A Study of Jewish Worship: from Sacrificial Cult to Rabbinic Benedictions and Prayers

Dr. Martin Sicker

Description

Judaism, the origin of which dates from the rejection of polytheism by the patriarch Abraham nearly four thousand years ago, is committed to the worship of the one and only God. In the course of that long period of devotion, the character of that worship has evolved from a primitive form to progressively more sophisticated approaches necessitated by historical circumstances. The present study is concerned primarily with the original concept of worship of the divine in the form of a sacrificial cult, conducted by a priestly hierarchy, as described in the biblical Pentateuch, and the later transition to a democratized form of verbal worship conducted by the laity in a synagogue or by the individual in one’s home, as described in the rabbinic literature.
One of the significant difficulties encountered in such a study is the translation of biblical and rabbinic Hebrew texts into English, which employs terminology such as ‘worship’ and ‘prayer’, terms which have no reliable biblical or rabbinic Hebrew equivalent. Accordingly, the common equation of worship, in the general sense of reverence paid to a god, with prayer, in the more precise Jewish sense of supplication or petition, can be misleading. Indeed, prayer, understood in the latter sense, constitutes a rather small segment of the voluminous liturgy of Jewish worship, much of which is drawn directly from Scripture, whereas prayer as petition, both formal and personal, is primarily the product of individuals confronting a variety of challenges to their and their coreligionists’ social and physical wellbeing. The principal focus of this study is on prayer, understood in the latter sense, which is traditionally interconnected with benedictions intended to give hope to those petitioning for divine beneficence.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Bible study
• Judaism
• History of ancient Israel and Judah
• Religion

Informations

• Publié par: Xlibris US
• Date de parution: 19 octobre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669852346
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

A Study of Jewish Worship: From Sacrificial Cult to Rabbinic Benedictions and Prayers
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Dr. Martin Sicker
 
Copyright © 2022 by Dr. Martin Sicker.
 
ISBN:
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978-1-6698-5235-3

eBook
978-1-6698-5234-6
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
 
Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
 
 
 
 
Rev. date: 10/19/2022
 
 
 
