The Noble Pigeon

March 19, 2010
Rabbi Seymour Rossel

     Welcome to the Book of Leviticus which includes a litany of laws regarding the priesthood of Israel. The book makes it seem that all of these laws were delivered to Moses at Sinai, but it is obvious that Leviticus contains many law codes from many different periods and even from different priesthoods. And, as with the first portion of Vayikra which we read tonight, many of the laws of Leviticus are concerned with the conduct of sacrifices.

     Sacrifice was such an old and venerated practice that it is portrayed in the story of the first brothers, Cain and Abel. Modern archaeologists assure us that sacrifices were being made more than 70,000 years ago. Some think that early sacrifices were made to feed dead ancestors. Some think they were made to please good spirits or bribe evil spirits. Every ancient nation sacrificed animals, grains, drinks, perfumes, and incense. The laws given in this portion do not initiate any new sacrifices, they only provide guidance as to exactly how each major sacrifice is to be offered to Israel's God.

     Israel's God does not crave blood so there are explicit instructions for what to do with the blood of sacrificed animals. Grain sacrifices were always to include salt and never include either leaven or honey. By the way, scholars think this may be why we eat unleavened bread or matzah during Passover. The idea is that during Passover, we are all guests at God's seder table. Since God refuses to accept grain with leaven in it, we must be meticulous in removing all leaven from our households and we are restricted to eating only matzah, unleavened bread.

     The animal sacrifices in this week's portion tend to call for large animals -- bulls, oxen, rams, sheep, and goats -- but the Torah notes again and again that a poor person is permitted to substitute a pair of birds, usually pigeons or turtledoves.

     In excavations near the Temple mount, Israeli archaeologists discovered buildings and artifacts which bring the ancient system of Temple sacrifices to life. But before I tell you what they found, we need a few facts about the history of that noble bird which still encrusts our modern statues and often leaves its mark on your automobile: the pigeon.

     The type of pigeon common in Israel today and in ancient times is a close relative of the birds we love here in Houston. It is called the Rock Dove or Rock Pigeon. Rock Pigeons originated either in Mesopotamia or Israel and skeletal remains from Israel date them back a little further than the Jewish people -- to be more precise, they have been in Israel for at least three hundred thousand years!

     The average Rock Pigeon lives from three to five years in the wild and up to fifteen years in captivity. Wild doves and pigeons are game birds and they are hunted for food. But some human genius discovered early on that it was much more convenient to catch pigeons without hunting them. Therefore, in the bird's version of the Guinness Book of World Records, the Rock Pigeon is the world's oldest domesticated bird. Cuneiform tablets from Mesopotamia and Egyptian hieroglyphs mention domesticated pigeons more than 5,000 years ago and some researchers believe that pigeons were first domesticated 5,000 years before that.

     Domestic pigeons have an uncanny knack of finding their way home. They may use the sun or polarized light as a compass, navigate by the stars, use visual landmarks, use infrasound mapping, or rely on their sense of smell. They have what experts call "map sense" and "compass sense." And they seem to use more than one kind of cue in locating the place they want to reach.

     The Bible says that Noah sent out a raven to see if the land had reappeared after the flood and the raven never returned, but when he sent out a dove, she came home to the ark with an olive branch in her beak. So the dove with an olive branch has come to represent peace, the idea that the storm is over and the land is safe for human beings.

     Pigeon-raising in Israel really flourished in the days of the Second Temple, from the third century bce onward. And that brings us back to what the Israeli archeologists discovered. Hundreds of columbaria -- buildings or sites for raising doves -- were discovered throughout the Land of Israel and especially in the Judean Hills, where the limestone makes it easy to hollow out caves and fit them with pigeon holes. Pigeons were generally kept for meat and fertilizer.

     Where caves were not available, special buildings were erected, often in the shape of towers. They had a single narrow entrance (usually about halfway up the tower, so that it was only reached by ladders) and screened windows that admitted light while preventing any predators from entering. The walls were covered inside and out, especially around the windows, with smooth white plaster that made it impossible for predators to attack from below. Inside, there were pigeon holes, each about three hands across, ideal for pairs of pigeons to nest, and each pigeon hole had its own small perch. Towers like this, with spaces for drinking and bathing water and troughs for pigeon food, have been found at Masada, Jericho, Herodium, and in Jerusalem. The one in Jerusalem is of special interest for us.

     It was built beside the Siloam pool, near the entrance to the Temple mount. Pilgrims who came to the Temple would stop there to wash their hands and feet and also, presumably, to purchase a pair of doves to offer as a sacrifice during their visit to the Temple.

     A final confirmation was uncovered in the 1960s by Benjamin Mazar who excavated a bowl from the shops that stood beside the Temple Mount's western wall. This pottery bowl is inscribed with the Hebrew word korban ("sacrifice") beside a drawing of two dead pigeons. This bowl and hundreds like it, no doubt, was intended for pilgrims to carry their pair of doves as a sacrificial offering on their way up to the Temple. This and the columbaria at the Siloam pool nearby vividly attest that raising doves and pigeons was big business in the days of the Second Temple.

     The word on the bowl, the usual Hebrew word for "sacrifice" is korban, meaning "approaching" or "drawing closer to." In this word, we get a better sense of the reason for all sacrifices. Sacrifice was always conceived as a way of "approaching" or "drawing closer" to God.

     When the Temple was destroyed, the rabbis made two suggestions for ways to replace the sacrifices that were no permitted. One group suggested that prayers could take the place of the daily sacrifices, but the other group suggested that it might be even better if we thought of our good deeds, our obedience to God's commandments or mitzvot, as the real replacement for sacrifices. Either way, prayer and mitzvot both bring us closer to God.

     Even today, it's amazing what we can learn from pigeons. And let us say: Amen.