Ta’anit 27

Today’s gem recognizes how radically Judaism changed from Abraham to the time of the Talmud.

Abraham said: Master of the Universe, perhaps the Jews will sin before You. Will You treat them as You did the generation of the flood and the generation of the dispersion, and destroy them? God said to him: No. Abraham said before God: Master of the Universe, tell me, with what shall I inherit it? How can my descendants be sure that you won’t destroy the earth again? God said to Abraham: “Take for Me a three-year-old heifer, and a three-year-old goat, and a three-year-old ram, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon” (Genesis 15:9).

God says: they will know because of their close relationship with me when they offer sacrifices in the Temple. This will assure them that we are still in relationship and that I won’t destroy them. Remember, Abraham did not live in the times of the Temple – but this imagines him knowing that, one day, the Temple would stand and that there would be regular sacrifices. But apparently, Abraham can also see that the Temple won’t always stand:

Abraham said before God: Master of the Universe, this works out well when the Temple is standing, but when the Temple is not standing, what will become of them? God said to him: I have already enacted for them the order of offerings. When they read them before Me, I will ascribe them credit as though they had sacrificed them before Me and I will pardon them for all their transgressions.

This is our sacrifice of the mouth. As long as we read these passages before God, it’s as though we offered sacrifices, and God can forgive us, and our relationship stays intimate.

How incredibly different worship was to our nomadic forefathers, then to our established ancestors who offered sacrifice in the Temple, then what we experience today. Our rituals have needed to evolve while still fulfilling our need for proximity to God, community, and our inner selves.

What does that look like now? How does ritual activate your senses? When do you feel closer to God? To community? To your best self? How, when this doesn’t happen, do we experience it as destruction?