Let’s
review Yeshua has made the following points about the different types of offenses
related to anger, from the least to the most serious:
Offense
#1:
Anger is equivalent to murder.
Offense
#2:An angry person that says the person he is
angry with is useless, empty and of no value commits a more serious offense
than Offense #1.
Offense
#3:
An angry person that says the person he
is angry with denies that there is a Creator and that YAHWEH does not do acts of TOV commits
a more serious offense than Offense #2.
Now
Yeshua continues his lesson:
Therefore if you bring your QORBAN to the altar, and there remember
that your brother has something against you, leave your QORBAN there, before the altar, and first be reconciled to your
brother, and then come and offer your QORBAN.
(Matthew 5:23-24)
Yeshua
was clearly addressing people who understood what he was talking about because
it was something they did. The Temple’s sacrificial rituals were part of all of
their lives. In an earlier blog I provided an overview of the layout of the
Temple (click on Experiencing the
Temple Yeshua Knew
& print the first diagram). Find the location of the altar where the QORBAN
was taken. There are many different types of QORBAN, and the laws related to
them are detailed and complicated.
● Olah
(Burnt Offering)
● Zebach
Sh'lamim (Peace Offering)
● Chatat
(Sin Offering)
● Asham
(Guilt Offering)
● Food
and Drink Offerings
In
ancient times, a major component of Jewish ritual was the offering of QORBANOT
(plural of QORBAN). An entire order of the Talmud (Kodashim, that is, Holy Things) is devoted to the subject. It is very important to
understand what QORBAN meant in Yeshua’s Jewish culture. QORBAN is usually translated as "sacrifice" or "offering.” Both translations suggest a
loss of something or a giving up of something. In a world in which the food we
eat has been completely separated from killing and butchering animals, what
took place at the altar is often viewed as horrible and gruesome. It is an unknown
experience in the lives of most Bible readers today. But in the world in which
Yeshua lived and his Jewish culture, the procedure for slaughtering livestock
for sacrificial purposes was the same procedure they used in their villages for
slaughtering animals to produce the food they ate. It was a procedure designed
to be as quick and painless as possible for the animals. The slaughtering of
animals was not the focus of those presenting QORBAN at the Temple.
In
order to understand what their focus was, we must turn to the meaning of QORBAN,
which comes from this root:
|
"
|
9
|
8
|
|
B
|
R
|
Q
|
ß ß read right to left ßß
The
meaning of the root QRB is
"to draw near." The person brought the QORBAN to the Temple so he
could “draw near to YAHWEH.” The
closest ritual that we have today that is similar to that experience is
probably prayer. We pray to thank God, to ask for forgiveness, to seek his
help, to praise him – to draw near God. But there is one very important
difference -- all we have to do is bow
our heads and start praying where ever we are.
In
our culture and realities, we view the presence of God being everywhere, but in
Yeshua’s world YAHWEH’s presence was located in a specific place – the Temple.
The layout of the Temple reveals not only who has a place in YAHWEH’s sacred
space, but also defines how close they can draw near him. Look at the Temple
diagram again and find the following areas.
● Court
of the Gentiles – Area for anyone of either gender from any nation.
● Court
of the Women – Only Jewish women and men.
● Court
of Israel – Only Jewish men.
● Holy
Place – Only priests (Jewish males).
● Holy
of Holies – YAHWEH’s place (only high priest once per year).
Everyone
had a place in the Temple, but not everyone could draw as near to YAHWEH as Jewish
males bringing QORBAN. However, they couldn’t just walk in and drop it off. Follow
the steps of a Jewish man doing what was required to drawing near YAHWEH.
● He would first
take his QORBAN to a priest at the Double Gates on the south to be examined.
● He would have seen and smelled the Valley
of Hinnom as he stood there.
● Next he would
have to go to the ritual immersion bath complex, also on the south side and
ritually immerse himself under the supervision of priests.
● After leaving
the bath complex, he would enter the Temple complex probably on the southwest
corner.
● He would then walk across the Court of
the Gentiles and walk through the Beautiful Gate.
● He would then walk across the Court of
the Women and enter the Nicanor Gate.
● He would stand in the Court of Israel
and wait until he was called by a priest.
● He would then take his QORBAN to the
altar and prepare to do his part of the ritual.
Now
grasp the impact of Yeshua’s message:
“. . . and there (at the altar in the Court of Israel) you remember
that your brother has something against you, leave your QORBAN there, before the altar, and first be reconciled to your
brother. . .”
Put yourself in
the shoes of that person. After doing all of the things above, you have
finally been called by a priest and are standing next to the altar preparing to
do your part of the ritual, standing physically as close to the presence of YAHWEH
as you possibly could – and then you remember that you are angry with your
brother (and may have called him RAQA or NAVAL). Imagine what those listening
to Yeshua thought when he told them to -- “STOP!
Leave your QORBAN right there at the altar! Go find your brother and be
reconciled with him! Then comeback and finish presenting your QORBAN to YAHWEH!”
Let’s
put it in a setting that we can better understand, even though the magnitude of
the event cannot come close to what Yeshua described. You are attending a
church service and the minister asks you to come up to the pulpit and lead the
congregation in the “Lord’s Prayer,” which contains -- and forgive us our debts (sins), as we have forgiven our debtors (those who have sinned
against us). As you open
the Bible to read the prayer – right there
-- you remember that you have sinned again your brother and have not received his
forgiveness – you stop and immediately leave
the pulpit, leave the church, go find your brother and be reconciled to him.
Then you come back and finish reading the prayer.
Why would Yeshua tell someone to leave the presence
of YAHWEH at that specific moment and go find a person he had committed an
offense against? Wasn’t being in the presence of YAHWEH more important? Or did
YAHWEH consider something to be more important than the QORBAN and the ritual? We
will continue this amazing lesson of Yeshua on anger in the next blog.
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*Source
for information on QORBAN: http://www.jewfaq.org/qorbanot.htm#Purposes
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