Rabbi's Corner

When confronted with the world of animal sacrifices, there are two common approaches. One is to take a huge step back, hold up our hands before our eyes and peek through our fingers at the scenes of slaying and flaying and dashing blood as if we were watching a horror film. The other approach is to zero in on each detail, blocking out the gruesomeness of the full picture by limiting our field of vision. We’ll do a little bit of both here, but in either case, once we’ve expressed our horror and set ourselves at a safe distance, we can come to temporary grips with the Torah that is before us; and we can come to understand that the animal sacrifices constitute a kind of ancient language, a language of ritual.

If we step back from the image of an outdoor butcher shop, we may be able to consider that if it were the slaughter that so troubled us, more of us would be devout vegetarians. But in fact, most of us enjoy a good hamburger, steak or chicken dinner even after being made aware of the process it took to get it on the table. We somehow succeed in dismissing the unpleasant reality of a slaughterhouse as part and parcel of the profit-driven, materialistic side of life. We tolerate lot’s of things when they come under the heading of “making a living” or satisfying a hunger. It’s part of “getting by,” and most of us from time to time subscribe to that philosophy.

But at the same time, the spiritual, God-centered part of us doesn’t much stomach the idea that God would require of us the slaughter of an animal as a way to express our devotion. In fact, this offends our modern spiritual sensibilities, and we quickly dismiss it as simply barbaric. The general consensus is that our God, the one that we can believe in, cherishes life too much to desire the sacrifice of any life, whether human or animal. We may surrender to the urge to eat a burger, but God certainly wouldn’t! In fact, as an important sidenote, the kosher dietary laws come into play precisely because we do surrender to the urge to eat meat. Jewish tradition asks that if we do take the life of an animal for our own benefit, that we at least sanctify that life. The kosher laws are in part meant to do that. And so, we’re back facing the bloody, messy, smelly reality of this week’s Torah portion.

Anthropologist Mary Douglas states that “the first chapters of Leviticus are largely about how to make a sacrifice, how to select the right animal victim, how to cut it, what to do with the blood, how to lay out the sections on the altar. To find the underlying logic, we have to look carefully at what it says about bodies and parts of bodies, especially what is inner and outer, on top and underneath, and pay special attention when it emphasizes by frequent repetition and strong prohibitions.”¹ Professor Douglas is the queen of analyzing and finding meaning in the details.

For example, when an Israelite made an offering of cattle, it had to come from the herd or from the flock. In other words, the offering had to come from the Israelite’s own holdings and not from the wild. What do we understand from this? And what do we make of the fact that the animal had to be unblemished?

When the Israelite priests, the Kohanim, took the sacrifice and lay its parts on the altar on top of the fire, the verb used is hiktir. Hiktir does not mean “to burn.” It means “to turn something into smoke.” So, an offering is not burnt up and destroyed per se but is transformed into a different kind of ethereal existence. What, then, do we make of the fact that this verb is repeated eleven times in the description of the sacrifices?

What do we make of the fact that in these verses God “calls” (“vayikra”) to Moses when in most cases God simply “speaks” (“vay’daber”) to Moses? The fact that God doesn’t just speak to Moses but calls to him asking for a specific response from the people sets up an instance of a call and response technique that is common today in our worship setting. God calls from the Tent of Meeting. The people respond with their sacrifice at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.

Similarly, in our services when we sing the barechu—that too is a call and response. “Barechu et Adonai ha’m’vorach. Praise Adonai, to whom praise is due,” calls the prayer leader. “Baruch Adonai ha’m’vorach, l’olam va’ed. Praised be Adonai, to whom praise is due now and forever,” responds the congregation. The Israelites received a call to sacrifice, we receive a call to pray. The nitpicky details of an arcane ritual become the blueprint for contemporary ritual and practice. Prayer has become our modern day sacrifice.

The purpose of prayer is the transformation of the self. The Hebrew verb for praying is l’hitpalel. It is a reflexive word, meaning that the subject acts upon his/herself. “Prayer is a process of self-evaluation, self-judgment, self-transformation; a process of removing oneself from the tumult of life to a little corner of truth and refastening the bonds that tie one to the purpose of life.”² In this way prayer can strengthen our resolve to keep becoming our higher selves. The modern version of transforming the animal sacrifice into smoke (hiktir) is to continually strive to transform ourselves into our highest beings.

And finally, what we understand from the injunction that the offering must come from the herd or from the flock is that when we wish to bring ourselves closer to God, we must offer something of ourselves. For example, we can learn a prayer in Hebrew and perfect our recitation of it. We can pray with sincerity in any language and hope that our sincerity is unblemished. We also learn from this that we have an obligation to examine ourselves, and to identify and strive to correct our spiritual imperfections. We should then offer the best, most spiritually mature parts of ourselves not only to God, but to each other as well. Shavua Tov.

¹Douglas, Mary. Leviticus As Literature, pp 69-70.

²The Artscroll Siddur, p. xiii.