In Judaism, the ({{Script/Hebrew|קָרְבָּן), also spelled or , is any of a variety of sacrificial offerings described and commanded in the Torah. The plural form is , , or .
The term primarily refers to sacrificial offerings given from humans to God for the purpose of doing homage, winning favor, or securing pardon.[1] The object sacrificed was usually an animal that was ritually slaughtered and then transferred from the human to the divine realm by being burned on an altar.[2] [3] [4] Other sacrifices include grain offerings made of flour and oil, not meat.[5]
After the destruction of the Second Temple, sacrifices were prohibited because there was no longer a Temple, the only place allowed by halakha for sacrifices. Offering of sacrifices was briefly reinstated during the Jewish–Roman wars of the second century CE.[6] [7]
When sacrifices were offered in ancient times, they were offered as a fulfillment of Biblical commandments. According to Orthodox Judaism, the coming of the messiah will not remove the requirement to keep the 613 commandments, and when the Temple is rebuilt, sacrifices will be offered again.[8]
While some were offered as part of the atonement process for sin, this role was strictly limited, and in Judaism atonement can be achieved through means such as repentance even without sacrifices.[9]
The Semitic root (קרב) means [10] and is found in a number of related languages in addition to Hebrew, e.g. in the Akkadian language noun, meaning . In Hebrew it is found in a number of words, such as,,,, and the verb form, . The noun (plural, {{Script/Hebrew|קָרְבֳּנוֹת) first occurs in the Bible in 1:2 HE and occurs 80 times in the Masoretic Text; 40 times in Leviticus, 38 in Numbers and twice in Ezekiel.[11] The related form appears only in 10:35 HE and HE referring to the 'wood offering'. The etymology of the 'offer' sense is traditionally understood as deriving from the verbal sense of 'bringing near', viz. bringing the offering near to the deity,[12] [13] but some theological explanations see it rather as bringing "man back to God".[14]
The Septuagint generally translates the term in Koine Greek as Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: [[wikt:δῶρον|δῶρον]],, Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: [[wikt:θυσία|θυσία]],, or Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: [[wikt: προσφορά|προσφορά]], . By the Second Temple period, Hellenistic Jewish texts use korban specifically to mean a vow. The New Testament preserves korban once as a transliterated loan-word for a vow, once also a related noun, Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: κορβανάς, otherwise using Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: δῶρον, Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: θυσία or Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: προσφορά and other terms drawn from the Septuagint. Josephus also generally uses other words for 'offering' but uses for the vow of the Nazirites (Antiquities of the Jews 4:73 / 4,4,4) and cites Theophrastus as having cited a korban vow among the Tyrians (Against Apion 1.167 / 1,22,4).[15]
The idea conveyed in most was that of a "gift" to God.[16]
served a variety of purposes. Many were brought purely for the purpose of communing with God and becoming closer to God, or in order to express thanks, gratitude, and love to God.[17]
While some were offered as part of the atonement process for sin, this role was strictly limited. Standard sin-offerings could only be offered for unintentional sins;[18] according to the rabbis, they could not be offered for all sins, but only for unintentional violations of some of the most serious sins.[19] In addition, generally had no expiating effect without sincere repentance[20] and restitution to any person who was harmed by the violation.[21] In the absence of sacrifices, atonement can still be achieved through means such as repentance, prayer, or giving .[22]
The slaughter of an animal sacrifice is not considered a fundamental part of the sacrifice, but rather is an unavoidable preparatory step to the offering of its meat to God;[23] thus, the slaughter may be performed by any Jew, while the other stages of the sacrifice could only be performed by priests.[24]
Offerings are mentioned in the Book of Genesis, but further outlined in the later four books of the Torah, including aspects of their origins and history.[25] Cain and Abel,[26] Noah,[27] Abraham,[28] and Jacob[29] offered sacrifices, as did the Israelites at Mount Sinai.[30]
The Torah contains many laws regarding sacrifices. Every regular weekday, Sabbath, and many Jewish holidays had their own unique offerings.[31] Sacrificial procedures were described in detail.[32] Sacrifices were only to be offered by the (hereditary priesthood), whom the Hebrew Bible describes as descendants of Aaron who meet certain marital and ritual purity requirements.[33] [34]
Sacrifices were offered in varying locations. Before building the Temple in Jerusalem, when the Israelites were in the desert, sacrifices were only to be offered in the Tabernacle.[35] After the invasion of Canaan, sacrifices were also permitted at bamot in any location until the nation's enemies had been defeated and the people lived securely, after which sacrifices were supposed to be centralized again.[36] However, in practice the bamot were still used even in the secure monarchic period, and the Bible sometimes criticizes Israelite kings for allowing this.[37] Sacrifices outside the main sanctuary are recorded at Beit Shemesh,[38] Mizpah,[39] Ramah,[40] Gilgal,[41] and Bethlehem,[42] among other locations.
