Vayikra (Archives)

The Sacrifices as Lexicon of Religious Emotions

With this weeks’ portion, we begin a new book, Vayikra, known in English as “Leviticus” (a strange name, as the Aaronide priests, rather than the tribe of Levi as a whole, play the central role here; the Levites as such only emerge as a group with a distinct role much later, in Numbers 3). Here, following the detailed description in the latter half of Exodus of the Sanctuary as a locus for the indwelling of the Divine Glory, we begin the description of its active function as the center for a variety of ritual activities. At the heart of this week‘s portion is the systematic presentation of the various kinds of sacrifices and their specific laws.

To ask R. Ya’akov Yosef of Polonnoye’s perennial question: How are these commandments relevant and meaningful to every person, in every time? My own answer is that the sacrifices may be read as a kind of lexicon, providing a vocabulary for a variety of human religious attitudes, experiences and moods.

To illustrate: this portion presents three basic types of animal sacrifices: olah (burnt-offering; Ch. 1), shelamim (peace-offering; Ch. 3), and hatat (sin-offering; Chs. 4-5). In addition, there are meal or grain offerings (minhah; Ch. 2) which supplement all three types, as well as being offered in their own right.

The olah, as its name implies, is completely consumed by the fire of the altar: everything—flesh, suet and innards—goes up in smoke (before the term acquired a new and grisly meaning in the 20th century, it was referred to as a “holocaust”—that which is wholly burnt or consumed).

The shelamim, or peace-offering, is essentially consumed as a sacred, festive meal in the sacred precincts of the Temple or in the adjacent courtyards of Jerusalem, by its owners or those who bring it. Certain sections are given to the priests; the blood is poured out at the base of the altar; and certain fats and inner organs are burnt on the altar.

Hattat, the sin-offering, is brought to atone for transgressions and misdeeds. The same fats and inner portions are again consumed on altar; certain selected parts are given to the priests, who eat them, so to speak, as representatives of the holy realm (“the priests eat, and the owners are atoned”); and the bulk of the flesh is taken outside of the sacred space of Temple and Jerusalem, where it is burnt, not as an offering to God, but simply to destroy the flesh. (Interestingly, this practice is the origin of the Hebrew term “Gehinnom” for Hell: the valley [Gai] of Ben Hinnom, and the hillsides on its outer side, were the site of constantly burning fires to consume the sin offerings; hence Gehinnom became known as the place of eternally burning flames).

Other types of sacrifices are mentioned in conjunction with the hatat: the asham, usually translated as “guilt offering”; the me’ilah, or “trespass offering,” a kind of penalty imposed for misuse of sacred property; asham taluy, the ”conditional” sin-offering, etc. For our purposes, all these may be considered under the general rubric of the family of sin-offerings.

Besides the specific rules governing each kind of offering, there were certain general rules applied to all of them: semikah, the laying of hands by the owners on the head of the animal, symbolizing that it was intended to be offered in his name and on his behalf; zerikat hadam: the sprinkling of the blood upon various parts of the altar, symbolizing the return of the life element to God; and haktarat ha-evarim: the burning of part or all of the animal’s body on the altar, i.e., the essential sacrificial act.

How is all this to be understood?

Shelamim symbolizes joy, celebration, fellowship: it expresses a sense of overwhelming contentment and wholeness and peace with God. The archtypal example is the Paschal sacrifice, eaten by Jews on the Seder night, and crowned with song. The todah, the offering of thanksgiving brought to express gratitude towards God on fitting occasions, is also a form of shelamim. 19th century Orientalist Robertson Smith saw this offering as an expression of the simplest, most uncomplicated religious emotion: of feeling together with our God in one “communion.” One is reminded of the amazing scene in Exodus 24:11, when the nobles among the Israelites “beheld God, and they ate and drank.” In post-Temple Judaism, the se’udat mitzvah, the festive meal as a sacred act, may be seen as akin to the shelamim.

Hatat reflects the opposite pole: guilt; shame; a sense of disharmony, of wrongdoing, of having upset the relationship with God and requiring propitiation and conciliation. Hence, one brings a gift to God, without partaking of it at all; but neither may it be offered whole on the altar, like the burnt-offering of pure love, because the relationship is not yet whole. One first needs to repair the breach. Symbolically (in Kabbalah and Hasidism this point is made especially strongly), the sin-offering represents the self; specifically, the “animal soul” within oneself that causes sin. So one must cast it away, burning it outside of the holy place. The archetypes for the hatat are the two goats and bullock that play the central role in the atonement ritual of Yom Kippur (Lev. 16): on the one hand, the scapegoat, bearing the sins of all Israel on its head, that is sent far off into the desert; on the other, the goat and bullock, whose blood is sprinkled to expatiate and purify the Holy of Holies.

Olah, the “burnt offering,” expresses the emotion of love and awe of God. The pure, unadulterated yearning for Divine closeness, for connection to God without any ulterior wishes or expectations. The characteristic model for this sacrifice is the Tamid, the daily sacrifice offered in the name of the Jewish people as a whole, which opened and closed the daily routine of the Temple, “framing” all the private sacrifices that might have been brought during the course of the day. It symbolizes, quite simply, the steady, ongoing connection between God and man, like a lovers’ greeting.

Although we no longer offer sacrifices (whatever one may think of the millennial hopes for its restoration), these moods are to this day the basic components of human religious experience: the sense of contentment, gratitude, joy and peace with God; at other times, the sense of alienation, inadequacy, of unbridgeable distance, brought about through ones own human weakness and stupidity and evil impulses; and the mystical impulse to reach out to God, as an end in itself, without any thought of quid pro quo.