Ritual about Myth about Ritual: Towards an Understanding of the Avodah in the Rabbinic Period

The Journal o/Jewish Thought and Philosophy, Vol. 6, pp. 135-155 © 1997Reprints available directly from the publisherPhotocopying permitted by licence only

Ritual about Myth about Ritual:Towards an Understanding of theAvodah in the Rabbinic Period

Michael D. Swartz

The Ohio State University, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures,Columbus, Ohio, USA

If we wish to understand the place of myth and ritual in the historyof Judaism, then we must appreciate the importance myth andritual had for the ancient Rabbis and their contemporaries. This hasnot always been recognised. In a recent article, Michael Fishbaneargues against a common tendency to deny the mythic aspects ofancient Judaism.1 Rabbinic Judaism, he shows, preserves andfashions striking examples of mythopoesis. Among the sources hecites as evidence are talmudic legends regarding divine sorrow anda liturgical poem (Piyyut) by the sixth-century poet Eleazar Kallir,who stands in a particularly ancient mythic tradition in his elaboratepoetic depiction of the battle of Behemoth and Leviathan. 2

This essay concerns another case of mythic persistence, taken aswell from the literature of piyyut, and one that can serve as anexample of the interaction of myth and ritual that is the subjectof this volume: The Avodah piyyutim, the liturgical compositionsfor the Day of Atonement that recount, in poetic language, theritual of the purification sacrifice and scapegoat ceremony per-formed by the priest in the ancient Temple according to Leviticus16.3 These compositions provide important evidence for the

1 Michael Fishbane: "The Holy One Sits and Roats: Mythopoesis and theRabbinic Imagination", JJTP 1 (1992), 1-21.

2 Ibid., 1-2.3 This essay is a prolegomenon to a broader study of the ideas of sacrifice

in Judaism of late antiquity, which will focus on the depiction of the YomKippur sacrifice in Rabbinic and liturgical literatures. I would like to thank

135

136 Michael D. Swartz

history of ideas of sacrifice in post-biblical Judaism, and are thusrelevant to the study of ritual discourse in late antiquity. At thesame time, they touch on the mythic roots of Israelite religionwhile enshrining the ancient ritual in a narrative liturgical form.4

I. Myth and Ritual

In her book Other People's Myths, Wendy Doniger Q'Flaherty leadsthe reader through a labyrinth of mythography: she tells us mythsabout myths, myths about rituals, and myths about myths aboutrituals.5 Several of them, for example the eucharist and the mythof Daksha and Shiva, concern sacrifice.6 At first glance, we mightthink that the Avodah piyyutim of the late Rabbinic period would

Professor Elliot Wolfson for inviting me to present these preliminary observa-tions at the Skitball Conference on Myth and Ritual in Judaism at New YorkUniversity, as well as Professors Lawrence Schiffman and Baruch Levine. I wouldalso like to thank Professors Martin Jaffee, Bruce Heiden, Lindsay Jones, andSarah Iles Johnston for their insights.

4 For summaries of the history of the Avodah, see Ismar Elbogen, JewishLiturgy: A ComprehensiveHistory (trans. Raymond P. Scheindlin; Philadelphia:Jewish Publication Society and New York: Jewish Theological Seminary ofAmerica, 1993), 174, 217, 238-39, and 249-50; Daniel Goldschmidt (ed.),Ma~azor le-Yamim Nora'im vol. 2 (Ashkenaz) <Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1970),18-25; and Ezra Fleischer, Shirat ha-Qodesh Ha-'Ivrit Be-Yerm ha-Benayim(Jerusalem: Keter, 1975), 173-77. The definitive work on the Avodah service andpiyyutim from the perspective of the history of Hebrew literature is Zvi Malachi,Ha-' "Avodah" Ie-Yom ha-KiPpurim -' Ofiyah, Toledoteha ve-hitpat~uta ba-Shirahha-'Ivrit (Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University, 1974). See also idem, Be-No'am Sia~:Peraqim mi-Toldot Sifrutenu (Lod: Haberman Institute for Literary Research, 1983),46-113. An important early discussion is found in J. Elbogen, Studien zurGeschichtedesJtidischen Gottesdienstes(Berlin: Mayer and Muller, 1907); d. also A.Zeidman, "Ma(bea 'Seder ha-'Avodah Le-Yom ha-Kippurim", Sinai 13 (1944),173-82, 255-62. More recently, Lawrence A. Hoffman, Beyond the Text: AHolistic Approach to Liturgy (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987),108-13, and Zvi Zohar, "'U-Mi Metaher 'Etkhem' - 'Avikhem Ba-shamayim:Te/ilat Sederha-'Avodah shem Yom ha-Kippurim: Tokhen, Tifqud u-Mashma'ut", AJSReview 14 (1989), 1-28 [Hebrew Section], have explored some of its conceptualramifications and implications for religious experience.

5 Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, Other People'sMyths: The Cave o/Echoes (NY:Collier Macmillan, 1988).

6 Ibid., 75-118.

Ritual about Myth about Ritual 137

fall under the classification of "myths about rituals". But it will beargued here that they constitute a ritual about a myth about aritual.