After the entry to Canaan, the main sacrificial centre was initially at Shiloh. Under Saul the main center of sacrifice was Nob,[43] though private offerings continued to be made at Shiloh.[44] David created a new sacrificial center in Jerusalem at the threshing floor of Araunaḥ,[45] adjacent to Jerusalem, to which he moved the Ark.[46] [47] According to the Hebrew Bible, after the building of Solomon's Temple, sacrifices were only to be carried out there.[48] After Solomon's Temple was destroyed, sacrifices were resumed when the Second Temple was built, until the Second Temple was also destroyed in 70 CE.[49]
Many of the Biblical prophets criticized those Israelites who brought sacrifices while continuing to violate God's will with immoral behavior. This criticism often took the form of scathing denunciations:
However, while rejecting the value of sacrifices accompanied by unjust behavior, the same prophets promised an eventual reconciliation between God and a more moral people of Israel, and proclaimed that the reestablishment of sacrifices would be a sign of this reconciliation.[50] Thus sacrifices have a place in their visions of eventual redemption:
This is an incomplete list of sacrifices mentioned in the Hebrew Bible.
Types of sacrifice include:
Sacrifices offered on specific occasions include:
Sacrifices connected to one's personal status or situation include:
Other sacrifices include:
Procedures connected to sacrifices include:
According to Maimonides, about one hundred of the permanent 613 commandments based on the Torah, by rabbinical enumeration, directly concern sacrifices, excluding those commandments that concern the actual Temple and the priests themselves of which there are about another fifty.
The Mishnah and Talmud devote a very large section, known as a, to the study and analysis of this subject known as, whereby all the detailed varieties of korbanot are enumerated and analyzed in great logical depth, such as and . In addition, large parts of every other book of the Talmud discuss various kinds of sacrifices. Pesachim is largely devoted to a discussion of how to offer the Passover sacrifice. Yoma contains a detailed discussion of the Yom Kippur sacrifices, and there are sections in Seder Moed (Festivals) for the special offerings and Temple ritual for other major Jewish holidays. Shekalim discusses the annual half-shekel offering for Temple maintenance and Temple governance and management, and Nashim discusses the offerings made by Nazirites and the suspected adulteress.
The Talmud provides extensive details not only on how to perform sacrifices but how to adjudicate difficult cases, such what to do if a mistake was made and whether improperly performing one of the required ritual elements invalidates it or not. The Talmud explains how to roast the Passover offering, how to dash blood from different kinds of sacrifices upon the altar, how to prepare the incense, the regulatory code for the system of taxation that financed the priesthood and public sacrifices, and numerous other details.
