Why do those who say they are under the Mosaic Law not follow all the stipulations like animal sacrifices given at alters, and all the other instructions given in Deteronomy and Exodus? Actually, the rebuilding of the temple would not be enough. Those rebuilding it would also have to begin sacrificing, setting up a priesthood to offer the sacrifices and s on. If indeed under law, why aren't these things being done?

BTW
This question also applies to those Christians who choose some parts of the ceremonial laws, such as tithing, and ignore the others.

orange

Short answer? Simply, because the Messiah (Moschiach) has not yet come. Moschiach is the only one who can rebuild the Temple, a rebuilding just by "normal" people would not be the same.

The practice of sacrifice, known as Qorbanot, mostly stopped in the year 70 CE, when the Roman army destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem, the place where sacrifices were offered. Sacrifices went on again during the Jewish War of 132-135 CE, but after the Jews lost the war, sacrifices were stopped permamently.

Qorbanot was stopped because we don't have a proper place to offer sacrifice. We are not supposed to just offer sacrifices when and wherever we feel like it (Deut. 12:13-14). It's considered a sin to offer sacrifice in any place other than where G-d has designated.

Even if some Jews wanted to rebuild the Temple without Moschiach, they would not be able to, because in the place appointed by G-d for this purpose (the location of the old Temple) a mosque has been erected.

It might interest you to know that Orthodox Jews (including my relatives!) still want to make sacrifices, and believe that when Moschiach comes, a place will be provided for sacrificial purposes.

Also, as far the priesthood goes, however accurate or inaccurate it may be, Jews think they still they know who the descendents of the priests in the Temple (the Kohanim) and their helpers (the Levites) are. It's passed down from generation to generation, and some people even have last names that show that they are descendents - for example, the last names Kohen, Cohen, Cohn, Kaplan, etc. In my family, my husband, his father, his brothers, are all Kohanim (descendents of the priests in the Temple). My son will also be a Kohen. All the laws in the Torah regarding the Kohanim that are still able to be kept apply to my husband and his male relatives. For example, they are not allowed to touch dead bodies. So, during a funeral, Kohens are never part of the Chevra Kadisha (group that prepares the body for burial). Kohens are also given special privileges in synagogue. They are usually the first to be called to the Torah during the Torah service. There is also a special sign of the Kohen, you probably know it best as the "Live Long and Prosper" gesture made by Spock in Star Trek. Leonard Nimoy is Jewish and as a child he saw the Kohens in his synagogue making that gesture (with both hands, actually), and so he took it and invented Spock's greeting.

So, when Moschiach comes, the descendents of the priests of the Temple will resume their duties. At least, this is what Orthodox Jews would like to see happen.

milliec

Wonderful answer Chava!
I wanted to add it to your reputation, but couldn't do it. I think this way is in any case not bad at all ( to say the least)
Millie
P.S. By the way: My mother's family were cohanim (trhoug their name is "Winter")
. One of her brothers married a french non jewish woman, and one of my cousins atill laments abouth his son not being Jewish and so can't perform the cohanim duties in the synagogue
M.

orange

Yup that's what I'm always complaining about, not being able to add to people's reputations, haha. Oh, well.

Starman

That is a very informative answer. Thanx for the information.

BTW
I'm running up against the same thing in reference to the reputations. Wonder why they do that?

orange

Thanks Starman. I'm glad the answer was helpful. I'm waiting to hear what the Christians you addressed in the question will say!

I think it's so that you can't artificially inflate someone else's reputation, by giving them too many positive comments, or vice versa. But yeah when someone gives a good answer it's frustrating. I find sometimes that I can come back a day later and comment, though. Although by that time I've usually forgotten about it!

Starman

I am curious as well since being CHristian requires one not to be under law.


Romans 6:15
What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid

jduke44

Starman, I am a Christian, but I wil be honest with you I am not up on the real deep theological studies. I am learning slowly. I will leave that to others who have studied more deeply. From what I have been taught and believe about tithing is that tithing was actually implimented before the law and then brought into the NT with Jesus. You will find there is controversy amongst Christians as to whether tithing is even something we should be doing. I run into that constantly. That is about all I have to say on the matter for now.

milliec

Well, do you think our time is up to it? Have we earned it?
I look around at the western society, sorry, i don't think we deserve it right now.
i look at our neighbors in the Middle East - 9/11 - just as a title - do i need to say more?
well, you'll say, what about the far east?
i'm not even close to hold myself as an expert on the subject but from what i hear , there's a bad situation of human exploitation going on there.
need to say more?
sorry,

millie




This is to the administration:
can we have a sad face and a heart symbol?
please!
thanks!
millie

Morganite

It was the Deuteronomists who insisted that all other temples used by ancient Israelites were to be abandoned and that true temple worship could only take place in the heykel at yerushalayim. This was a profoundly political move by the Deuteronomistic party to concentrate power into their own hands.

