Expert: Rabbi Barry Dov Lerner - 5/7/2004

Question
Dear sir

I am 51 years old ands attend a small church which was affilliated with the Worldwide Church Of God Many years ago. Herbert Armstrong was the head of world wide many years ago.

I have a few  questions on Exodus 12:21-27, Deut. 16:16, and Deut 16:5.

I attend a small Christian church,  and we keep the passover and the days of unleavened bread. Of course we keep them a bit differently than traditional Judiasm does.

We have a controversy. Some people say that we should keep this entire Feast, away from our homes [based on Deut. 16:5 and 16:16 ] and that keeping these days at home is wrong.

When I carefully  read Exodus 12:21-27,  I seem to get a different perspective. They are commanded that when they enter the Promised Land they are to put the blood from the sacrifice on their own door posts and lintel. This seems to clearly refer to their homes and it seems the men should stay home for this.

One question.  In Deut 16:5 when it says within your gates is this just referring to the sacrifice itself being offered off your own property and bringing the blood home from a central local sanctuary: or is it referring to leaving town for the entire feast, In Exodus 12:21-27 what exactly did they initially do when they entered the promised land.

 I can't seem to formulate these questions properly, but maybe you can see what I see and why the apparent contradiction between Exodus 12 and Deut 16.

Thanks for any input you may have

Sincerely,  

John Dewey


Answer
Dear John,

Thanks for writing, and I am uncertain I can offer you a definitive explanation. There are a variety of traditional and modern commentaries on most elements of ancient Israelite practice in the desert experience, the occupation of Israel for the first Temple period, the exile and then the second Temple period.

My own reading of the verses was that whenever possible, each family was expected to bring sacrifices to the central cultic center, most often the Temple indicated, for each of the three Festivals - Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles. For Passover, when possible, thelamb or even goat was sacrificed in the Temple -perhaps also in the immediate Temple environs and the meat brought home for immediate cosumption by that midnight.

Commentaries seem to agree that the daubing of the blood on the lintel and doorosts was only for the night preceding the actual Exodus. Thereafter Passover was celebrated only by the eating of the Paschal sacrifice and then later enlarged into the Seder.

If you want access to the seder, please feel free to go to my website www.jewishfreeware.org for a free copy of the Seder in Hebrew, English and notes.

Once offered in the Temple Sanctuary, only the meat was consumed and the unleavened bread thereafter. No blood would be taken home and no sacrifice could occur outstide the Temple.

The apparent inconsistencies between Exodus and Deuteronomy reflect that Deuteronomy was probably edited if not composed approximately in 621 BCE, long after the book of Exodus was somewhat put together. All five books - Genesis through Deuteronomy - were edited and then canonized in the Babylonian exile at the hand of the scribes and Ezra made the final major editorial adjustments upon return to Israel from Babylonia in 515 BCE.  Note that this is a modern, non-fundamentalist approach to the Hebrew Bible and does not reflect the Orthodox view, but does reflect the Cosnervative, Reform and Reconstructionism, scientific, modern views.

Check out the Encyclopedia Judaica in your library on these two sections and on-line there is also jewishencyclopedia.com, ahtough it is "current" in scholarshiponly up to about 1920. The EJ is current up to the mid-7o's.

Best wishes and thanks for studying so well.

Rabbi Dov