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In "Retzei", human sacrifice is clearly mentioned:

רְצֵה ה' אֱלהֵינוּ בְּעַמְּךָ יִשרָאֵל וּבִתְפִלָּתָם וְהָשֵׁב אֶת הָעֲבודָה לִדְבִיר בֵּיתֶךָ. וְאִשֵּׁי יִשרָאֵל וּתְפִלָּתָם. בְּאַהֲבָה תְקַבֵּל בְּרָצון.

Restore the service to Your Sanctuary, and accept the humans of Israel and their prayers with love and with favor.

What were the details of these sacrifices? Who was chosen to be offered? How were they chosen? Could women be sacrificed too? What happened to their families? Etc.


This question is Purim Torah and is not intended to be taken completely seriously. See the Purim Torah policy.

Adám
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    OK - This stretching it a little too far. The plural possessive of Ish is Anshei – DanF Feb 25 '15 at 21:01
  • @DanF No, when referred to as an non-human object, the plural of Ish is Ishim, e.g. as a type of angels. Possessive of Ishim would be Ishei. Human dead bodies – I presume shchita is required :-) – as sacrificial items would be Ishim too. – Adám Feb 25 '15 at 21:53
  • Ah - I see the connection. Thanks for pointing that out. Though, it makes my answer a little harder to formulate. – DanF Feb 25 '15 at 22:28
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    Not to take the fun out of this, but the Tur explains this verse that Michoel is Makriv the Neshamos of Tzadikim on a Mizbeach: ובמדרש יש מיכאל שר הגדול מקריב נשמתן של צדיקים על המזבח של מעלה ועל זה תקנו ואשי ישראל. So it's not really Purim Torah :-( –  Feb 26 '15 at 14:50
  • @user9022 +1 Amazing though. I genuinely thought I was intentionally mistranslating the text... I guess my forced grammar is right too. Not the first Purim question that happens to be a real one too. – Adám Feb 26 '15 at 15:54
  • The adulteress would explode in the Temple. That's probably the closest thing to a real human sacrifice. –  Feb 27 '17 at 03:49
  • related: https://judaism.stackexchange.com/q/117249/170 – msh210 Sep 06 '20 at 07:39

1 Answers1

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This paragraph precedes the opening paragraph of Birkat Kohanim on Yom Tov. In the paragraph, starting V'Te'arev we ask G-d to accept our petitions as if they were an olah and karban - a burnt offering and a sacrifice.

What are the petitions about? Some people complain about the way the Kohanim sing when the duchen. They don't sing together and some of them can't sing at all. So these people are petitioning G-d that they don't have to suffer during duchenin listening to the lousy voices.

In truth, while these petitioners may be right, they have no right to petition at all, b/c Birkat Koahnim is a mitzvah and a beautiful bracha nonetheless.

So, because, in a sense, they are the ones who asked to be like a sacrifice, they are the ones selected to become that.

The service itself - during the sacrifice, they have to listen to the unvocal Kohanim that they protested against.

DanF
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