The opening section of yesterday’s Torah reading presents a series of laws regarding the need to centralise Israelite worship at the “place where God will choose for His name to dwell”. The passage envisions that at some future point, the twelve tribes would be united into a kingdom which would collectively focus its worship around a single place.
What this produces is a fascinating and highly unusual example of a biblical law which the Torah itself appears to forecast will change at a future point. The books of the prophets recount, however, that this future change to prohibit private altars (bamot) was one that the nation struggled to obey – even during periods in which it was worshipping God rather than idols. Judaism Reclaimed dedicates a chapter to analysing the unusual nature of this law and why the nation struggled so much to comply with its demands.
As explained in the Mishna, bamot were not always prohibited. In the absence of a Beit Hamikdash or established Mishkan at Shilo, offering a sacrifice to God on a private altar was considered a great mitzvah. Even so, a person who offers such a private offering at the wrong time is liable to receive the severe punishment of karet.
The Ran (Nedarim 22a) explains that the Beit Hamikdash was built a full 400 years after the Jewish people had conquered and settled the land of Israel. With the construction of the Mikdash, the use of private altars, which had been deeply ingrained into the national psyche as a valid and meritorious method of serving God became totally prohibited. In explaining the significance of bamot sacrifices in the national perception, the Radak goes so far as to say that such bamot had become synonymous with the idea of religious expression, and the term ‘bamah’ was thus used to describe even the public altar at Givah (Yechezekel 20:29). Perhaps most significantly, these private altars had served for many years as a way for a ‘Yisrael’, the regular (non-priestly) Israelite Jew, to make a personal offering literally in his own back garden.
Following the ban on bamot, the ordinary Jew was being asked to forgo a treasured act of personal involvement through which he felt great spiritual fulfilment, and to renounce it in favour of the Kohanim. He now had to be satisfied with nothing more intimate than the bringing of his offering to the Beit Hamikdash. Henceforth it was the Kohen who performed all of the avodah, leaving this Yisrael a distant and uninvolved spectator.
Viewed from Rambam’s approach to the phenomenon of korbanot, the Torah’s future restriction of bamot in favour of more detached and limited centralised sacrifices was a manifestation of his overarching explanation that korbanot were primarily a non-ideal form of worship intended to withdraw the Israelites from pagan practice and beliefs. The plan was that, as the nation would become more religiously and theologically mature, korbanot would largely be limited to a more symbolic centralised ritual while everyday connection to God could focus increasingly on prayer and meditation.
If we follow Rambam’s reasoning to its logical conclusion, it may not be surprising that the ban on bamot was so weakly regulated. Even with the Beit Hamikdash built, competition from the surrounding pagan cultures – including, significantly, the Northern Israelite kingdom – meant that it may have been considered a perilous time to remove the private bamot from Judean back-gardens. Rather than guiding them towards a more refined manner of divine worship, restricting korbanot at this time may have reinforced the attraction of pagan competition. It is little wonder therefore that very few of even the righteous kings of Judah were able to uproot the common practice of bamot.
Ultimately, it was only during the era of Chizkiyahu, who reigned after the fall of the idolatrous Israelite kingdom, that the righteous kings of Judah were able to turn their attention to uprooting the practice of bamot from their kingdom.
First posted to Facebook 13 August 2023, here.
