#vayikra

GIFTS FROM THE HEART

This week’s Torah portion, Vayikra, begins the Biblical book of the same name (English: Leviticus.) The Torah’s description of different types of korbanot (sacrificial offerings) in parsha Vayikra begins with with freewill offerings - those that are brought voluntarily - and continues with obligatory offerings. This seems counterintuitive. Wouldn’t it make more sense to first explain what offerings the Jewish people are obligated to bring, before enumerating the seemingly less important voluntary offerings?

The order of offerings listed makes sense when we understand why God wants us to make offerings in the first place. The all-powerful Creator of the Universe doesn’t NEED our burnt sacrifices or anything else from us. He does WANT something from us: our devotion. The Lubavitcher Rebbe says, “the most crucial aspect of all offerings is that they be offered from a genuine desire to come closer to God.”

Voluntary offerings are brought by one whose “heart’s intent is for the sake of heaven.” They are listed first to teach us the importance of intentionality in bringing sacrifices. We serve God not just out of obligation but out of love. And that love for our Creator must come before all else.

Image: Book of Leviticus Initial-word panel, by scribe Solomon ben Isaac, Germany 14th c.

This week, we begin the Book of Vayikra with a #PieceofParasha on the idea behind the sacrifices. 

Check out the full idea: Here

(I wrote this d’var for tomorrow’s Shabbat evening services. Turns out I won’t be leading services tomorrow after all - so I’m sharing it here instead!)

I love being a Jew. I see it as an active thing – BEING a Jew. Living a Jewish life, making Jewish choices, taking part in our rich, meaningful traditions and fulfilling the mitzvot of the Torah.

However, if I said that I was living a Jewish life in every possible way – making all Jewish choices, taking part in all our traditions, and fulfilling all mitzvot – that would be a lie.

Those of you who come to Shabbat services regularly on Friday nights know that you will nearly always find me here, now. However, if you also come on Saturday morning, then you know that you will almost never find me there, then. I bake challah, but I do not light Shabbat candles. I take time off from my day job on Jewish holidays when I can, but I’m not always able to. I eat kosher foods, but I do not have kosher dishes, since I share my kitchen with three people who do not keep kosher.

I do what I can. Sometimes, I feel like I’m not doing enough.

It’s easy to imagine that G-d might also think that I’m not doing enough. After all, there are 613 mitzvot in the Torah. If your boss gave you an employee handbook with 613 rules for employee conduct, then you would assume that this is a strict boss with a very structured work environment, someone who wants you to obey their instructions without fail or flexibility.

But this week’s parsha makes it clear that “obey without fail or flexibility” is not an entirely accurate description of G-d’s expectations for Jewish people.

This week we read Parshat Vayikra – the beginning of the book of Leviticus. Incidentally, Leviticus has 243 of the 613 mitzvot – more than any other book in the Torah.

(If you’re curious, second place goes to Deuteronomy at 203 mitzvot, Exodus comes in third at 109, Numbers is fourth at 56, and Genesis has only two.)

So, Leviticus is the Big Book of Rules, right? In Vayikra, the start of this book, there are a lot of rules about making offerings at the temple. These are sin offerings. A person would admit wrongdoing and atone for their sin by making the offering. In Leviticus chapter 5 verse 6, the Torah explains, “he shall bring his guilt offering to the Lord for his sin which he had committed, a female from the flock, either a sheep or a goat, for a sin offering.”

But it doesn’t end there. The next verse, verse 7, reads “But if he cannot afford a sheep, he shall bring as his guilt offering for that [sin] that he had committed, two turtle doves or two young doves before the Lord.”

And then if we jump ahead a couple verses, to verse 11, the Torah reads, “But if he cannot afford two turtle doves or two young doves, then he shall bring as his sacrifice for his sin one tenth of an ephah of fine flour for a sin offering.”

(An ephah is a unit of measurement here, and according to Google, it’s about the size of a bushel. So you would bring a tenth of a bushel of flour. I’m not sure exactly how big that is, but it doesn’t sound like much. Certainly it sounds less than a whole sheep.)