This is a reversal of one conventional way of seeing ritual. Ritualis often thought to have a mythic foundation, an eternal trans-historical saga that is recapitulated in performance. This, in theschemes of interpreters from Eliade to Girard, is particularly truein the case of sacrifice.7 There is a certain irony to this. Sacrificeis the most physical of religious activities - in many ways, it couldbe argued, it expresses the essence of ritual. But many of the classictheorists of sacrifice, such as Huber and Mauss and Edmund Leach,subsume this aspect of the activity under its mythic or cosmo-logical structure.8 What we get, then, from these explanatoryapproaches, is often a kind of mythic topography of the sacrificialsystem. Here seems to be where conceptual bedrock would lie: ina world-view that can be drawn into a kind of a map. But if wereverse the order, as did the myth-ritual school of a previousgeneration, we risk reducing myths to etiological tales groundedin forgotten ceremonies.9 Certainly the relationship between thetwo religious phenomena is more complex.

This is why the Avodah is an interesting case. Its purpose is notto recapitulate a historical event by ritual recognition, but to recalla ritual by recounting it verbally. And because it follows the ritualprocess of the expiation rites so meticulously, it can be examined

7 A classic formulation of this idea can be found in Joachim Wach, TheComparative Study of Religions (ed. Joseph M. Kitagawa; New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press, 1958). The best-known expression of this idea is Mircea Eliade,The Myth of the Eternal Return (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971, repro1974). Rene Girard's theory of sacrifice is based on a notion of the recapitulationof a primal event; see Roberr Hammerton-Kelly, (ed.), Violent Origins: WalterBurkert, Rene Girard, and Jonathan Z. Smith on Ritual Killing and Cultural Formation(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1987); on Girard see footnote 55.

8 See especially Edmund Leach, "The Logic of Sacrifice", in Culture andCommunication (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 81-93; andH. Huberr and M. Mauss, Sacrifice: Its Nature and Function (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1964).

9 On the Myth-Ritual school and its critics see Walter Harrelson, "Mythand Ritual School", ER 10: 282-85 and the sources cited there; see also RobertSegal's contribution to this volume.


in light of the analytical narratives of sacrifices told by ancient andmodern theorists.

This phenomenon is interesting for more concrete historicalreasons as well. The Avodah poems were written centuries afterthe destruction of the Temple. They are imbued with Rabbinic lawand lore. Until the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 eE,the sacrificial system was at the heart of Judaic religion. Thesacrifice at Yom Kippur was said to attract what Baruch A. Levinecalls the "Potent Presence of God", which would insure thenation's prosperity and safety.l0 Following its destruction, how-ever, Jews were compelled to re-examine the nature of sacrifice. Ifthe ritual means for attracting the divine presence were no longeravailable, and if the priests could no longer officiate, society, mythand ritual needed to be redrawn. This was accomplished in theMishnah in the third century and the Talmuds in the fifth andsixth centuries by Rabbis who sought to supplant the authority ofthose priests by their claim to be authoritative interpreters of theTorah; and in liturgical compositions created by poets of thesynagogue whose "sacrifice of the heart", as they called it, was saidto be the effective substitute for animal sacrifices until themessianic restoration of the Temple.

It is a commonplace in Rabbinic studies to say that the Rabbismanaged effectively to replace the sacrificial system with theirown, declaring that God "desires deeds of lovingkindness andnot sacrifice", and that study and sacramental performance of themitzvot replaced the sacrificial approach to the divine presence.Likewise, the synagogue is seen as contrary to the notions of ritual,such as sacred space, that are embedded in Temple sacrifice. Thereare now important modifications to this idea. Several yearsago Robert Goldenberg noted the necessary ambivalence theRabbis maintained to the idea that the mitzvot were a full

10 See Baruch A. Levine, In The Presenceof The Lord (Leiden: Brill, 1974);idem, "The Presence of God in Biblical Religion", in Jacob Neusner (ed.),Religions in Antiquity: Essays in Memory of E. R. Goodenough(Leiden: Brill, 1968).71-87; and idem, The JPS Torah Commentary: Leviticus (Philadelphia: JewishPublication Society, 1989).


replacement for the approach to the sacred center of the Temple.11

Recently Steven Fine has argued that following the destruction ofthe Temple, the synagogue took on increasing sanctity in theJewish community, based on the holiness of the scrolls it con-tained, in ways that were analogous to Temple sanctity;12 JoanBranham has argued that echoes of culric notions of holinessinformed the topography of the synagogue.13 In recent researchon Merkavah mysticism and magic, this writer has argued that theritual dynamics of the cuItic approach to the "Potent Presence"find expression in esoteric narratives and rituals.14 Yet the factremains that a major shift took place in Judaic civilization, onethat affected ritual deeply. The Avodah poems provide crucial andlargely unexamined evidence for how Jews in late antiquity viewedsacrifice and its function. A study of the Avodah can thus help usunderstand how a group of highly educated Rabbinic Jews whowere nevertheless not the leaders of the academy negotiated theseimpulses.

The goals of this examination of the Avodah then, are threefold:to explore the interplay of ritual and myth in the liturgy; to under-stand the range of Jewish conceptions of sacrifice in late antiquity;and to explore the social ramifications of the poets' interest insacrifice. What follows are preliminary observations in thosedirections.

11 Robert Goldenberg, "The Broken Axis: Rabbinic Judaism and the Fallof Jerusalem", jAAR 45 Supplement (1977), F: 869-882.

12 Steven Fine, This Holy Place: On the Sanctity of Synagogues during theGreco-Roman Period (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, forthcoming).

13 Joan, R. Branham Sacred Space in Ancient jewish and Early MedievalArchitecture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming), and idem,"Vicarious Sacrality: Temple Space in Ancient Synagogues", in Dan Urman andPaul V. M. Flesher (eds.), Ancient Synagogues:Historical Analysis and ArchaeologicalDiscovery (Leiden: Brill, 1995) vol. 2, pp. 319-45.

