OT: traveling to the Temple a hardship?

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Tis_Bearself

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It seems like a continuing problem faced by the Kings of Judah and Israel involved Jewish people who would set up altars for sacrifice local to their area instead of coming all the way in to Jerusalem to do it at the Temple where the law said they had to do it.

I understand the Jewish people were used to walking and traveling distances, but at the same time it strikes me as a little unfair that if you were in the Jewish tribe assigned land at a distance from Jerusalem, you were still expected to come into town on a very regular basis to do sacrifices at the Temple. This was likely not a small undertaking for you, as opposed to the guy who lived in Jerusalem itself or in the “inner ring suburb”. Moreover, it seemed from the Jewish law that the number of circumstances that called for a sacrifice would mean you’d be going to the Temple quite regularly to stay in compliance with the law, so it wasn’t just a “once a year for the feast day” sort of trip.

I understand that God was actually present in the Temple and not elsewhere; also that the Temple was a unifier for the Jewish people, but I’m also not surprised that those at a distance would want to be having places of worship closer and more convenient to themselves.

Am I missing something here? Was this less of a big issue than I am seeing it as?
 
Unfortunately I do not know the answer but this is an interesting topic. I’m switching it to “watching” in order to be notified of any developments.
 
The centrality of Temple worship dates back to Josiah’s extensive religious reforms in 621 BC, detailed mainly in 2 Kings 23. On the one hand, as you say, attending all three pilgrim festivals every year must have placed both physical hardship and a considerable economic burden on the poorer people who lived further afield, for instance in Galilee. I don’t know what percentage of the population would have owned a camel or a donkey, but there must have been very many who had to travel on foot. On the other hand, the pilgrimages would have acted as a unifying force, holding the whole Jewish nation together, even – at a later date – those in the diaspora, in places like Alexandria, Damascus, and Antioch, and eventually even further away, in Corinth and Rome.

 
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Are there any forms of Judaism today that still practice animal sacrifice?
 
nightshade said:
Are there any forms of Judaism today that still practice animal sacrifice?
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Without the Temple sacrifice can’t be done. Perhaps one of our Jewish forum-goers can clarify, but I’ve seen mixed opinion. There are some who would resume the animal sacrifices after the Temple is rebuilt, and there are some who wouldn’t.
 
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Wesrock’s answer is basically correct for the vast majority of Jewish people. Since the Temple site is now occupied by the Muslim Dome of the Rock and the Muslims are very strict about who can even get to that site, and what you can bring with you (you can’t bring any religious item unless it’s Muslim, for example), the sacrifice can’t be done where the law says it has to be done. There are some rogue Jewish groups who will try to sneak over there and do sacrifices, I’ve read. This isn’t a popular or condoned activity due to the likelihood of its causing big trouble with the Muslims.

The Samaritans still do the ritual Passover with lambs getting slaughtered, as under their rules they do not have to do this at the Temple site.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
The Samaritans still do the ritual Passover with lambs getting slaughtered, as under their rules they do not have to do this at the Temple site.
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Didn’t they also have their Temple at a different location?
 
Yeah, they think that God’s choice for His Temple was actually Mount Gerizim, not the Temple Mount. So they all live around Mount Gerizim and do their rituals there.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
Yeah, they think that God’s choice for His Temple was actually Mount Gerizim, not the Temple Mount. So they all live around Mount Gerizim and do their rituals there.
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Yes, and the total Samaritan population today is, from what I’ve checked, only 810 people.
 
My understanding is that Jews had to be at the Temple for festivals 3 times a year. Given that at the time walking was THE mode of transportation I do not think this was unduly burdensome. Today’s standards do not apply. The Essenes were particularly poor and managed to do this fine according to Josephus. Also, I am sure along the roads and in Jerusalem there were shelters and inns meant for the poor from out of town and which were paid for by wealthy Jews as part of their charity. Being hospitable was considered a high moral value back then. This is why when I meditate I think for Mary and Joseph to go from Nazareth to Bethlehem must have been easy in comparison to the flight to Egypt. Beyond Judea conditions must have been a lot harder.
 
Dan_Defender said:
My understanding is that Jews had to be at the Temple for festivals 3 times a year.
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If you actually read the Jewish law in the OT, you’d likely be required to be there a LOT more than “3 times a year”. Yes, you had to go to the festivals, but also, there were ritual sacrifices required for atoning for sins, for giving thanks after recovering from illness or being spared danger, after giving birth to a child, and for touching a corpse. There are supposedly 100 commandments in the Jewish law just dealing with the rules for sacrifices (and excluding commandments that pertain to priests or to the temple area only).

Now I’m sure that people who had to travel a distance to get to the Temple would try to kill as many birds with one stone as they could while they were there, and take care of multiple reasons for going in one trip, but it seems like a lot of the regular events of life required somebody to run down and do a Temple sacrifice. That’s why I said it wasn’t a “once a year for a festival” type pilgrimage.
 
It takes about 2-2.5 hours to walk from Jerusalem to Bethlehem as the distance is about 8 km or 5 miles on a relatively flat surface.

Present day Israel is a tiny country. It takes longer to walk from the Mediterranean Sea or from the Dead Sea to Jerusalem due to the altitude Jerusalem is built on but it is totally doable in a couple of days.
 
I may be misremembering, but aside from the main festivals and major life events, were non-priests required to go to Jerusalem for all offerings? Or would there be a priest nearby they could go to and request that they make the offerings for them next time the priest was in Jerusalem?
 
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Good questions, and I don’t know. If it was a case where you could just give a priest, or your servant, some money and ask them to please go make this offering on your behalf, then maybe it was more doable. Looking at the map of the Twelve Tribes’ territories in those days, it looks like it would be a bit of a haul for somebody from the far end of Naphtali or Simeon to be trekking to Jerusalem regularly, unless they were someone who was used to doing it all the time for their job, or a young strong person.
 
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Not surprised. Just reading about the thousands of animals being slaughtered at one time in, say, the Chronicles story of Hezekiah makes me think it must have been like a bloodbath. Something like 17 thousand sheep and that’s not counting the bulls or cows or whatever. I know sometimes those stories are exaggerated but even if it was a fraction, that’s a lot of animals. Plus it goes into detail in one story (may not be Hezekiah, might be another king, they’re all running together in my head at this point) about how they had to set up extra altars or something to get all the animals killed.

I am very glad we have come around to a better idea of what God actually wants so we no longer have to cremate a thousand sheep corpses.
 
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During our RCIA one of the teachers told us about how it would have looked at the Temple during times of large sacrifices. The priest would have been dousing the altar in blood which was then washed and drained out the side. So there would have been blood and water pouring out the side of the temple.
 
Dan_Defender said:
Also, I am sure along the roads and in Jerusalem there were shelters and inns meant for the poor from out of town and which were paid for by wealthy Jews as part of their charity. Being hospitable was considered a high moral value back then.
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Not just moral virtue, but law.

You could not, for example, harvest the last row (s?) along the road, as the poor were entitled to eat these while traveling.

hawk
 
Tis_Bearself said:
There are some rogue Jewish groups who will try to sneak over there and do sacrifices, I’ve read. This isn’t a popular or condoned activity due to the likelihood of its causing big trouble with the Muslims.
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LOL. So a group of guys would sneak unto to the Temple with a fatted calf? And try to storm the Dome of the Rock and sacrifice the poor animal? Sounds pretty ballsy.
 
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