command of someone else, and that they should admit… that they were not their own master in anything.”

Spinoza had no interest in defending traditional Judaism, and it is not surprising that he could take such a cynical attitude regarding the purpose and content of the Torah. However, key points in his thesis were derived from an earlier, more respectable source: Rabbi Moses Maimonides.

In his Guide of the Perplexed, the great medieval philosopher proposed an explanation of biblical sacrifices that was virtually identical to Spinoza’s. Maimonides himself believed that true worship should consist of meditation on an abstract divinity who can only be grasped through intense scientific and metaphysical study. Such a deity transcends human language, let alone physical rituals like sacrifices. Yet unlike Spinoza, Maimonides believed that the laws of the Torah did originate from God and not Moses. Why, then, did the Almighty ordain sacrifices as the principal mode of worship?

Like Spinoza, Maimonides situated the revelation of the Torah within a strategy to transform a population of primitive slaves into a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” During the era of their enslavement, the only mode of worship they knew was that of sacrifices. God knew that if he were to suddenly command them to give that all up and switch to spoken prayer or abstract meditation, they would not accede. He therefore employed a “gracious ruse” by instituting a system of sacrificial rituals that could be carefully regulated to remove objectionable idolatrous elements. This, however, was merely an ad hoc solution intended to guide the Israelites until they were ready for authentic worship. Maimonides pointed out that this was consistent with the gradual evolutionary process that characterizes changes in nature.

Not surprisingly, Maimonides’ thesis provoked a great deal of opposition from more conventional rabbis. Nahmanides cited many scriptural passages that placed sacrifices at the centre of divine worship in all generations, past and future. As a kabbalist he argued that sacrifices are essential in ways that transcend human understanding, for maintaining harmony in the metaphysical fabric of the cosmos.

Similar issues, involving the differing functions of belief and practice in Judaism, would again come to prominence in the eighteenth century. Some Christian correspondents challenged Rabbi Moses Mendelssohn of Dessau, claiming that Judaism was a coercive faith that demanded that its adherents submit to specific beliefs, which made Jews unfit to participate in a modern enlightened society that values freedom of conscience.

Mendelssohn argued that Judaism is actually more tolerant and enlightened than the brand of liberal Christianity that promoted itself as the ideal form of a universalist rational faith.

He explained that—unlike Christianity with its focus on correct theological dogmas—the religion of Israel does not profess an exclusive truth or mandatory beliefs. After all, authentic concepts about God and morality are derived from reason, and accordingly they are accessible to all rational people, without need for prophetic revelation. What uniquely defines Israel’s religion is its revealed law, not its theology —and that has no bearing on what was considered “religion” in modern European discourse.

As Mendelssohn summed it up: “In short: I believe that Judaism knows of no ‘revealed religion’ in the Christian sense of the phrase. The Israelites have a divine legislation. What Moses revealed to them in a miraculous and supernatural manner were laws, commandments, ordinances, rules of life, instruction in God’s will regarding how they should conduct themselves in order to attain temporal and eternal happiness.”

This was truly a remarkable new inference about the relationship between theology and ritual practice in Jewish tradition as they had been expounded by Maimonides and Spinoza.

It makes one wonder how the biblical Moses would have regarded these remarkable understandings of the purpose of the Torah that were expressed by his illustrious latter-day namesakes.

Eliezer Segal is a Local Journalism Initiative Reporter.