14 See Michael D. Swartz, Scholastic Magic: Ritual and Revelation in Earlyjewish MYJticism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996); "'Like theMinistering Angels': Ritual and Purity in Early Jewish Mysticism", AjS Review19 (1994), 135-67; see also Mystical Prayer in Ancient judaism: An Analysis ofMa'aJeh Merkavah (Tiibingen: ].C.B. Mohr, [Paul Siebeck], 1992), 222 23.


II. The Avodah

The Avodah service has its roots in a Rabbinic custom of recitinga version of Tractate Yoma, the Mishnaic account of the procedureof the Yom Kippur sacrifice, in the synagogue on the Day ofAtonement.15 This tractate is itself unusually well suited for litur-gical recitation. Unlike most other tractates of the Mishnah, Yomaconsists mostly of pure narrative - a trait it shares most closelywith other tractates, such as Tamid, that tell of the Templeservice.16 At the same time, this is not a genre of narrative thatis likely, on the face of it, to inspire the kind of empathy with aheroic character that Greek drama was meant to produce. 1

7

Rather, these tractates are, as Martin Jaffee puts it, "sparedescriptive accounts of the most important institutions in ancientPalestinian Jewish society" ~ in this case, the Temple.18

Early examples of Avodah liturgies follow the Mishnah tractateYoma very closely. 19 Bur as time went on and the payetanimdeveloped the liturgy creatively, the Avodah was transformed intoa genre of epic poetry.20 Beginning with pre-classical anonymouspiyyutim such as Atah Konanta 'Olam me-Rosh21 and under thedecisive influence of Yose ben Yose, it became common for thesecompositions to begin with an account of the creation of the world,

15 See b. Yoma 36b and 56b. Cf. also Daniel Goldschmidt (ed.), Seder RavAmram Gaon (Jerusalem: Mosad ha-Rav Kook), 168, where the Avodah isreferred to as pasuq shel yom.

16 On this narrative style, see Martin Jaffee, "Writing and Rabbinic OralTradition" }}TP 3 (1994), 129~30 and the sources cited there; see in particularJ. N. Epstein, Mevo'ot le-Sifrut ha-Tanna'im (Jerusalem: Magnes and Tel Aviv:Divit, 1957), 28-29; cf. also Meir Bar-Han, "Ha'im Massekhtot Tamid u-MiddotHen Te'udot Pulmusiot?" Sidra 5 (1989), 27-40.

17 On the role of empathy and the emotions in Greek drama seeE. Belfiore Tragic Pleasures: Aristotle on Plot and Emotion (Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1992); on epic poetry see C. M. Bowra, Heroic Poetry (London:MacMillan and New Yotk: St. Martin's, 1966).

18 Jaffee, "Writing and Rabbinic Oral Tradition", 129.19 See especially the pre-payetanic Shiv'at Yamim, published in Elbogen,

Studien, 103-117; cf. the edition in Malachi, Ha-"'Avodah", vol. 2, pp. 127-31.20 On the Avodah as epic poetry see also Malachi, Ha-" 'Avodah".21 See Goldschmidt, Maqazor vol. 2, pp. 18-19 of the introduction.


the election of Israel and of Aaron as priest,· and to depict everydetail of the ritual poetically. 22

The presence of the Avodah in the Yom Kippur liturgy under-scores an interesting tension: the dual nature of Yom Kippur. Onthe one hand, biblical Yom Kippur is a ceremony of cultic purifica-tion for collective Israel; a major function of the sacrifice is to cleansethe sanctuary in preparation for the approach of the presence. Onthe other, in the Rabbinic Yom Kippur the center of gravity is relo-cated in the process of individual atonement and self-examination.Mishnah Yoma betrays this transition - its first 7 chapters are takenup with cultic matters and the final chapter, on the individual'sobligations of fasting and repentance, marks an abrupt shift in styleand subject matter. The latter theme came to dominate the RabbinicYom Kippur liturgy, but the former survives in the Avodah.

This analysis will focus on one particularly striking example ofthe early Avodah piyyutim, Azkir Gevurot 'Eloah, "I shall recite themighty deeds of God", written by Yose ben Yose, the first payetanknown to us by name, in the fifth or sixth century.23 It will beargued that through subtle turns of phrase and shifts in emphasisthe poet reworks the Mishnaic ideology of sacrifice and authorityinto a distinct form of cultic spirituality. The purpose of this studyis not to blaze new trails in the literary history of the Avodahpiyyutim; this has been done admirably by Zvi Malachi andothers.24 Rather, it is to outline several themes that attest to theinterplay of myth and ritual in the service.

22 Cecil Roth, "Ecclesiasticus in the Synagogue Service", JBL 71 (1952),171-78, argues that rhis epic form in the early Avodah piyyurim draws fromthe structure and language of the book of Ben Sira; cf. also Aaron Mirsky,Piyyute Yose ben Yose (2nd ed.; Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1991), 29-30, andY. A. Zeidman, "Matbea' Seder ha-'Avodah". On Ben Sira's influence, see alsofootnote 50. .

23 This piyyur appeared in the Siddur Rav Sa'adia Ga'on (see the editionof 1. Davidson, S. Assaf, and B. 1. Joel [Jerusalem: Meqi~e Nirdamim, 1985],264-75). The following translations and analysis are based on the edition ofMirsky, Piyyu~e Yose ben Yose, 127-72 and his excellent source references there.A partial translation appears in T. Carmi (ed.), The Penguin Book of Hebrew Verse(New York: Penguin, 1981), 209-214.