So – the commandment here, the mitzvah, is to make a sin offering. And through the Torah, G-d gives specific instructions about what to bring and what to do with it – you bring a sheep, and this is how you kill it. It’s a structure for atonement. But the Torah also provides exceptions or alternate options for this sin offering. If you can’t bring a sheep, bring two doves, and if you can’t bring two doves, bring some flour. The Torah provides structure, and it also provides different structures depending on your individual means.

In doing so, the Torah takes a behavior that could be very limited – something that only rich people could do, the people who could afford to give up an animal because they had plenty more to eat or breed – and turns it into something that anyone could do, within their means, in the way that works best for them. It’s flexible. It’s also encouraging in a way – having these different options for how to participate in the mitzvah makes the whole idea of making sin offerings feel more accessible for anyone.

And this ties in well with how I see and experience Judaism. It’s accessible for all of us. Yes, there’s structure. Judaism includes instructions for every part of our lives. And like I said before, it’s an active thing. I don’t think that you can really BE a Jew if you aren’t doing ANYTHING that’s Jewish.

But you don’t need to do EVERYTHING.

In Torah times there were no rabbi’s, and priests were chosen because of their belonging to a certain clan. But today that’s not the case anymore. Our religious leaders are rabbis who chose to enter into that profession for a number of reasons, and some will say because of a “calling”. As a 21st century woman, I struggle with the idea of a calling of any kind. I like the idea of free will, that I make my choices based on my own thoughts and feelings, and by analyzing data at my disposal.

But the book of Exodus (actually, Shemot) ends with the cloud settling on the tabernacle and God’s glory filling the space so Moses couldn’t enter. And then in the very next line in Torah God calls out to him. (This is not a new thought, it’s been written about for centuries.) I have to admit that it makes me wonder what’s going on in Moses’ mind at that moment. Standing there in the space in front of the tent, an otherworldly cloud completely covering it, so close to you but not of the same reality as you. The desire to both reach out and touch it and to run away in the other direction, even as you stand frozen in awe. And then, perhaps just as your logic returns to your brain, a voice, THE voice calls out to you. Not just calls, beckons you into the tent.

The word “Vayikra” isn’t used a lot. Apparently it’s use implies something more than the words, it implies an intimacy and closeness (again, not mine - I’m no Hebrew expert I just happen to read stuff). I was thinking about the very intimate moment that happens there, specifically for Moses. He’d spoken to God many times before, but this was the tabernacle, this was the space created by the people for God. I imagine an unnatural quiet around Moses, the everyday sounds of the camp, birds, bugs, the wind, it all has gone quiet in the space around him and the tent. And then God calls out to him, and his heart races, but he takes a deep breath and walks into the cloud - despite the fear. There is something about this specific choice of words here that makes me achingly aware of Moses’ human frailty.

אָדָם כִּי יַקְרִיב מִכֶּם קָרְבָּן לַה’ (ויקרא א, ב) A MAN WHO SHALL BRING FROM YOU AN OFFERING TO G-D... (VAYIKRA 1:2) 

The significance the Torah attributes to animal sacrifice is mystifying. Why would the physical slaughter and burning of an animal be our primary form of divine worship (see Avos 1:2; Yerushalmi, Taanis 4:1)? Would a more spiritual exercise, in which the Jew’s attachment to G-d is sensed and experienced, not be more suitable as the focal point of the Temple service?

In truth, however, the significance of the sacrifices lies precisely in their seeming lack of spiritual experience. The Torah’s word for sacrifice is korban, from the word karov, “close,” indicating that the purpose of the sacrifices is to arouse and express the Jewish people’s inherent “closeness” to G-d—a closeness that even transcends the attachment we develop through observing His commands. As such, we can understand why the sacrifices atone for transgressions of the Torah: a sacrifice reveals the Jew’s essential and unbreakable bond with G-d, thereby repairing any deficiency in their relationship caused by a breach of Torah observance.

This closeness could not be adequately expressed in a service that highlights the Jew’s unique spiritual capacities, for this essential bond with G-d is not contingent on the Jew’s efforts and experience; it is purely the result of G-d’s existential choice of His beloved nation. The unbreakable bond between the Jewish people and G-d is therefore best expressed through a Jew offering a korban, the spiritual value of which is not obvious, save for the fact that G-d has deemed it desirable for a Jew to offer a sacrifice to Him.