IT IS AN INTERESTING TOPIC: Do we really want the bet hamikdash — the temple — built for the third time?
Does HaShem really care about sacrifices, especially when we are behaving very much as we did when the second temple stood, and we all know how THAT turned out. In the meantime, don’t send me any picture postcards of the mosque on the Temple site. That is, in my opinion, a hillul HaShem.
שתבנה בית המקדש במהרה בימינו 1,2,3,4,5
According to many sedarim (prayer books), prayer has replaced sacrifices.
May you receive our prayers as if they are offered in lieu of the daily sacrifice
Hebrew from Sedur Avotanu; rough translation based on Tehilat HaShem.
There are a number of opinions regarding a third temple and restoration of sacrifices.
There is one opinion that holds that the next temple will descend from the heavens as a fait accompli; just add cohanim and levi’im.
Another opinion suggests that a third temple is just a dream since, despite DNA to the contrary, no one knows who is a “real” cohan and who is “ze’uf” — counterfeit. (So why do all “cohanim” bless the people at least once-a-year if some groups skip the Torah required priestly blessing6 at other times? In Sefardi and Mizrachi congregations, cohans bless the people at every morning service.)
Sacrifices
About the only time an animal is sacrificed in Judaism today is just before Yom Kippor and that is questionable as a sacrifice.
Why “questionable?” Mostly because sacrifices are supposed to be limited to the Bet HaMikdash (Temple) in Jerusalem.
There were some Jews who set up a temple in Egypt and offered sacrifices there. Josephus writes about the Temple of Onias7, 8.
Were these Jews punished for setting up an alternate temple? Perhaps. Today there are only a handful of Jews living in Egypt and there is a feud between the remaining (Ashkenazi) Jews and the Sefardim who left Egypt for points elsewhere when modern Israel was (re)established as to who owns whatever is treasured.
In any event, there is a movement to substitute the value of a hen or rooster in lieu of slaughtering the fowl. There are several reasons for this including the fact that it is increasingly difficult to find a qualified shohet (slaughterer) and modern sensibilities are offended by chickens in their final throes. Jewish food banks benefit either way: the fowl or the value of the fowl. Some countries also prohibit kosher (and halal) slaughtering as “inhumane.” No comment.
The followers of Santeria9 still sacrifice animals, often with an eye out for the local authorities who generally frown on the practice.
Temple as abattoir
When the temples stood, one of the priests’ (cohanim) main functions was to slaughter sacrifices. There are a multitude of occasions when Jews, and non-Jews as well, brought animals — from birds to cattle and other kosher animals — trying to either please HaShem or to appease HaShem for some real or imagined sin.
Never mind that in the TaNaCh we are told several times that HaShem prefers us to behave as civilized people rather than to bring sacrifices.
On the other hand, most sacrifices were eaten by the priests or the people who brought the offerings.
We were as children
Two reasons come to mind regarding WHY we offered sacrifices. Neither reason survives into the 21st Century.
Reason One: Everyone was doing it. Monkey see, monkey do.
At least we did not sacrifice people as did many of our neighbors in the area.
Some of our neighbors still willingly sacrifice their children as “shahids” — martyrs — in the name of Allah.
Reason Two: When we left Egypt we were as babies. We became teenagers as we wandered in the wilderness — please, not “desert” — and somewhere after entering Israel we grew into at least “semi”-adulthood.
As Ramba”m tells us, when a child is very little, you treat him accordingly; bribe him (or her, of course) with a candy or other sweet. As the child grows, the reward changes until the completed task is its own reward.
Likewise, as “children” surrounded by people who sacrificed children to Moloch and other gods, we copied them but limited our sacrifices to animals and foods (fine flour).
Hopefully we have advanced to an adulthood where sacrifices no longer are needed (despite our neighbor’s behavior).
Sources
1. Moroccan sedurim אבותנו and וזרח בשמש citing R. Yehuda Ben Tema
2. Ovadia Yosef sedur דעת " citing R. Yehuda Ben Tama
3. Artscroll סדור אהבת שלום sans citation and worded slightly differently.
4. Chabad Tehillat Hashem does not include this prayer
5. Conservative sedur לב ישראל does not include this prayer.
6. B’Midbar (Numbers) 6:22-27
7. Temple of Onias: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/onias-temple-of
8. Jews in ancient Egypt: https://tinyurl.com/y5vkdb6j
9. Santeria: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santer%C3%ADa
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