Did God Reject the Sacrifices
Because of Yeshua?
A Response to Rabbi Singer
By Rabbi Gavri’el Moreno-Bryars and Michael Bugg
An item recently came to our attention that it seemed
beneficial to respond to. Rabbi Singer, a well-known anti-missionary, recently
responded to a question regarding a proof that many Christian and Messianic
teachers have recently begun using from the Talmud. The quote in question comes
from b. Yoma 39b, and reads as follows (Neusner’s translation):
Forty years before the destruction of the sanctuary, the
lot did not come up in the right hand, and the thread of crimson never turned
white, and the westernmost light never shone, and the doors of the courtyard
would open by themselves, until Rabban Yohanan b. Zakkai rebuked them. He said,
“Temple, Temple, why will you yourself give the alarm [that you are going to be
destroyed? You don’t have to, because] I know that in the end you are destined
to be destroyed. For Zechariah b. Eido has already prophesied concerning you:
‘Open your doors, Lebanon, that fire may devour your cedars’ (Zec. 11: 1).”
The “thread of crimson” refers
to a tradition recorded in this same passage that when the Yom Kippur sacrifice
was made, the goat for Azazel (the “scapegoat”; cf. Lev. 16 for the ceremony)
would have a scarlet ribbon tied in its horns. If
Adonai accepted the sacrifice, the
ribbon would miraculously turn white—as Rabbi Singer correctly points out, this
sign points to Isa. 1:16-20:
"Wash yourselves clean! Get your evil deeds out of my
sight! Stop doing evil, learn to do good! Seek justice, relieve the oppressed,
defend orphans, plead for the widow. "Come now," says
Adonai, "let's talk this over
together. Even if your sins are like scarlet, they will be white as snow;
even if they are red as crimson, they will be like wool. If you are willing and
obedient, you will eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you
will be eaten by the sword"; for the mouth of
Adonai has spoken. (CJB, which is
based on the JPS Tanakh)
As Rabbi Singer states, many Christians see this rejection
of the Yom Kippur sacrifice for the forty years separating the Cross and the
destruction of the Temple as proof “that God was no longer accepting animal
sacrifices, and the Jewish people, therefore, needed to turn to Jesus as their
only avenue for atonement . . . [and] that the sins of the Jews were not
forgiven because they did not accept Jesus as their messiah.”
Using the Talmud
Rabbi Singer, of course, rejects this view outright. In
fact, he spends two pages (as counted by MS Word) engaging in a type of
“argument by outrage” that a Christian would dare to appeal to the Talmud for
proof of their beliefs. He calls it a “schizophrenic technique” that on the one
hand “evangelicals fervently insist that the written Bible alone is reliable and
divinely inspired and often scornfully mock traditional Jews as practicing a
‘rabbinic Judaism,’” while on the other, “whenever missionaries feel the urge to
advance their position by quoting from the Talmud, they undergo a
spontaneous conversion . . .“
Since Rabbi Singer attacks the very idea of Christians
referring to the Talmud at length before getting to the meat of the
interpretation, let us take a moment and ask, “Is it really illegitimate to
refer to the Talmud as a historical source without admitting its Divine
inspiration?” Would Rabbi Singer consider it equally illegitimate for a
Christian (or a Jew) to refer to the histories of Josephus, Eusebius, or
Tacitus, since we also reject the idea that they are inspired? Does Rabbi
Singer also reject referring to the books of the Maccabees in making a study of
Hanukkah—or for that matter, referring to the Renewed Covenant (New Testament)
or other Christian writings when making an argument against Yeshua? I somewhat
doubt it. The energy he devotes to arousing the indignation of his traditional
Jewish readers against Christian apologists is therefore misplaced, contributing
nothing to the discussion but to further prejudice his audience.
Of course, Rabbi Singer is not attacking merely for the
sake of attacking. Rather, he is seeking to defend his people against a Church
whose predominant attitude is that Jews who come to believe in a Jewish Messiah
should assimilate into the Church’s culture—which is distinctly Gentile. We
share Rabbi Singer’s concern; it was never the intention of Yeshua or His
original disciples that Jews should cease to keep the Torah or the traditions of
their people. And that is why in these days the Holy One has brought about the
advent of Messianic Judaism, so that the many Jews who are finding out that
Yeshua is indeed the prophesied Messiah of Israel will have a synagogue which
recognizes Him but which encourages them to remain Jews.
