Ethics Evolve

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Rabbi Jon Cutler

Rabbi Jon Cutler

Parshat Va Yikra

We begin the next book of the Torah, Va Yikra – the Greek name is Leviticus. It is the operating manual for the Levites to operate the Mishkan, or the Tabernacle.


We begin with the list of sacrifices and the conduct of the Levites. There are sin offerings, elevation offerings, dedications, holy days and so on. We learn the many details of the laws of animal sacrifice. It is hard for us to comprehend how, at one point in Jewish history, the religious practice was built around offering cattle, sheep, goats and birds on the altar to God.

In the Orthodox prayer book, during the Musaf service, Jews still pray for the rebuilding of the ancient Temple in Jerusalem and the reestablishment of these sacrifices. Conservative Judaism has made a liturgical change with a theological twist. The Conservative prayer book speaks of the Temple where “our ancestors used to bring these sacrifices.”

We no longer desire a Judaism based on animal sacrifice. Jewish ethics have evolved.
Maimonides thought that animal sacrifice was a compromise based on the norm of how people lived in ancient times. Animal and often human sacrifice were the common practice.
Often these sacrifices were tied with the worship of idols and a variety of cultic practices, often sexual in nature. Ancient temples employed sacred prostitutes, something the Torah explicitly forbids. When God gave the Torah, it was given to a people who expected cultic sacrifices.

The Torah put a limit on allowing only certain animals from the herd and sacrifices carried out by the priestly class. Maimonides taught the laws of sacrifice, he admitted that humanity had evolved and sacrifice was no longer necessary in his day and age.

Our ethics have evolved over time. The Torah discusses and allows slavery, it allows capital punishment for crimes ranging from witchcraft to profaning the Sabbath, and it permitted the stoning of a son who rebels against his parents. Women were of second-class status.

It was under the auspices of rabbinic law that the rabbis would reinterpret these laws as their ethical understanding evolved. Human ethics are constantly evolving. And this has great relevance for our day and age.

It is common today to judge people in the past by contemporary ethical standards. Thomas Jefferson, one of the great leaders of the American Revolution, owned slaves. Stephen Foster composed his song “Swanee River” (“Old Folks at Home”) using racist lyrics. The lyrics were rewritten when it became the state song of Florida.

I have seen how ethics have evolved in my lifetime.

I am old enough to remember the Jim Crow laws in the South. When I was a child, I traveled with my family to North Carolina. I remember distinctly two water fountains at the train station: “One for Whites and one for Colored.” I asked my father, how come? He did the best he could to explain to me, a 10-year-old, about the Jim Crow laws. This is unthinkable today.

My grandparents, caring Jews, would not understand a bat mitzvah and would find a female rabbi or cantor unthinkable. And, of course, gay marriage was beyond their consideration. They were not bad people. Ethical sensitivities and standards have evolved since their day. It’s not right to judge people in the past by the ethics of today.

Instead of judging the Torah for endorsing animal sacrifice, or the rabbis of the Talmud for their view toward women, we ought to judge people within the framework of their own time. We ought to look at ethics not as permanent and unalterable, but always in process.
We need to appreciate how far we have come in our ethical understanding from earlier generations, and always strive to do better. Ethics evolve.

Rabbi Jon Cutler is co-president of the Board of Rabbis of Greater Philadelphia and rabbi of Beth Israel Congregation of Chester County. The Board of Rabbis is proud to provide diverse perspectives on Torah commentary for the Jewish Exponent. The opinions expressed in this column are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the view of the Board of Rabbis.

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