24 See footnote 4.


III. Themes In the Avodah

Yose ben Yose's Azkir Gevurot is an important early example ofthe Avodah genre. It takes up fully 276 lines in Aaron Mirsky'sedition. Every theme in it is fully developed. Following the classicalpattern, the poem introduces the description of the ceremony witha long prologue leading from the creation of the world to theelection of Aaron and the Levites.

This historical prelude seems like an odd way to begin anaccount of the ritual. As Lawrence A. Hoffman observes, Avodahpoetry begins not with the cult but with history.25 It has beennoted above that the Avodah piyyutim evolved into a kind of epicpoetry. As we shall see, the distinction between history and epichelps us understand the peculiar nature of these sagas, which, likeGreek epic, cannot be separated from their context in perfor-mance. The following discussion of themes in Azkir Gevurot willhelp us understand its distinctive program.

A. Creation for the cultA major theme in these poems is that creation itself took place forthe sake of the cult. This notion complements the Rabbinic ideathat the world was created by the pre-existent Torah and human-kind was created for its sake.26 This theme is manifest in subtleways throughout the historical prelude, from the establishment ofthe heavenly prototype of the Temple to the election of the sonsof Amram. For example, the creation of vegetation and animals isdepicted as the creation of food, a cuItic notion:

There grew out of the earthhorned animals for slaughteredible beasts,both cattle and crawling things.

25 Hoffman, Beyond the Text, 108-13.26 The best-known formulation of this idea is found in Bereshit

Rabbah 1: 1.


He pastured the Behemothwith the produce of a thousand mountains,for on the day when it is slaughtered,He27 will put His sword to it (lines 31-32).

This section signals a teleological view of creation, one not self-evident in the Genesis narrative; each created thing has a futurepurpose in history and eschatology. This will serve the listenerlater on, when the history climaxes in the institution of God'stabernacle. The poem continues:

The Creator exultedand rejoiced in His deeds,when He sawthat his work was good:

verdant fields,and choice things to eat;the table was set,but there was no one to feast at it.

He said to Himself,"Who will approachfor the butchered animalsand mixed wine?" (lines 33-36)

The purpose of the creation of humanity is the enjoyment of thefood that God has created. The table is set, but there is no one topartake of it.

In another Avodah piyyut by Yose ben Yose, this teleologicalfocus is even more pronounced. In his poem Atah Konanta 'Olambe-Rov If.esed,28 creation of food is explicitly connected with God'sintention in the details of creation:

You made, as a sign, for those who know You29

those who are clad with scales,30

27 That is, God himself.28 On early discussion and publication of this piyyut see Samuel David

Luzatto, Mavo' le-Ma~azor Bene Roma ed. Daniel Goldschmidt (Tel Aviv: Divir,1966), 24 and n. 29. It is published in Goldschmidt, Ma~azor 2: 465-78, andin Mirsky, Yose ben Yose, 178-203. Mirsky's edition is used here. On this poemsee Elbogen, Studien, 79-81 and Malachi, Ha-"'Avodah", 20-22.

29 That is, for Israel.30 That is, fish that are ritually pure.


and a fleeing serpent31for the meal in eternity.

Did you not make from the landin great abundancecattle and crawling creaturesand the beasts of the earth?32

You set signs to be knownof edibility for purityand for the company of the righteousyou made the Behemoth fit to eat. 33

and when the world was built,in wisdom,and when the table was set,and its bounty,

You resolved34to invite a guestand to feed himthe goodness of your food (lines 18-22).

Here too, all creation is arranged for human consumption. Indescribing God's creation of the animals, the poet uses the termstav35 and siman36 to designate the anatomical indicators of kashrut.They thus constitute a kind of teleological semeiotics of animalbiology. Creation is also associated in this composition witheschatology. Employing a common legend that the serpent andbehemoth will serve as meals for the righteous in the world tocome, the poet portrays their creation as having taken place forthat purpose. 3 7

31 See Isa. 27: 1. Here the poet is referring to the Leviathan; see below.32 The rhetorical question is placed here for the sake of the acrostic; the

first line in the stanza (line 19) begins Ha-Io'.33 Heb. hikhsharta; that is, "You made the Behemoth kosher".34 Heb. va- Tishqod.35 Line 19: hitvita; see Mirsky's note ad. loc.36 Line 20: Hoda'ta simane ma'akhal le-taharah.37 On the idea of the monsters as meai for the righteous see 1 Enoch 60:

24, 2 Baruch 29: 4 and 4 Ezra 6: 49, on which see Michael E. Stone, A Commen-tary on the Fourth Book of Ezra (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1990), 186-87;and Targ. Ps-J. to Gen ]: 21, Numb. R 21: 18, and Tan/;. Shemini 7. Cf.especially Lev. R. 1: 2, where it is explicitly stated that the intention to preparea meal for the righteous in the world to come is built into creation. In contrast


At key points in its prologue, Azkir Gevurot traces Aaron'slineage. Of the twelve sons of Jacob, says the poet:

The third was singled outto see the face of the King,to sing and to serve,to enter His chambers (line 105).

