Thread by @JoshuaCypess

1/ My daughter, an animal lover & thus frum vegetarian, gets upset abt the entire notion of korbanot. She has heard - in the popularized form - about the Rambam position from Moreh that sacrifices were a necessary practice given the mindset of ancient people. She asks if I agree.

2/ I explained that Rambam held a belief (echoed in the Enlightenment & *until this day*) that reason, education, philosophy etc will eventually triumph & make ppl reject superstitions

Sadly, I think we can say, esp. in 2020, that superstition is a built-in human condition

3/ While I identify w/Rambam's incorporeal & rationalistic relationship with Hashem, he also knew that this was a minority psychology. Most people serve God out of 'fear' = they expect reward & punishment, often literally, & immediately *in this world*

4/ Serving our of 'love' means to do commandments from duty, without expecting reward. Done because it's the right thing to do. Sure, I do expect reward/punishment in the afterlife but that's not the motivation for 'love'- it's being Godly, being Good

5/ But then there's what I call the Antignos Tzadok Dilemma (Avot 1:3): while ppl who serve God out of Love find serving out of fear disquieting, ppl motivated by Fear will reject God completely if they're told to serve out of Love

The dilemma: how to lead & teach both groups?

6/ The main technique is to broadcast as a main message Fear concepts & teachings b/c the consequences of the Tzadok types rejecting God is heresy, lawlessness & ultimately a profane society & culture

But I demand that the minority who follow from Love be given lessons quietly

7/ When the leadership doesn't understand the Dilemma, often b/c they're literal thinkers who think the Fear Derekh is the truth, will suppress & reject the Love/Duty Derekh. Or confuse the two, b/c when you don't understand the differences they can sound exactly alike

8/ Kids who grow up with a psychology that understands Love/Duty but who are only taught simplistic literalistic Fear messages will go off the derekh. But they will also (often) end up being ethical people.

Alas, ppl who serve from Fear, if they 'leave', will be quite unethical

9/ The Dilemma is how to balance the communal needs. How to teach the Love/Duty students the messages they need. How to keep the simplistic Fear people in the fold where their dedication to God's way will be maximized?

Now we come to physical attachment to religious objects

10/ If I understand Rambam's lessons correctly, the fact that people need korbanot is an inherent part of the human condition. I see it right now w/the desperate attachment to going to the physical synagogue despite the insane preventable risks from plague

11/ Why open shuls when congregating, especially indoors, will increase the chance for plague? Even holding aside that many literal thinkers just cannot envision microscopic pathogens, & many are MAGA cultists, the need to physically be in shul is like the NEED for korbanot

12/ Add onto that the very disturbing persistence of avoda-zara style practices like kapparot, or much of the theurgic mystical practices & other non-Talmudic psychopompic rituals, and I understand that the majority of people were CREATED to need to serve only out of Fear

13/ And b/c I'm a Torah U-Maddanik, I need to recognize that if there's a human condition that's impervious to education or culture or enlightenment, then I need to see that it's a fact from God, like all of science is part of God's revelation

I can't revile what God has made

14/ So will there be korbanot in Bayit Shelishi? Yes. And because it's a fact of life, I need to accept that people are created that way for a reason and reconcile that it's not 'wrong' just because it's unreasonable. Reason can't be my only metric

As for answering my daughter..

15/ I can always kick the can down the road & wait for mashiach. Not to answer questions, b/c we have that ability

But to restore a world of Immanence, where the Beit Hamikdash's augmentation of the sense of Hashem in this world will clarify what the holiness commandments mean

16/ Ultimately that's the real problem. I can't really understand the world of korbanot b/c it's not meant to be piecemeal & segmented. Having only some of the laws gives a false understanding of what Hashem asks of us

I've said for over 20 years: we're living in Emergency Times

17/ Rebbe Yochanan Ben Zakkai figured out how to navigate a world missing a Beit HaMikdash - and that means we have a darkened glass of only approximations of what we're supposed to do. That should be lesson number one: we're in a State of Emergency, doing the best we can

18/ Alas, that message is not very good for the Literalist Fear People. So if you're that kind of person... I'm speaking in a mystical code. All the letters are colors and I mean that the world is mauve when it should be cerulean

[For the dutiful lovers: wait & serve & believe]