Maimonides, a medieval Jewish scholar, drew on the early critiques of the need for sacrifice, taking the view that God always held sacrifice inferior to prayer and philosophical meditation. However, God understood that the Israelites were used to the animal sacrifices that the surrounding pagan tribes used as the primary way to commune with their gods. As such, in Maimonides' view, it was only natural that Israelites would believe that sacrifice would be a necessary part of the relationship between God and man. This view is controversial since the Torah also forbids worship of foreign idols and practices of pagan religions as "detestable" before God including their sacrifices. Maimonides concludes that God's decision to allow sacrifices was a concession to human psychological limitations. It would have been too much to have expected the Israelites to leap from pagan worship to prayer and meditation in one step. In The Guide for the Perplexed, he writes:
In contrast, many others such as Nahmanides (in his commentary on Leviticus 1:9) disagreed. Nahmanides cites the fact that the Torah records the practices of animal and other sacrifices from the times of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and earlier.[51] Indeed, the purpose of recounting the near sacrifice of Isaac was to illustrate the sublime significance and need of animal sacrifices as supplanting the abomination of human sacrifices.[52]
Through a non-all encompassing view of the ritual life of " as it is presented in the book of Genesis, the evolving philosophical theology that seems to underlie the modes of worship that [he] develops over time [...] is reconstruct[ed.]" Abram's building of a number of altars without mentioning that he sacrificed animals on them, and that for most of these occasions, he "called out in the name of God" is interpreted by Lebens as theologically stating that God's desires are sated without animal sacrifices.[53] Noting that not all these altar building occasions were accompanied by call-outs, and that call-outs also took place on returns, in Everlasting Dominion, American Old Testament scholar Eugene H. Merrill attributes a multipurpose nature to the altars, in which Abram was participating in only one:
Nonetheless, Abram also engaged in the covenant of the pieces which was based on this divine set of promises accompanied by obligations and an animal sacrifice ritual to the extent that it physically symbolized irrevocability.[54] Likewise, in Hebrew, the verb meaning to seal a covenant translates literally as "to cut."[55] Furthermore, to measure the general importance given to animal sacrifice preceding Abram in Genesis, in the story of Cain and Abel the only differentiator mentioned leading God to "[have] not respect [...] unto Cain and to his offering" was Abel's "firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof" as opposed to Cain's "fruit of the ground[.]"[56] Then, starkly contrasting a diminutive effect resulting from Abram's altar building and call-outs, animal sacrifice was institutionalized in the era of Moses in the Book of Numbers 28:1-30:1. The schedule of obligatory sacrifices included two daily lamb burnt-offerings.[57] However, the physical participation of God in the consumption of sacrificial offerings is debatable. The seeming all-time peak occurred with his conclusive victory as Yahweh when Elijah challenged worshippers of the Canaanite deity Baal to pray for fire to light their respective bull animal sacrifices.[58]
Metaphorically, a person's efforts to purify their soul are described as "sacrific[ing one's] animalistic nature", in order to allow them to become close to God (in keeping with the root of the word, meaning to draw close).[59] Devotion to God can be described as "sacrificing one's soul to God", as in the poem Bilvavi mishkan evneh by Yitzchak Hutner.[60]
With the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans, the Jewish practice of offering stopped for all intents and purposes. Despite subsequent intermittent periods of small Jewish groups offering the traditional sacrifices on the Temple Mount, the practice effectively ended.
Rabbinic Judaism was forced to undergo a significant development in response to this change; no longer could Judaism revolve around the Temple services. The destruction of the Temple led to a development of Jewish observance in the direction of text study, prayer, and other practices, which were seen to varying extents as substitutes for the Temple service. A range of responses is recorded in classical rabbinic literature on this subject:
In the Babylonian Talmud, a number of sages opined that following Jewish law, doing charitable deeds, and studying Jewish texts is greater than performing animal sacrifices:
Nonetheless, numerous texts of the Talmud stress the importance of and hope for eventual re-introduction of sacrifices, and regard their loss as a tragedy. Partaking of sacrificial offerings was compared to eating directly at one's Father's table, whose loss synagogue worship does not entirely replace. One example is in :
Another example is in :
Non-Orthodox branches of Judaism (Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist) regard the korbanot as an ancient ritual that will not return.
Conservative Judaism disavows the resumption of . Consistent with this view, it has deleted prayers for the resumption of sacrifices from the Conservative, including the morning study section from the sacrifices and prayers for the restoration of qorbanot in the, and various mentions elsewhere. Consistent with its view that priesthood and sacrificial system will not be restored, Conservative Judaism has also lifted certain restrictions on, including limitations on marriage prohibiting marrying a divorced woman or a convert. Conservative Judaism does, however, believe in the restoration of a Temple in some form, and in the continuation of and Levites under relaxed requirements, and has retained references to both in its prayer books. Consistent with its stress on the continuity of tradition, many Conservative synagogues have also retained references to Shabbat and Festival, changing all references to sacrifices into the past tense (e.g. the Orthodox "and there we will sacrifice" is changed to "and there they sacrificed"). Some more liberal Conservative synagogues, however, have removed all references to sacrifices, past or present, from the prayer service. The most recent official Conservative prayer book, Sim Shalom, provides both service alternatives.
Reform Judaism and Reconstructionist Judaism disavow all belief in a restoration of a Temple, the resumption of, or the continuation of identified Cohens or Levites. These branches of Judaism believe that all such practices represent ancient practices inconsistent with the requirements of modernity, and have removed all or virtually all references to from their prayer books.
