Letter#9  Are Temple Sacrifices Necessary?

 
My dear Mr. Isaacs:
   I am pleased to learn that some of your Orthodox Jewish friends have been reading and commenting on my letters, and that in the future their opinions are to be included with those you express. I am pleased, because the Judaism your friends profess is the only existing Judaism that has any legitimate right to claim relationship, in principle, with the Judaism of old, even though it lacks Mosaic vitality, being minus a priesthood, sacrifice and Temple.
   You ask whether I object. My answer is, certainly not. You may not only show my letters to your Orthodox friends, you may also publish them in the Jewish press. This is only said tauntingly, for the possibility of a convert from the Synagogue to the Church getting into the Jewish press is as remote as that of a defender of the Synagogue getting his letters into the Nazi press of Hitler's Germany.
   You emphasize one point in particular in your letter received today, which will be dealt with at once. It relates to sacrifices. You hold that "sacrifices do not necessarily have to be offered in a temple, and on an altar." That is true of personal sacrifices, but not of the public, the collective sacrifices recorded in the foremost writings of Israel. You cite the subjugation of the desires of the flesh by the spirit; the widow giving her much needed mite to a holy cause; and the devotion of Jews (you should say Orthodox Jews) in their synagogues on the Sabbath Day, at the cost of a day's wage each week. Those are laudable personal sacrifices, which no doubt bring blessings from Almighty God. But they are not distinctively Jewish sacrificial acts, save going to synagogues instead of churches to pray. They are not sacrifices demanded exclusively of Israel by God, as recorded in the Torah, hence they are foreign to our discussion.
   Salvation from spiritual death was the objective of the Mosaic sacrifices. It was to be obtained through public, exterior, animal, burnt, meat, incense, and first-fruit offerings. Thus a public acknowledgment was made of dependence upon God; of thanksgiving for His bounty; of desire of peace of heart, home, and Israel; and especially as an atonement for sin. Such sacrifices were offered to God by the priests and the priests only.
   Before the Mosaic revelation, every man was his own priest, minister of his own sacrifices, such as Abel, Melchisedech and Abraham offered to God. The sacrificial function was generally exercised by the heads of families, the princes, ancients, and persons of high virtue. Such persons needed no special authorization to offer sacrifices, as was given by God exclusively to the sons of Aaron for the Torah sacrifices.
   It is too bad to have to repeat, in order to direct your mind to the central point, that God commanded sacrifices to be offered by the priests of Aaron, who are no more; in a central place, which is no more. The Jews of those sacrificing days had one God, one ritual, were one exclusive religious family of God's making, being aided in this union by having one center of worship. The principal bloody sacrifice, the sin offering, was a ram (a he-lamb) "without blemish" (Levit. I:I; 3:3). It was slaughtered and offered to God by the priest. This was the God-commanded way to obtain remission of the sins of Israel under the Law.
   The blood of the lamb having been given to the priest, was poured round and about the altar, thus offered to Jehovah. Through the blood of the victim, and the scapegoat driven into the wilderness with the sins of Israel on its head, God was adored, petitioned, and atoned for sin. The blood being the life-stream of the animal, symbolized the pouring out of life as a libation of love. God gives life, and thus life is given back to Him. The object of this immolation was to remind Jews that they are sinners, as we all are; that their offenses warranted death; and that they desired to make amends. St. Paul, advanced in the Law above many of his contemporaries in Israel (Gal. I:14), said,

"With blood almost everything is cleansed according to the Law, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness" (Heb. 9:22).

   You, and your Orthodox friends, know that the Jews of the diaspora have been unable to worship God with sacrifices as did our fathers of old in Israel, as with the end of the Aaronic priesthood and the fall of the Temple, all sacrifices ceased. Why? Why? Why have Jews no more sacrifices? Answer, if you can. It is the question of questions that Jews should ponder, for it embodies the primary cause and cure of the affliction Jews have suffered throughout the Christian ages.
   The Catholic answer to the question is Jesus the Messiah. He is, as the Jew John the Baptist hailed Him, "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" (St. J. I:29). There was no need any more of priests offering God the blood of lambs, as the Lamb of God (slaughtered by His enemies), who was "without blemish," offered His Blood, once and for all, "for the sin of the world." No longer were sacrifices to be offered for an exclusive circumcised people; henceforth all baptized persons who worshipped the Lamb of God, who offered Himself as a sacrifice, were to be God's chosen children. The high priest of Israel sacrificed exclusively for the children of Israel; while the Messiah, as High Priest of all humanity, offered Himself as a sacrifice for all humankind during all time. Christ, who could have called "twelve legions of angels" to check the action of the high priest, the Sanhedrin, Pilate, and the Roman soldiers, permitted Himself to be put to death, thus laying "down His life for us." Isaiah foretold it over seven hundred years before the Messiah came in these words:

"He was led like a sheep to slaughter; and just as a lamb dumb before its shearer, so did he not open his mouth" (Isa. 53:7).

   Aaron, and his descendants, were high priests of Israel, succeeding to the post at the death of the incumbent. Jesus, the Son of David, is the one and the only High Priest of the New Covenant, being, as King David foretold, "a priest forever according to the order of Melchisedech" (Ps. 109:4). His name is Jesus, whom you, my dear Mr. Isaacs, and all your fellow-Jews unfortunately reject. This Lamb of God died but once, that was on the Cross. Yet He Lives on in the priests of the Catholic Church He established, which is His Mystical Body. Through these priests, the Sacrifice on the Cross is continued in the Mass, though in an unbloody manner, in "remembrance" of Him, as He commanded at the Last Passover Supper of the Old Law (St. Luke 22:20).
   The Mosaic sacrifice was a bloody one, as you well know; whereas the Sacrifice of the Mass, in which Christ is remembered, which unfortunately you know not, is the unbloody Messianic Sacrifice that Malachi, the last of the prophets recorded in the Old Testament, called a "clean oblation," which would be offered, as it is, "from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof" (Mal. I:11).
   The Mosaic sacrifices arc no more, having been preordained by God to be but temporary. The Sacrifice of the Mass is eternal. It bears within it a divine appeal to the stray sheep of Israel to come to their Messiah in and through His blood.
   The ending of the priesthood and sacrifices of Israel would not be bemoaned by the Orthodox Jews of our day, were they to realize that they were displaced by the Jew of Jews with a Sacrifice that is as much more potent as Jesus is more potent than Moses.


Sincerely in the Messiah
D.... G........

 

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