(Of course, there are many Messianic and Hebrew Root bodies
who are more church than synagogue, and this must be acknowledged. However,
there are also a growing number of us that have decided firmly to be
synagogues—synagogues who believe that Yeshua is the Messiah, but synagogues
nevertheless.)
The proper role of the Talmud within the Messianic Jewish
community continues to be a matter of some
debate; however there are many of us who have a great deal of respect for
the ancient sages, and while we do not necessarily grant the Talmud quite so
high a place as in Orthodox Judaism, nevertheless we value it for its many
nuggets of wisdom and for the historical insights it gives us as we discuss and
debate our own halakhah.
Rabbi Singer’s ire is perfectly understandable, and we
sympathize with him more than he knows, but it unfortunately leads him to engage
in reflexive opposition rather than focusing on the more substantial arguments:
Citing the above statement, missionaries contend that the
year the scarlet ribbon ceased to turn white coincides with the time that Jesus
was crucified. They go on to insist that 40 years prior to the destruction of
the second Temple corresponds to the year 30 C.E., which is approximately the
time of Jesus' crucifixion.
Missionaries “contend” that the year the ribbon ceased to
turn white coincides with the time Yeshua was crucified? They “go on to insist”
that 40 years prior to the destruction of the Temple equals 30 CE? Why does
Rabbi Singer require such qualifiers? The dates are not a matter of dispute, so
why use language implying a valid uncertainty rather than simply arguing for
coincidence without correspondence? It is just this sort of reaction on both
sides that has led to twenty centuries of tragedy for our people.
The point here is not to make fun of Rabbi Singer, who is a
very learned man with a great zeal for the Eternal One and his people. The
point is to demonstrate that just as the Christian missionaries have an
ideological axe to grind when they quote Yoma 39b without explanation or
qualification, so does Rabbi Singer when he rejects the argument.
With that in mind, let us look into the actual passage in
question. Rabbi Singer raises two valid objections to the common Christian
argument from this passage: 1) That it ignores the context, which indicates a
slow degradation rather than a sudden cessation, and 2) that even evangelicals
expect a return to the sacrificial system based on Ezekiel 40-48, so the issue
could not be that sacrifices were no longer valid. However, while these are
valid objections, it is our opinion that they do not seriously afflict the
apologetic value of this passage for the followers of Yeshua.
The Context
Shim’on HaTzaddik (Simeon the Righteous) was the Cohen
HaGadol, or High Priest, over Israel in the beginning of the 3rd
Century BCE. He is one of the most famous figures in Jewish history,
representing the high point of the Second Temple priesthood, when the Eternal
One blessed the Temple and priesthood and the sacrifice was always accepted and
always gave a good omen (the lot for
Adonai coming up in the right hand). It is no surprise, then, that the
Talmud portrays a loss of this level of blessing after Shim’on HaTzaddik’s
death.
And indeed, such a view is completely consistent with
the NT view. The authors of the Renewed Covenant Scriptures certainly did
not regard everything in the Temple as in keeping with the Eternal One’s intent
up to the point that Yeshua HaMashiach was executed. We see, for example,
Yeshua chasing out the moneychangers and merchants with a whip—twice (John
2:14-17, Mat. 21:12-13)! We also see the plot against Yeshua being motivated by
fear (John 11:48) and jealousy (Mat. 27:18). In short, we see Jerusalem’s
leadership affected by the very “spiritual decay” and “self-destructive . . .
interpersonal baseless hatred that was pervasive among the Jewish people during
this difficult time” that Rabbi Singer sees.
Yet the Talmud does not speak of a gradually-decreasing
glory in the Temple. It says only that after Shim’on HaTzaddik’s death,
sometimes the miracles associated with his life still happened, and sometimes
they did not. But about 30 CE, something abruptly changed: Not only was the
Yom Kippur sacrifice never again accepted (a “mere” withdrawal of a miraculous
sign), but the western light on the Menorah actively went out and the
doors actively swung open. Josephus (Wars, 6.5.3) records other
signs that happened as well. Though he does not record when they began, he
mentions the doors of the sanctuary swinging open on their own, so we may
surmise that he was referring to the same forty-year period.
What is the point of all this? The point is that it wasn’t
simply that the Eternal One had ceased to perform the miracles that He had in
the days of Shim’on HaTzaddik—He was actively performing miraculous signs as
a warning call to Israel, beginning 40 years before the Temple’s
destruction.
