The following article will appear in the Winter, 2002 issue of JUDAISM, A Quarterly Journal of Jewish Life and Thought (in press)
by judith seligson
Human sacrifice
In the second week of September of the year 2001, altars to a god who loves human sacrifice were erected in Lower Manhattan and Northern Virginia and a massive burnt offering took place. Though no one has claimed responsibility, we think these rituals were performed to please Allah. “You must make your knife sharp and you must not discomfort your animal during the slaughter.”1 These words of inspiration, found in the hijackers’ luggage, echo the Hebrew Bible: “And he shall lay his hand upon the head of the burnt-offering; and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him. And he shall slaughter the bullock before the Lord.”2 The hijackers “slaughter” their “animal” before their god. What god requires the slaughter of thousands of civilians in exchange for atonement? Does Allah delight in the smell of burning human flesh? No. This is an “other” god, not the one that answers to God or Allah. The Bible warns ad infinitum against idol worship, of Moloch, for example, in which human beings, especially children, are sacrificed to appease or please a god. “Recent excavations in Palestine, at Gezer, Taanach, and Megiddo, have revealed regular cemeteries round the heathen altars, in which skeletons of scores of infants have been found, showing traces of slaughter and partial consumption by sacrificial fire.”3 “For every abomination to the Lord, which He hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters do they burn in the fire to their gods.”4 Those who sent these men to burn themselves and others are the high priests of this present-day heathen cult.
Fire is a central image in the act of worship of September 11, with clear allusions to the Hebrew Bible. The burnt offering was once a way of pleasing God. Noah’s burnt animal offering was said to exude a “pleasant aroma”5, a metaphor for his good heart. By the time of the prophets, there were lots of burnt animal offerings but few good hearts. The prophet Hosea said “Forget the calves; go straight to God with words of repentance and prayer.”6 Ever since, prayer has been the currency of offerings to God in the Judeo/Christian/Muslim tradition. Fire is a tool God uses in both the Hebrew and Christian Bibles to cleanse the world of corruption. God sent “brimstone and fire” to consume the wicked in Sodom and Gomorrah.7 In the prophets, we read, ‘Behold, the Lord God called to judgment by fire, and it devoured the great deep…”8 Apart from what we think of God’s methods, in those particular times, what does it mean for human beings to mimic this conflagration imagery? They are putting themselves in God’s place. Fire is intimately linked with human beings. The Hebrew word for “human being” (eesh) and for “fire” (aysh) come from the same etymological root. There are many possible connections. Human civilization began when we learned to control fire. Fire is a symbol of the human heart, as in “burning with desire.” It is a purifying agent, for sterilizing scalpels and refining metals. The word for prayer in Hebrew (t’filah) derives from the word for judgment (p’liloot). Prayer, our intimate acts of self-scrutiny and self-judgement, is the inner, metaphorical fire human beings use to refine ourselves, to become the best that human beings can be. After all, the burnt offering is only as good as the person offering it.