This provides a convenient transition to the poem's account of thewilderness experience and prefigures the essential role of the tribe.Here Aaron takes an equal place, and even pre-eminence overMoses. In fact, the early anonymous piyyut Atah Konanta'Olamme-Rosh goes from Levi to Amram and directly to Aaron, omit-ting Moses.38

B. Valorization of the priesthoodA related theme in Azkir Gevurot is the valorization of thepriesthood. Although the Mishnah devotes at least a third of itsdiscourse to cultic matters, it reflects a deep ambivalence to thepriesthood as a caste. 39 A famous example is the chain of tradition

to those legends, note the following Midrash on lsa. 27: 1 in b. B. Bat. 74b:"Everything that the Holy One, blessed be He, created, he created male andfemale; even the Leviathans He created male and female (lsa. 27: 1); and if theyhad mated (nizqaqin zeh la-zeh), they would destroy the whole world. What didhe do? The Holy One, blessed be He castrated the male and killed the femaleand salted her for the righteous in the time to come (ibid.) and also thebehemoth ... " Note here that the use of the monsters as food for the righteousis a consequence of God's struggle with them, and not the immediate objectiveof their creation. On the idea see further Ginzberg, Legendsof theJews (Philadelphia:Jewish Publication Society, 1947) 5: 43-49 (our piyyut would thus be anothercomparatively early Jewish source for this idea; cf. p. 43); d. and JefimSchirmann, "The Battle between Behemoth and Leviathan according to anAncient Hebrew Piyyur", Proceedingsof the Israel Academy of Sciencesand Human-ities 4 (1969-70),327-69.

38 Lines 15-16 in Goldschmidt's edition.39 On the priesthood in Rabbinic Judaism see Fraade, From Tradition to

Commentary: Torah and its Interpretation in the Midrash Sifre to Deuteronomy(Albany: SUNY Press, 1991), 70-71 and 232; for the historical situation inlate-antique Palestine see Stuart S. Miller, Studies in the History and Traditions ofSepphoris (Leiden: Brill, 1984); cf. Bar-llan, "Tamid u-Middot".


that introduces the tractate Avot, which traces the transmission ofTorah from Moses, through the prophets to second-Temple andpostexilic sages, omitting the priesthood as a class.40 Our piyyutsupplies an alternative pedigree of the cult, based on the chain ofpriestly succession from Levi through Aaron to the second-Templepriesthood.41 The physical splendor of the priest is a subject of thepoem as well. Based on a tradition in the Tosefta that a high priestshould be stronger than his brothers,42 the poet describes thepriest as Rav koah, "great in power", as he is pushing aside theheavy curtain of the Holy of Holies.43

The poem plays down episodes that are potentially embarrass-ing to the priesthood. Rather than accentuate the role of the priestsin committing the sin of the golden calf according to Exod. 32:1-6, the author emphasizes the Levites' willingness to stand withMoses afterward in Exod. 32: 25. According to a midrash,sacrificial food was restricted to the priests (Numbers 28: 1)following that episode.44 This is how the poem retells thatmidrash:

Sacrificial foodwas reserved for them

40 On this famous chain of tradition, its antecedents and parallels, and itshistorical implications see Louis Finkelstein, Mavo' le-Massekhtot 'Avot ve-'Avotde-Rabbi Natan (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1950) xxix; as hestates, the early authorities "claimed for themselves equal, and not sole,authority" with that of the priests; Elie Bickerman, "La chaine de la traditionpharisienne", RB 59 (1952), 44-54, repro in Henry A. Fischel (ed.), Essays inGreco-Roman and Related Talmudic Literature (New York: Ktav, 1977), 127-37;Henry A. Fischel, "The Uses of Sorites (Climax, Gradatio) in the TannaiticPeriod", HUCA 44 (1973), 119-51; Anthony Saldarini, "The End of theRabbinic Chain of Tradition",JBL 93 (1974),97-106, and idem, ScholasticRabbinism: A Literary Study of the Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan (Chico, CA:Scholars Press, 1982). On alternative chains of tradition in the Rabbinic milieu,see Michael D. Swartz, "Book and Tradition in Hekhalot and Magical Litera-rures", Journal ofJewish Thought and Philosophy 3 (1994), 189-229.

41 See especially lines 127-128.42 Tos. Kippurim 1: 6: see Saul Lieberman, ToseftaKi-Feshu~ah4 (New York:

Jewish Theological Seminary, 1992), 727-78.43 Line 229.44 See Mek. Ba~odesh 2 (ed. Horowitz-Rabin, p. 209); cf. Sifre Bam.

Beha'lotekha 67 and Numb. R. 4: 8; see Mirsky's note to line 122.


when they came near to God,distancing themselves from the calf (line 122).

Note here the opposition of distance and nearness in Yose' slanguage.45 The Levites came near to God at this crucial moment,as they will come near to Him in the Temple.

A particularly telling example of this tendency is the way thepiyyut depicts the elders' instruction of the high priest and theiradministration of the oath to him. In the Mishnaic account, theSadducean priest is warned by the Pharisaic sages to perform theceremony properly - that is, according to Pharisaic law. Then,according to the Mishnah, "He turns aside and weeps, and theyturn aside and weep". 46 The Mishnah gives no specific reason whythey should weep, although it is apparent that it has to do withthis political and ritual conflict. The Tosefta, Palestinian Talmudand Babylonian Talmud all suggest reasons. The Tosefta explains:

Why does he turn aside and weep? Because he has to be adjured. Why do theyturn aside and weep? Because they had to adjure him (Tos. Kippurim 1: 8).

In the Tosefta and in the Palestinian Talmud,47 it is becausethe oath is necessary ~ that is, the possibility of guilt is real. In theBabylonian Talmud, it is because the sages fear to suspect aninnocent man:

He turns aside and weeps, because they suspect him of being a Sadducee. Theyturn aside and weep: for Joshua ben Levi said: anyone who suspects worthypeople incurs bodily harm (b. Yoma 19b).