Why 40 years? What happened at that time that brought
God’s judgment to the tipping point? In the Torah, God tested and judged Israel
for 40 years after they sinned by not going into the Land of His Promise,
bringing about one generation’s end so that another generation could enter that
Promise. And while there were many sins that Israel committed on the way,
there was a final and specific sin that resulted in that judgment: They did
not trust the One who had Redeemed them in the face of the Anakim. What then
was the specific sin among the many that caused God to reject Israel’s
sacrifices for forty years, culminating in the destruction of that
generation?
Gratuitous Hatred and Yeshua’s Death
Let us consider the Talmud’s answer. Yoma 9b seeks to
explain why the Second Temple was destroyed, even though it had not fallen into
the idolatry of the First Temple and the study of Torah was widespread in
Israel:
But as to the second sanctuary, in which the people were
engaged in Torah and practice of the commandments and acts of loving kindness,
on what account was it destroyed? It was because of gratuitous hatred. That
fact serves to teach you: gratuitous hatred weighs in the balance against the
three cardinal sins of idolatry, fornication, and murder.
This brings to mind Yeshua’s words on the eve of His
crucifixion:
I command these things to you, that you may love one
another. If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated
you. . . . But this happened so that the word may be fulfilled which was
written in their law, ‘They hated me without a cause.” (John 15:17-19, 25,
citing Psa. 35:19, 69:4)
What if, we ask, the general rise of gratuitous hatred in
Israel culminated and focused in a hatred of the One whom the God of Israel sent
“to proclaim good news to the humble. . . to bind up the brokenhearted, to
proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to those who are bound; [and] to
proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor” (Isa. 61:1-2)?
Even many traditional Jews are recognizing Yeshua as a
great rabbi, if not (yet) the Messiah. Dr. Pinchas Lapide, an Orthodox scholar,
for example writes,
Jesus was utterly true to the Torah, as I myself hope to
be. I even suspect that Jesus was even more true to the Torah than I, an
Orthodox Jew. (The Resurrection of Jesus)
Interestingly, Lapide accepts the
Resurrection as a historical fact, a true miracle of God, though he disagrees
that this miracle proves Yeshua to be the Messiah of Israel. Likewise, Rabbi
Joseph Telushkin writes of Yeshua,
The New Testament depiction of Jesus suggests that he was
largely a law-abiding and highly nationalistic Jew, and a man with strong
ethical concerns. Like many of Judaism’s great rabbis, he saw love of neighbor
as religion’s central demand. Though many Christians are under the impression
that he opposed Judaism’s emphasis on law, in actuality he criticized anyone who
advocated dropping it. . . .
[A]most no Jewish scholars now believe that Jesus intended
to start a new religion. Were Jesus to return today, most Jews believe, he
undoubtedly would feel more at home in a synagogue than a church. . . . Jesus
generally practiced Pharisaic (rabbinic) Judaism. (Jewish Literacy, pp.
126, 128)
It then becomes apparent that Jesus was in some ways an
innovator who taught new ideas or extended old ideas into new territory, while
in other ways Jesus followed the Jewish teachings of his times. Generally
speaking, Jesus’ teachings can be placed in the broad context of first century
Judaism in its many manifestations. (The Jews in the Time of Jesus, p.
13)
Wylen goes on to surmise that Yeshua was put on trial and
executed not because of any religious blasphemy, but because “Caiphas and Pilate
believed Jesus either intended an insurrection, or else would be the cause of
one,” possibly because of his action in driving the money-lenders from the
Temple (pp. 128f).
The conclusion of the historians: Jesus was killed by
some Romans and some Jews, a conspiracy between the homegrown and imperial
rulers of the country, in order to keep the peace during the Passover holiday.
(ibid.)
Yet the Gospel accounts make it clear that Yeshua led no
insurrection, even making an argument for paying taxes to Caesar (Mat. 22:21).
Moreover, the Sadducees set up a crowd to call for the release of a known
insurrectionist rather than see Pilate let Yeshua go (Mark 15:11), so clearly
more than a concern for peace with Rome was at stake for them. Note that the
“sympathetic” Pilate that many (such as Rabbi Telushkin) believe they see in the
portrayal of Pilate in the NT doesn’t match up with what we know from secular
history—but a Pilate who realized that he was being used as the hatchet-man in
what was essentially a religious dispute and as a result pushed back against the
Sadducees’ pressures is (cf. Mat. 27:18)!
A sanhedrin which imposes the death penalty once in seven
years is called murderous. R. Eleazar b. Azariah says, “Once in seventy years.”.