The traditional prayer book, as developed over the past two millenia, contains many references to Temple sacrifices, prayers for their resumption, and rituals intended to remind worshipers of the Temple service.
Numerous details of the daily religious practice of an ordinary Jew are connected to keeping memory of the rhythm of the life of the Temple and its sacrifices.
Today Orthodox Judaism includes mention of each on either a daily basis in the (daily prayer book) or in the (holiday prayerbook) as part of the prayers for the relevant days concerned. They are also referred to in the prayerbooks of Conservative Judaism, in an abbreviated fashion.
References to sacrifices in the Orthodox prayer service include:
A section of the morning daily prayer is called, and is mostly devoted to recitation of legal passages relating to the sacrifices. According to the Talmud, this recitation takes the place of the sacrificial offering, and achieves the same atonement that would have been achieved by sacrifices if they were possible.[62]
In the Nusach Ashkenaz custom, this section includes the following:[63]
The passage does not discuss sacrifices, and recitation of both it and was instituted so that a person would study a selection of each of the three divisions of Torah (mikra, mishnah, gemara) each day, not because of any connection to sacrifices.[64] However, these passages are still commonly considered part of the section of prayer.
In a later period, some communities began to add the following (all or some of the paragraphs):
See also: Temple in Jerusalem. The prevailing belief among rabbinic Jews is that in the messianic era, the Messiah will come, and a Third Temple will be built. The standard Amidah prayer-text, recited daily by Jews worldwide for the last 1800 years, asks God to "return the service to the Holy of Holies of your Temple, and the fire-offerings of Israel and their prayers may you accept with favor".[65] It is believed that the will be reinstituted, but to what extent and for how long is unknown.
According to some classical rabbinic sources hold that most or all sacrifices will not be offered: "In the future all sacrifices, with the exception of the Thanksgiving-sacrifice, will be discontinued."[66]
Maimonides and Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, despite some claims, believed that sacrifices would be resumed in the messianic era.[67] However, Kook believed that sacrifices could only be resumed once there was "an open appearance of the holy spirit in Israel".[68] Rabbi Hayim David HaLevi suggested that the future sacrificial service might be limited to grain-offerings, with no animal sacrifices being performed.[69] He based this assertion, which he called "highly novel", on 3:4 HE which speaks only of future mincha offerings, as well as the assumption that the word mincha refers to grain-offerings, as it usually does. However, according to other interpretations, mincha can also refer to animal sacrifices.[70]
According to a minority opinion in the Talmud, in the future the Torah's commandments will be nullified.[71] Interpretations of this statement differ as to which commandments will be nullified, for whom, and at what stage (for example, Rashba ruled that commandments are nullified for a person after they have died but never for the living).[72] Some kabbalistic sources envision a messianic era when the natural order will drastically change, and animals will be on a human level, at which point no animal sacrifices will be offered.[67]
Orthodox Judaism holds that in the messianic era, most or all of the korbanot will be reinstituted, at least for a time.
Conservative Judaism and Reform Judaism hold that no animal sacrifices will be offered in a rebuilt Temple at all.
In the 1800s a number of Orthodox rabbis studied the idea of reinstating on the Temple Mount, even though the messianic era had not yet arrived and the Temple was not rebuilt. A number of responsa concluded that within certain parameters, it is permissible according to Jewish law to offer such sacrifices. The debate on this topic involves numerous complex halakhic questions, among them:[73]
During the early 20th century, Israel Meir Kagan advised some followers to set up special yeshivas for married students known as that would specialize in the study of the korbanot and study with greater intensity the sections of the Talmud in order to prepare for the arrival of the Jewish Messiah who would oversee the rebuilding of the original Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem that would be known as the Third Temple. His advice was taken seriously and today there are a number of well-established Haredi institutions in Israel that focus solely on the subject of the,, and the needs of the future Jewish Temple, such as the Brisk tradition and Soloveitchik dynasty.
See main article: The Third Temple. A few groups, notably the Temple Institute and the Temple Mount Faithful, have petitioned the Israeli government to rebuild a Third Temple on the Temple Mount and restore sacrificial worship. The Israeli government has not responded favorably. Most Orthodox Jews regard rebuilding a Temple as an activity for a Jewish Messiah as part of a future Jewish eschatology, and most non-Orthodox Jews do not believe in the restoration of sacrificial worship at all. The Temple Institute has been constructing ritual objects in preparation for a resumption of sacrifices.