All three sources follow with a story in which a young priest boaststo his father that he performed the offering of the incense theSadducean (or "Boethusian") way:

Why did they have to adjure him? Because there had already been an incident inwhich a certain Boethusian offered the incense while he was still outside [of theHoly of Holies] and the cloud of incense went out and terrorized the entire

45 Cf. the second stich of line 122: be-hitqarevam le-'El be-'et ri~uq 'egel.46 M. Yoma 1: 5.47 Y. Yoma 1: 5 (39a).


temple .. , When he came out, he said to his father, "all your days you haveinterpreted [scriptures our way] and did not perform it, until I arose and did itmyself". He said to him, "even though we interpret it [that way], we do not doit - we obey the words of the Sages. I would be surprised if you live long". Notthree days went by before they put him in his grave (Tos. Kippurim 1: 8).

These explanations carry two connotations: on the one hand,that the priests would perform the ceremony incorrectly given theopportunity, and on the other hand, that it is only because of anerror committed at one time that the oath was needed. In AzkirGevurot, Yose ben Yose, who usually followsPalestinian traditions,48registers an opinion closer to that of the Babylonian Talmud:

He weeps sadly - because he is accused of ignorance;49they cry -lest they accuse a righteous person (line 137).

The priest's culpability is thus subtly de-emphasized. In fact, theearlier, anonymous Atah Konanta 'Olam me-Rosh does not mentionthe weeping at all.

C. The experienceof the priestA third theme lies in the way that the piyyut emphasizes thenuminous aspects of the priest's experience. One of the earliestfeatures of the Avodah service- going back to the book of BenSira - is the ecstatic description of the radiance of the priest's faceupon his emergence from the Holy of Holies.50 In Azkir Gevurot,the narrative based on the Mishnah is interrupted for an elaboratedescription of the priest's vestments, based on Exodus 39 andtraditions found in Y. Yoma 7: 3, in which the symbolism of eachdetail of the vestments is analyzed.51

In the Avodah, the high priest pronounces the Tetragrammatonduring his confession of sins. The narration of this pronunciation

48 On Yose's Palestinian Rabbinic sources See Mirsky, Yose ben Yose, 31-40.49 Heb. peti.50 This passage is apparently based on Sir. ch. 50; see Roth, "Ecclesiasticus",

and Moshe Zvi Segal, Sefer Ben Sira ha-Shalem (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1976),pp. 42-43 of the introduction and pp. 243-45 of the commentary.

51 Lines 153-84; cf. M. Yoma 7: 5 and y. Yoma 7: 3 (44b-c).


plays a prominent part in the ritual- indeed, it seems to have beenone of the first distinctive features of the liturgical Avodah.52 Itbecame the custom at that point for the synagogue congregationthemselves to prostrate as well. In the Mishnah, and hence insubsequent Avodot, the priest's confession appears three times,along with the people's response, "blessed be the name of HisMajesty's glory for ever and ever". This liturgical declaration ispresumably the people's response to the pronunciation of thedivine name.53 However, the third confession is the only one inwhich the Mishnah text says explicitly that the people heard thedivine name and prostrated. In fact, Jacob N. Epstein hassuggested that this third passage was not original to the Mishnahand was added from the liturgy. 54 By contrast, the name andsubsequent prostration are a key refrain in the Avodah.

This placement of the refrain makes two points: First, itreinforcesin a dramatic way the structure of the ritual, in which therange of the confessionsbecomes ever more inclusive:first the priesthimself, then the priestly caste, and finally all of Israel. Second, thereport of the recitation of the Tetragrammaton emphasizes thepeoples' contact with the divine through its hearing of God's name.The significanceof this can be grasped if we remember the tensionbetween the liturgical context of the Avodah, coming within a YomKippur service that emphasizes individual repentance, and thecollective expiation that is the subject of the rite.

IV. Conclusions

We now come to two questions that have animated this discussionin the first place: (1) Does Yose ben Yose's Avodah present a

52 On this feature of the Avodah see especially Zohar, "U-Mi Metaher'Etkhem". .

53 On such formulae see Saul Lieberman, "Some Notes on Adjurations inIsrael", in Te:x:t.rand Studies (New York: Ktav, 1974), 21-28; and JosephHeinemann, "Qedushah u-Malkhut be-Qeri'at Shema' de-'Amidah", in Mef?qarim li-KhevodA.M. Haberman (1977),107-17, reproin Heinemann, 'IyyuneTefilah, 12-21.

54 J. N. Epstein, Mavo' le-Nusa!; ha-Mishnah 2 (Jerusalem: Magnes andTel Aviv: Divir, 1964),971-72.


theory of sacrifice?and (2) What is the relationship between ritualand myth in the liturgy?

A. A theory of sacrificeWe may begin our answer to the first question with a negativeconclusion: The piyyut's narrative and poetic creativity do notfocus on the "victim" of the sacrifice. Thus the early Christianinterpretations of sacrifice, as well as those modern theories thatfocus on the violence done to the victim, would find no receptionin this literature. 55 However, two aspects of the sacrificialprocess,which are not emphasized to a great degree in the Mishnah, doreceive attention in the piyyutim: the laying on of the hands onthe animal and the encounter with the presence in the Holyof Holies. The wondrous pronunciation of the divine name can alsobe seen as a reflection of the encounter with the divine presence.