Deuteronomy is perhaps the most deliberately theological book in the Hebrew Bible, if by theological we mean explaining in a systematic and thoughtful way what the nature of God is and what faith entails. The theological teaching of Deuteronomy as amended by the Deuteronomists can be distilled into three phrases.

1) One God.

The Deuteronomist affirms a "practical" monotheism. "YHWH (or YHVH) is our Elohim, only YHWH." He was not concerned with abstract theological formulations. He stated that there was only one God who was interested in Israel. God demonstrated that by his care in the past. He demands their undivided loyalty in the present. He is the one and only God for their future. The people were bound to Yahweh by means of a legal contract, called the covenant. It defined the shape of their loyalty and specified how they would remain in God's good graces.

2) One People.

Deuteronomy is addressed to the people of God as a whole. No distinction is made between Southern and Northern Kingdoms. There are no tribal distinctions. This presumes the people of God are unified. This is affirmed in the covenant formula, "Yahweh is the God of Israel, and Israel is the people of God." The oneness of the people transcends generations. The book is addressed perpetually to the "now" generation. References to today and this day abound. The covenant is made "not with our fathers but with us alive today." The unity of the people is not based on genetic commonality but on the belief that God called them to be his people. They alone are the people of God, set apart from the rest of the nations and held together because Yahweh, in love, chose them. Sometimes called the "election" of Israel, this notion affirms that these people were singled out by God at his own initiative. That is what makes them special--Yahweh's "treasured possession" in Deuteronomy's language (7:6; see also Exodus 19:5, where the same term is used).

3) One Faith.

Israel had wandered into trouble because it had lost spiritual focus. Local variations in religious practices and the tendency to drift in the direction of Baalism resulted in unorthodox worship. The Deuteronomist demanded uniformity in worship. This could only be enforced if one central sanctuary was officially designated. "The place Yahweh will choose" became the only worship center. Although left unspecified in the text, the Deuteronomist had Jerusalem firmly in mind.

The Deuteronomist assembled annals, prophetic biography, temple chronicles and other historical material and molded them into his own theological image. This is especially true of the central Deuteronomistic tendency to maintain that there is only one legitimate place where Yahweh can be worshipped- the temple in Jerusalem. Thus, those who worshipped at other places were charged with sin (cf. 1 Ki 15:26, 34;16:19, 26).

The Book of Deuteronomy (whose Greek title means, Second Law, is accepted as having been written by Moses himself, but then to have been “lost” until its rediscovery in 622 BC. In the three long discourses of Deuteronomy, Moses reveals a list of instructions that includes criminal and civil law as well as commandments and prohibitions about worship. The composition of Deuteronomy marks, in an important way, the beginnings of the scriptural religions of the Western world.

Prior to 622 BC various texts were kept in the Jerusalem temple, but none of them claimed to be “the word of God.” Instead, they were either hymns to Yahweh (many of the Psalms were composed before this date), or stories about Yahweh, telling what mighty deeds he had done: his creation of heaven and earth, his unleashing of the Flood, his dealings with Abraham, his victories over the enemies of Israel and Judah, and so forth.

In contrast to these earlier texts, Deuteronomy provided the words of Yahweh, as recorded by Moses after his descent from Horeb or Sinai, where Yahweh had spoken to him. Deuteronomy was thus a sacred text.

Judahite religion at the end of the seventh century BC has been called “henotheism” but a more appropriate term for it is “monolatry.” The Judahites - at least in theory - now worshiped only one god. In earlier centuries they had given preferential treatment to Yahweh (“Thou shalt have no other gods before me!”), but they had not been kept from worshipping other gods.

After Josiah's reform, worship of any other god was regarded as a grave violation of Yahweh's covenant. As rewritten by the Deuteronomist historian, Yahweh had from the very beginning been the one and only god worshiped by Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all of Jacob's descendants. Just as the Elohist had interwoven the worship of Yahweh with everything known about the history of Israel in the northern kingdom, so now the temple texts in Jerusalem told how the history of both Israel and Judah was synonymous with Yahweh's blessing and punishing those kingdoms and their forbears.

Although Judahites recognized the existence of other aniconic gods in other kingdoms, in their own kingdom Yahweh became the deity. His name was so sacred that to say it aloud was to profane it, and he came to be addressed instead with the title, Adonai (“My Lord”).

The Deuteronomist was fanatical in his monolatry and his hatred of anyone in Judah who worshiped other gods. In Deuteronomy Moses is made to command the people to seek out and kill all those in “Israel” who worship gods other than Adonai. You were to slay such a person, regardless of whether he or she was your friend, brother, sister, son or daughter. Thus did the Deuteronomist give to Adonai in Judah the same “jealous” and bloodthirsty character that he had in Israel during the dynasty of Jehu.

Along with this change came the direction that only the Jerusalem temple was the house of yhvh, and that others, especially those in the northern kingdom of Israel should be torn down and treated like the high places and groves of the nations.


M:RGANITE