R. Tarfon and R. Aqiba say, “If we were on a sanhedrin, no one would ever be put
to death.”
The Gemara of this passage goes on to describe the very
great lengths the Sanhedron would go to in order to avoid a sentence of death,
including finding every possible way of disqualifying the eyewitnesses (a
parallel can be found in John 8:1-11, where Yeshua uses precisely this method).
This distaste for the death penalty was greatly increased by the fact of the
Roman occupation: It was considered incredibly shameful to turn a brother Jew
over to pagans to be slain.
Now consider the hatred focused on this one man, a man who
modern Jewish (and Christian) scholars are more and more recognizing taught from
the Torah within the bounds of the traditional Judaism of His day—leaning, in
fact, towards the teachings of Rabbi Hillel. What cause had Yeshua given the
leaders of Israel to hate Him and call for His death, even handing Him over to
the pagans? He taught repentance rather than revolution, the love of God and
our fellow man, and never, ever taught anyone to practice idolatry or to abandon
the Torah (per Deu. 13:1-5 [12:32-13:5]). Where He claimed to be the Messiah
and Savior of Israel, He did so by His deeds rather than by His words—and his
deeds were to raise the dead, heal the lepers, bring sight to those born blind,
and cast out the deaf-mute spirits.
To slay one who brought about great weal to the Jewish
public by the finger of God out of envy and fear would certainly qualify as
“gratuitous hatred.”
The End of Sacrifice?
On the other hand, Rabbi Singer is right and the Christian
missionaries he contends with are wrong in one very important aspect: The
rejection of the Yom Kippur sacrifice was by no means proof that God had “taken
away” the sacrificial system or the Levitical priesthood. Aside from the
prophecies of Ezekiel (which Messianics and many branches of Christianity widely
acknowledge to refer to a future restoration of the Levitial priesthood), there
are numerous proofs from the Scriptures—both in the Tanakh and the Renewed
Covenant—that while the priesthood and Temple service were taken away as
punishment for Israel’s sins, they were not simply discontinued for all time
because of Yeshua’s ultimate Sacrifice on the Cross:
The descendants of Phinehas were given “the covenant
of an everlasting priesthood” (Num. 25:13).
Jer. 33:15-22 states that just as “David shall never
want a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel,” neither will “the
priests the Levites want a man before me to . . . do sacrifice
continually.” But where David’s promise is spoken of as a singular
man, the Branch, the Messiah, the Levitical priests are spoken of in the
plural in vv. 21-22. Hence, we who believe that the Messiah’s office is an
eternal one must acknowledge that the Levitial priesthood is likewise
eternal.
The disciples of Yeshua did not immediately break from
the Temple; on the contrary, they went “[d]ay by day continuing with one
mind in the Temple” (Acts 2:46, cf. 3:2). To worship in the Temple meant
participating in the daily sacrifices; therefore, if they had truly believed
that Yeshua’s Sacrifice ended and forbade all future sacrifices, they would
have withdrawn from the Temple services as the Essenes, who merely saw the
Temple as corrupt, did.
In Acts 21:18-26, we see Rabbi Sha’ul, the student of
Gamaliel, better known to the world as the Apostle Paul, facing accusations
that he was teaching Jewish believers in Yeshua to no longer circumcise
their sons (i.e., raise them to be Jewish) and to no longer keep the Torah
and the traditions. In order to refute that charge, he takes a voluntary
Nazrite vow with four other Messianic Jews—note that these four were
already under a vow, meaning that such things were not unusual in the
Messiah’s early Assembly—and to pay for the requisite sacrifices that were
required to shave their heads. Clearly, they did not see a problem with
continuing to make sacrifices even some thirty years after the Messiah’s
crucifixion.
However, while the rejection of the Yom Kippur sacrifice is
not, as many Christians suppose, a sign that God had brought the Levitical
priesthood to a permanent end, it does point us to an important aspect of the
Messiah’s mission. Psalm 110:4 speaks of one who would be like Melchizedek,
both a king and a priest, and Zec. 6:12-13 tells us that the Branch, the
Messiah, “will be a priest on His throne, and the counsel of peace will be
between the two offices.”
ADONAI slew Aaron’s two sons for the sin of offering
unauthorized fire (Lev. 10:1-2). If He did not accept an unauthorized form of
worship from authorized priests, might we suppose that He would also reject an
authorized sacrifice by an unauthorized priest, especially those who were
complicit in rejecting and putting to death the king-priest that He had sent to
call Israel to repentance and offer the true Atonement for their sins?