Taken together with some of the features of the poetrymentioned above, this adds up to a concentration on the gloriousexperience of the priest. It is he whose pedigree, splendor andhumility are lauded by the poet, whose confession inspires thenation's contrite and awed prostration, and whose encounter withthe potent presence of God bestows an unearthly radiance on hisface. It actually does not matter that the priest himself is, if nota heretic or ignoramus, at any rate, a mere mortal. An intriguingpassage in Azkir Gevurot exemplifies this paradox. The poet hasjust interrupted the mishnaic sequence of events to render the

55 Cf. especially Girard, Violence and the Sacred. Although the foregoingobservation concerns explicit native theories of sacrifice, it should be also benoted that there is now a mounting literature in which the foundations ofGirard's scheme are called into question. See the comments of Jonathan Z.Smith in Violent Origins 192-205 and elsewhere; and especially the trenchantcriticisms of Bruce Chilton, The Temple ofJesus: His Sacrificial Program within aCultural History of Sacrifice (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State UniversityPress, 1992), 163-72. An interesting contrast to the lack of emphasis on thevictim in M. Yoma and the Avodah is M. Parah, which does focus on the physicalcondition of the heifer, especially as its ashes are so essential to the purpose ofthe sacrifice. However, even there, the focus is not on the suffering and killingof the victim but on the pure condition of the victim and the disposition of itsremains.


elaborate description of the priestly vestments mentioned above.This goes on for 32 lines. Then on line 185, he abruptly shiftshis tone:

A fading flower, 56 a worm not a man,is found worthy of serving Him who lives forever.He sees the face of the King and enters the holy chamberdressed in linens and not in fine gold (lines 185-86).

On the one hand, the poet is making a homiletical point aboutthe change in dress from the ornate vestments of the daily sacrifice,the Tamid, to the humble linens of the Avodah for Yom Kippur,mandated by Lev. 16: 4.57 Bur there is also a sense in which theauthor is saying that it is not the priest as a person who mattershere, but the priest as an object of communication to the divinerealm. 58 A frequent payetanic substitution for the term kohen,"priest", is {ir, "emissary".

It has been stated above that the Mishnah does not work tocreate an empathy with a heroic character, in dramatic fashion.However, it seems that the Avodah piyyutim are doing just that.By setting the cult in the cosmic order, taking the listenersthrough the sacrificial process, and emphasizing that the people'scontact with the presence of God comes through the priest, theliturgy may be seeking to draw the synagogue worshippers into anevocation of the earlier purpose of Yom Kippur. This, as it turnsout, corresponds well with elements of the schemes of EdmundLeach and Huber and Mauss: the priest identifies himself with thebull, the people identify themselves with the priest, and they are

56 Cf. Isa. 28: 1.57 Line 186 is also based on the tradition found in y. Yoma 7: 3 (44b) that

"the prosecutor (qategor) may not become the defense attorney (senegor)": thatis, gold, which was used to make the golden calf, may not be used to entreatGod to have mercy on Israel.

58 Here too the eucharist is an interesting parallel; that is, in Catholicdoctrine, the priest is not a person who performs the sacrifice; he is Christre-presenting his own sacrifice for all time. For a full account of its practice andtheory, see Joseph A. Jungmann, S. J., The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Originsand Development (2 vols., New York: Benziger Brothers, 1951 and 1955).


all brought into that liminal place of contact with the otherworld. 59

B. Ritual about myth about ritualAs to the second question, we may now consider the suggestionmade above that the Avodah is an example of a ritual about mythabout ritual. We will see that this question is related to the first.

The Avodah began as a remarkable liturgical development - therecitation of a Mishnah tractate in a central position in the liturgy.It evolved into an epic drama, a synagogue rite that had astrikingly mimetic character. The poet (~azan) - who was tradi-tionally the performer as well - would strive to make the YomKippur of the vanished temple as vivid as possible. In the Avodahservice, the congregation reenacts the High Priest's pronounce-ment of the powerful Divine name and the prostrations thataccompanied it, the confession of the priest for the people, andhears of the radiance on the face of the priest that results from hisencounter with the divine Presence. In a sense, he identifieshimself with the priest by taking him through his paces in thenarration and reciting his confession. But the congregation pros-trates not at the sound of the Divine name, but by the report ofthat name.60 In fact, no animals are slain, no priests officiate; thereis no sacrifice in the synagogue.

As we have seen, the Rabbis considered prayer to be a substitutefor sacrifice - that they considered it the sacrifice of the heart. It canbe argued that our understanding of the relationship of RabbinicJudaism to the sacrificial system will profit if we look at the seriousramifications and precedents for such a view.

One way of addressing the problem of the absence of sacrificein a system to which it was once central is through rituals of

59 Cf. Leach, "The Logic of Sacrifice", who argues that the priest is identi-fying himself with the animal who crosses into the realm of the sacred.

