Has the Daily Sacrifice Begun Again?

This caprine animal was almost sacrificed, but was rescued at the last minute past an Israeli official. Courtesy Israeli Constabulary hide caption

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Courtesy Israeli Police

This goat was almost sacrificed, but was rescued at the last minute by an Israeli official.

Courtesy Israeli Police

For the last 10 years, on the eve of Passover, the Federman family has loaded a young male goat into their car and driven from their subcontract in a West Bank Jewish community to the Old City of Jerusalem, where they hoped to slaughter the creature in the ritual sacrifice prescribed in the Bible.

The family is not lone in its mission. The number of Israeli Jews budgeted Jerusalem with goats prepared for sacrifice has been growing in recent years, according to the Federmans.

"Thank God, more people are trying to comport out this commandment," said Elisheva Federman, who has a herd of well-nigh 15 goats. Whenever a male goat is born, she does not vaccinate or make it considering that would brand it ineligible to be sacrificed. According to the Book of Leviticus, an offer must be "a male person without blemish."

Merely each yr, police force prevent the Federmans and others from slaughtering goats on Jerusalem'due south Temple Mount. They fear such an deed on this site, sacred to Jews for once housing the ancient Jewish temples but also dwelling to Islam'southward tertiary holiest site, could ignite tensions betwixt Israel and the Palestinians. Muslims refer to the hilltop chemical compound, home to the iconic Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa mosque, as the Noble Sanctuary. They believe the Prophet Muhammad journeyed to heaven from there.

To keep these tensions in cheque, State of israel and Jordan, which oversees religious affairs at the holy site, accept agreed on certain policies. State of israel bans non-Muslims from praying there. Only Muslims tin enter the Dome of the Stone and Al-Aqsa mosque, a dominion set up by the Jordanian Waqf, or religious trust.

Seeing this arrangement as a violation of their right to religious liberty, and eager to assert a Jewish presence on the Temple Mount, a growing number of religious Jews try to pray, agree weddings and fifty-fifty carry out animal sacrifices there. A number of far-correct Israeli politicians back up such actions and abet for increasing Jewish access to the area. But many politicians (and Israelis) see this stance as fueling the Israeli-Palestinian disharmonize.

This calendar week, according to Israeli media, law detained at least 17 people heading for the Temple Mount, including 2 members of the Federman family, and confiscated vi baby goats, saving them from being sacrificed.

Ane of those arrested was 22-yr-old yeshiva student Dov Jacobs from the West Bank settlement of Hashmonaim. In a scheme that took weeks of planning in attempts to avoid police detection, Jacobs came to a certain address in Jerusalem's Onetime City on Monday to choice up a goat. The caprine animal was brought into the ancient walled city from a farm a calendar week earlier, when police were less likely to be on the lookout for animals intended for sacrifice, Jacobs said.

Jacobs was to carry the baby caprine animal to the Temple Mount, where his cohorts would be waiting with priestly clothing, a portable altar and tools needed for sacrifice, all especially made co-ordinate to biblical requirements.

"But from the start the police were following me," Jacobs said. "I had to sneak around for a couple of hours just to get inside of the house. And so after walking out of the business firm with the caprine animal for 30 seconds, constabulary stopped me and arrested me."

Jacobs was somewhen released from detention just a couple of hours before the kickoff of the Passover seder meal. The goat was turned over to the city's veterinarian services department.

"They will probably even question the goat," quipped Jacobs, who volition need to appear in court after this calendar month on charges of conspiring to commit a crime.

Animal sacrifice was once a central part of many cultures, including that of ancient Israel. The Bible commanded in keen detail daily offerings as well as special offerings for holidays like Passover and for personal reasons, such as committing a sin. Both goats and sheep are acceptable for cede, according to Jewish law.

The practice ended for the virtually part when the Second Temple, which similar the First Temple once stood on the Temple Mountain, was destroyed in the yr seventy. Now, rather than daily burnt offerings, religious Jews offer daily prayers.

Jews had no access to the Temple Mount between the 1948 and 1967 wars. That changed after Israel gained control of the Quondam City in the 1967 Mideast War. And the idea of reviving sacrifices has gained traction. Some religious Jews cite writings past the 12th century philosopher Maimonides, who argued that some sacrifices can be made without a temple. Although they remain a minority and are considered a radical fringe by mainstream Judaism, some Israeli rabbis argue that Jews today are notwithstanding obligated to bring a Passover sacrifice to the Temple Mount because not doing and then results in divine penalization.

But the established rabbinical position remains that Jews should not set foot on the Temple Mount because information technology once independent the "holy of holies," the office of the temple that was so sacred that only the loftier priest entered — and but once a year, on Yom Kippur, the solar day of atonement.

For more than a decade, organizations that promise to eventually build a third temple in Jerusalem have been holding what they call a "practice drill" for the Passover sacrifice. An animal is slaughtered by someone wearing priestly clothing, with trumpets bravado in the background, and the claret is scattered on an chantry; but information technology is not considered an actual sacrifice because police have never allowed it to exist held on the Temple Mount.

This year, in a surprising move, police allowed the re-enactment to be held inside the Erstwhile City walls for the start time, in the principal foursquare of the Jewish Quarter, about a quarter of a mile from the Temple Mount. Well-nigh 200 people attended the event, eating the meat of the slaughtered lamb, according to Israeli media reports.

But all other attempts at ritual slaughter accept been stopped this year. The confiscated goats were given to the city's veterinary services section, which is caring for the animals while the police force and the ministry of agriculture investigate the incidents.

"The goats were in very good wellness," said Frayda Leibtag, the Jerusalem mayor's adviser on international diplomacy and media. "And they are in good hands now." She said that one time the investigation concludes they will be given back to their owners "or good new homes volition be found."

Federman said officials accept never returned their confiscated goats in the past. The family has lost at least 10 goats this way over the years, a monetary loss totaling thousands of dollars.

"Then for united states," she says, "information technology actually is a sacrifice."

Sara Toth Stub is a Jerusalem-based journalist who has written for The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones Newswires, The Associated Printing and other publications. Contact her @saratothstub

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Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/04/13/523770582/goats-are-rescued-on-their-way-to-being-sacrificed-in-jerusalem