Hukim Section Lesson 21

History of Bamot Law משנה מסכת זבחים פרק יד:ד-ח עד שלא הוקם המשכן היו הבמות מותרות ועבודה בבכורות משהוקם המשכן נאסרו הבמות ועבודה בכהנים קדשי קדשים נאכלים לפנים מן הקלעים קדשים קלים בכל מחנה ישראל: באו לגלגל והותרו הבמות קדשי קדשים נאכלים לפנים מן הקלעים קדשים קלים בכל מקום: באו לשילה נאסרו הבמות לא היה שם תקרה אלא בית של אבנים מלמטן ויריעות מלמעלן והיא היתה מנוחה קדשי קדשים נאכלים לפנים מן הקלעים קדשים קלים ומעשר שני בכל הרואה: באו לנוב ולגבעון הותרו הבמות קדשי קדשים נאכלים לפנים מן הקלעים קדשים קלים בכל ערי ישראל: באו לירושלים נאסרו הבמות ולא היה להם עוד היתר והיא היתה נחלה קדשי קדשים נאכלים לפנים מן הקלעים קדשים קלים ומעשר שני לפנים מן החומה:

Reasons for Centralized 1.Prevent Idolatry 2.Prevent pagan worship practices 3.Limit animal sacrifices - Rambam

Guide of the Perplexed III:32 As the sacrificial service is not the primary object while supplications, prayers, and similar kinds of worship are nearer to the primary object, and indispensable for obtaining it, a great difference was made in the Law between these two kinds of service. The one kind, which consists in offering sacrifices, although the sacrifices are offered to the name of God, has not been made obligatory for us to the same extent as it had been before. We were not commanded to sacrifice in every place, and in every time, or to build a temple in every place, or to permit any one who desires to become priest and to sacrifice. On the contrary, all this is prohibited unto us. Only the temple has been appointed “in the place which the Lord shall choose (Dt 12:26). In no other place is it allowed to sacrifice…and only members of a particular family were allowed to officiate as priests. All these restriction served to limit this kind of worship and keep it within those bounds within which God did not think it necessary to abolish sacrificial service altogether. But prayer and supplication can be offered everywhere and by every person. This same is the case with the commandment of sisit, mezuzah, tefillin, and similar kinds of divine service.

Which Commandment? The sanctuary is to be located where Hashem chooses to “place His name” (Deut. 12:5, 21) and “causes His name to reside” (ibid. 12:11). His name’s presence is the crucial element in the site’s significance and concomitantly of the prohibition of other sites. The ban on the latter appears to be presented as an application or expansion of Decalogue Commandment 3, לא תִ‏שׂא, which insists on the extreme reverence due His name. Sacrificing even to Him outside the central location in what must consequently be unauthorized sanctuaries - even monotheistic - is “raising” or “applying” His name in vain and this explains the textual placement of this passage. – Rabbi Shamah