60 Cf. O'Flaherty, Other People's Myths, 119-32, on the famous Hasidicstory, retold by S. Y. Agnon and Gershom Scholem, of the ritual in the forest,in which eventually telling of the story of the ritual is sufficient to cause thedesired effect.


recitation. That is, by recounting a lost ritual verbally, a commu-nity develops a way of memorializing that ritual in an act whichis itself a ritual. This was a central function of the Mishnaictractates dealing with the sacrificial system, as Jacob Neusner andothers have shown.61 James Kugel and Gary Anderson haveshown recently that the recitation of the praise of God has culticconnotations - that the psalmist's wish that God accept his wordsas an offering is a ritually meaningful one.62 In some systems,recitation stands for a past sacrificial act. One of the most strikingexamples of this is in the history of Vedic sacrifice, in which thesacrifice was not simply recalled or replaced by recitation - therecitation (especially in the mind of the Brahmin) eventuallybecame the essence of the sacrifice. 63

Indeed, the force of recitation needs to be taken quite seriouslyas a potent form of ritual behavior and as an example of theactualization of sacred space in time. Memorization, recitation, andperformance, we must remember, are physical acts, requiringintensive preparation, stamina, and physical prowess.64 Rabbinicand popular texts often speak of the study of Torah in terms of

61 See Jacob Neusner, "Map Wirhout Territory: The Mishnah's System ofSacrifice", History of Religions 19 (1979), 103-27. Another form in which sacredspace is reproduced verbally is the tractate Middot, which provides a kind of verbalmap of the Temple precinct and its dimensions. The distance between walls oraltars has become a sequence of measurements recited in time. The same couldbe said of cosmological descriptions in apocalyptic and Hekhalot literatures.

62 James 1. Kugel, "Topics in the History of the Spirituality of the Psalms",in Arthur A. Green, ed.,jewish Spirituality from the Bible to the Middle Ages (NewYork: Crossroads, 1987), 113-44; Gary A. Anderson, "The Praise of God as aCulric Event", in Gary A. Anderson and Saul M. Olyan (eds.), Priesthood and Cultin Ancient Israel (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991), 15-33.

63 On Vedic sacrifice and its history see Brian K. Smith, Reflections onResemblance, Ritual, and Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989) andJ. c. Heesterman, The Broken World of Sacrifice (Chicago: University of ChicagoPress, 1993).

64 On memory preparation in traditional societies, see Mary J. Carruthers,The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1990); and Frits Staal, The Fidelity of Oral Tradition and theOrigins of Science (Amsterdam/Oxford/New York: North-Holland Publishing Co.,1986); for memory in ancient and medieval Judaism see Swartz, Scholastic Magic,ch. 2 and the studies cited there; cf. also Ivan Marcus, Rituals of Childhood' jewishAcculturation in Medieval Europe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996).


tiring labor ~ using the words yegi'ah, 'amal and so on. In a culturein which rote memorization is the primary form of education, these

. 65statements are not exaggeratlOns.We often forget that Jews and Christians were the exception

and not the norm in not holding animal sacrifices in late antiquity -as Robin Lane Fox's portrait of a robust Greco-Roman religion hasshown.66 A colleague recently remarked that it is misleading tocompare Greek to Jewish and Christian prayer directly. A Greekwho did not pray would hardly have been thought impious. But aGreek who did not sacrifice would be little better than anatheist. 6 7 So this idea - that words can be effective substitutes foranimal offerings - probably did not come easily to ancient Jewsand Christians. Sacrifice lived on, in the privileged knowers ofMishnah and Talmud, in alternative forms of purity, in mysticism,lore and poetry. The survival of the cultic ideal- that by physicalaction the human being can approach the divine presence - hadboth phenomenological and social consequences. By keeping thatideal alive, the liturgical poets and popular writers reminded thecommunity that there were alternatives to the responses to the lossof sacrifice proposed by the Rabbis. 6 8

Ultimately, the verbal expression of sacrifice did not suffice inclassical Judaism. Jews continued to pray every day for the

65 See Swartz, Scholastic Magic.66 Robin Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians (New York: Knopf, 1987); see

especially, pp. 64-101.67 My thanks to Professor Bruce Heiden of the Ohio State University for

this observation.68 The social consequences of this idea deserve more study. In recent years

these strands of history have been picked up by Ithamar Gruenwald, "Priests,Prophets, Apocalyptic Visionaries, and Mystics", in From Apocalyptism to Gnosti-cism. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1988, 125-44; Martha Himmelfarb, Ascent toHeaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses (New York and Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1993), and others. S. D. Goitein, "Hitmodedut ben Bet-ha-Kenesset le-ven ha-Qehillah", in Shraga Abrahamson and Aharon Mirsky (eds.),Seftr lfayyim Schirman: QovesMef?qarim, (Jerusalem: Schocken Institute for JewishResearch, 1970),69-77, and Aaron Mirsky, "Ha-Shirah bi-Tequfat ha-Talmud",Yerushalaim: Shenaton le-Divre Sijrut ve-Hagut 3-4 (1970),161-70, have pointedout the existence of social tensions between the payetanim and Rabbinicleadership; cf. also Swartz, Scholastic Magic, which argues for a similar situationwith regard to the authors of Hekhalot literature.


restoration of a physical temple. Yose ben Yose, author of thisgrand statement on the sacrificial system, also wrote a piyyutcalled "'En Lanu Kohen Gada/", acknowledging that Israel wasbereft of its cult. 69 This point is important for how we constructtheories of sacrifice. In at least three major traditions - the Jewish,the Christian and the Hindu - historians of religion observe aprocess of verbalization or "spiritualization" of sacrifice.7o This isoften perceived by the tradition as a sign of progress - from thephysical to the spiritual. But in ancient Judaism, verbal sacrificewas not meant to be privileged over the physical. And for someJews, myth was not to be privileged over ritual.

69 Mirsky, Yose ben Yose, 210-16.70 On Hinduism see Smith, Reflections and Heesterman, Broken World of

Sacrifice; on sacrifice in early Christianity see Francis M. Young, Sacrifice and theDeath of Christ (London: SPCK, 1975).

Documents

Ritual about Myth about Ritual: Towards an Understanding of the Avodah in the Rabbinic Period