Likewise, God took away the sacrifice in the days of
Jeremiah because the people had gone to other gods, resulting in hatred, murder,
fornication, and injustice. Would He not also take away the sacrifice if
Israel, following a corrupt leadership, rejected His Messiah, His very
Sh’khinah, as King over them in order to curry favor with the kings of the
pagans, as a result of and resulting in even more hatred, murder, fornication,
and injustice?
Rabbi Singer makes another crucial error when he writes,
“Isaiah loudly declares that charity and acts of kindness alone atone for
man's most grievous sins, as he repeatedly and resoundingly trivializes the
blood sacrificial system as an efficacious means for atonement” (emphasis
mine). Isaiah says no such thing, nor could he, for “the life of the flesh is
in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your
souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement” (Lev.
17:11). Just as the Renewed Covenant Scriptures cannot be interpreted in such a
way that they override the Torah, neither can the prophets. Rather, the prophet
is simply affirming the truth of Num. 15:26-30, that the sacrifices were useless
to atone for those still actively sinning against God’s commandments, for the
sacrifices could only be offered for one who sinned unintentionally, out of
ignorance or weakness, not those who sinned “with a high hand.”
In other words, Isaiah didn’t call for more sacrifices
because the sacrifices were already being made; he was calling for repentance
resulting in social justice so that the Blessed One would accept the sacrifices!
This Biblical truth, that it takes blood-sacrifice to atone
for sin, has been set aside by the rabbis since the destruction of the Temple.
However, the Torah is clear that unless the Eternal One provides an atoning
Sacrifice, our good deeds could never save us or atone for us, “For all of us
have become like one who is unclean, And all our righteous deeds are like a
filthy garment” (Isa. 64:6).
The issue was not that Israel continued to sacrifice in
obedience to the Torah, but that they were not putting their trust in the
correct Sacrifice, nor were they repenting of their sins—including the
gratuitous hatred towards the One God had sent to them.
Conclusion
There is no denying that the Talmud puts the final
rejection of the Yom Kippur sacrifice at forty years before the fall of the
Temple, and there is no denying that Yeshua was crucified at about that same
time. The only subjects open to debate are how we interpret that
correspondence: Was it simply coincidence, or was the God of Israel sending a
message to His people?
We have seen that while the Talmud does indeed indicate a
spiritual decline after the time of Shim’on HaTzaddik, it also marks a definite
point at which God not only withdrew a miraculous sign, but in which He sent
miraculous signs warning of His impending judgment. This definite point
corresponds to the execution of Yeshua. It is not enough to just claim a
coincidence; if not the rejection of the Messiah, exactly why did God choose
that exact time to begin actively and consistently warning Israel of the
impending judgment?
We have seen that the rabbinic explanation for the
destruction of the Second Temple, that of gratuitous hatred, finds its focus and
full measure on the gratuitous hatred Israel’s leaders, the Sadducees in
particular, held against Yeshua.
And we have seen that the reason the Yom Kippur sacrifice
was rejected was not that God had discarded the sacrificial system per se,
but that Israel had once again rejected her proper King—a King who is also a
Priest—in favor of pagan lords.
Rabbi Singer is correct when he says that most Christians
who latch onto Yoma 39b do so without an appreciation for its proper context,
and that God’s rejection of the Temple sacrifices because of Israel’s sins does
not mean that Yeshua’s Sacrifice was meant to bring all others to an end.
However, he does not even attempt to demonstrate what other event, if not the
rejection of Yeshua, might have caused God to actively work against the Temple
service circa 30 CE.
As much as we disagree with Rabbi Singer’s treatment of
Yoma 39b, we agree with his closing statements. We live in a day and age when
the whole world seems to be gathering against the people of the God of Abraham,
both Jew and Christian, and yet in so many quarters we continue to tear each
other apart. As Messianic Hebrews, we repent of the hatred so many of our
physical and spiritual ancestors have shown to our Jewish brothers and sisters
in the past, and affirm again our love for and support of Israel. To that end,
if any of our words to and/or about Rabbi Singer in this article have been
unintentionally harsh, we beg the reader’s forgiveness and understanding.
We also repent of the hatred that has so often flared
between brothers and sisters in the Messiah, whether we call ourselves
Messianics or Christians, and call for a renewed commitment to love, humility,
righteousness, and charity as we struggle with the issues, both in and out of
the Body, which are facing us in the 21