 
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CONTENTS
Preface
Worship in Ancient Israel
Verbal Worship in the Biblical and Post-Biblical Periods
Rabbinic Worship
References
Notes
Preface
Judaism, the origin of which dates from the rejection of polytheism by the patriarch Abraham nearly four thousand years ago, is committed to the worship of the one and only God. In the course of that long period of devotion, the character of that worship has evolved from a primitive form to progressively more sophisticated approaches necessitated by historical circumstances. The net result of this is reflected in the contemporary division of the ancient faith into Orthodox, Reform, Conservative, and Reconstruction models of Judaism, with further differentiations within each of these continuing to evolve. These developments have generated a substantial body of literature, including diverse prayer books, reflecting fundamental changes in the liturgy, as well as minor alterations in the English translations of the traditional Hebrew texts that essentially ignore their literal meaning.
The present study is concerned primarily with the original concept of worship of the divine in the form of a sacrificial cult, conducted by a priestly hierarchy, as described in the biblical Pentateuch, and the later transition to a democratized form of worship conducted by the laity in a synagogue or by the individual in one’s home, as described in the rabbinic literature. One of the significant difficulties encountered in conducting such a study is the translation of biblical and rabbinic Hebrew texts into non-Semitic languages such as English, which employs terminology such as ‘worship’ which has no reliable biblical or rabbinic Hebrew equivalent. With regard to the latter, for example, there is a tendency to consider ‘worship’ as meaning ‘prayer,’ which in the relevant Hebrew texts denotes a request or supplication. However, in addition to prayer in the sense of supplication or petition, the Jewish concept of worship also encompasses thanksgiving, confession, benediction, study, affirmation, and praise, each of which has a place in the liturgy of Judaism. 1
Accordingly, the common equation of worship, in the general sense of “reverence paid to a god,” 2 with prayer, in the more precise sense of supplication or petition, can be misleading. Indeed, prayer, understood in the latter sense, constitutes a rather small segment of the voluminous liturgy of Jewish worship, much of which is drawn directly from Scripture, whereas prayer, both formal and personal, is primarily the product of individuals confronting a variety of challenges to their and their coreligionists’ social and physical wellbeing. The principal focus of this study is on prayer, understood in the latter limited sense, which is traditionally interconnected with benedictions intended to give hope to those petitioning for divine beneficence.
With regard to that interconnection, it was taught: “A man should always first recount the praise of the Holy One, blessed be He, and then pray. Whence do we know this? From Moses; for it is written, And I besought the Lord at that time , and it goes on, O Lord God, Thou hast begun to show Thy servant Thy greatness and Thy strong hand; for what god is there in heaven and earth who can do according to Thy works and according to Thy mighty acts, and afterwards is written, Let me go over, I pray Thee, and see the good land etc [Deut. 3:23-25].” 3 This is how one would approach a human king to request a favor, first extolling royal magnificence, and only them making a petition; how much more so should one follow that pattern in approaching the divine King of kings!
In the pages that follow consideration will be given to the origins of the physical sacrificial cult in ancient Judaism and the question of whether the metaphysical act of devotional speech accompanied the sacrificial rites or actually replaced them after those rites could no longer be performed. In either case, the physical sacrificial cult came to an end with the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, and was indeed replaced by Rabbinic Judaism, under which ‘worship’ took on the various aspects mentioned earlier, with special attention being given to the benedictions and prayers that constituted the core of what became known as ‘the service of the heart.’
Because of the variations in the prayer books of the several movements in contemporary Judaism, for purposes of this study the time-honored Hebrew text of the benedictions and prayers discussed in the following will be that which was considered standard from its final formulation some two thousand years ago until the nineteenth century. The English translation of the classical Hebrew text is that presented in The Authorized Daily Prayer Book of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Empire , originally published in 1891, with minor revisions in subsequent editions.
Worship in Ancient Israel
Worship, by definition, is an act of religious devotion usually directed towards a deity. Primitive man generally displayed reverence and adoration for the deities that he believed were in control of the forces of nature that directly affected him. “It was natural for primitive man to bring an offering—usually something precious from the fruits of the earth or the increase of his flocks or even, in some cults, the most precious of gifts, one of his children—a practice the Bible protested most vigorously against. But abhorrent as human sacrifice is, it is not unnatural.” 4 From the biblical perspective, the Torah teaches:
The essence of the human being is his need, and his ability, to sacrifice. Inherent in the logic behind this concept is the most fundamental aspect of the human predicament. Only the human being, among all other physical creatures of the world, is aware of its own limitations, reflecting on his own mortality. And since Adam [a person] is aware of the painful reality that no matter how strong, powerful or brilliant he may be, he will ultimately be vanquished by death, his only hope is to link himself to a being and a cause greater than he, which was there before he was born and which will be there after he dies.
Most people amass wealth and material goods in order to utilize them for themselves, to enjoy them in a physical here-and-now sense. But mortality teaches that our material possessions do not really belong to us; one day we will be forced to leave them and the entire world behind, and they will often fall into the very opposite hands to those we would have liked to receive them. Hence the real paradox: Only those objects which we commit to a higher cause, which we give to God, to His Temple, to His Study Hall, to His home for the sick, to His haven for the poor—only those are truly ours, because they enable us to live beyond our limited lifetime, perhaps to all eternity. Only that which we sacrifice is really ours! 5
The first scriptural example of the self-generated need to present a sacrificial offering to God the Creator appears in the story of Cain’s conflict with his brother Abel, Cain being a tiller of the ground and Abel being a keeper of sheep . According to the biblical narrative, in the process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also bought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof (Gen. 4:2-4). Although the narrator does not explicitly indicate the motivation for their offerings, commentators have suggested plausible explanations based on Cain and Abel’s conflicting vocational interests; Cain was a farmer who labored to grow the produce of his fields, while Abel was a shepherd who exploited the opportunity to use those same fields to graze his flocks of sheep and goats. Both sacrificed to the Lord what was of significant value to each in the hope of gaining the support of the deity for their unchallenged use of the land.
It has been observed by scholars of the ancient world that “Sacrifice was a widespread form of religious worship, and it is not to be wondered at that the [biblical] patriarchs should express their veneration for God in ways similar to those of the people around them, by sacrifice. When they believed they had a personal visitation from God, whether in the form of a divine or angelic visitor or by dream, or when they wished to call on the name of God and present themselves in worship before him, their sense of awe was expressed in this way . . . Their sacrifice was not a mere form of worship, but a genuine expression of their spirit and sense of God’s presence.”