Rabbi David Cantor
This week’s Torah portion is Vayikra: Leviticus 1:1 – 5:26
As an individual who interfaces with The Eternal through action and thought, making meaning out of this week’s Torah reading presents something of a challenge. My understanding of modern Jewish practice (which is to say, what we have been doing since the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem almost two millennia ago) is that God’s presence in the world is to be experienced through obedience to God’s commandments (mitzvot) and personal communication through prayer and study (tefilot v’talmud torah).
The experience of the Israelites as told in the Torah is something else entirely. For the past few weeks, we have been reading about the plans and construction of the Tabernacle of the Tent of Meeting (mishkan ohel mo’ed) and of the great distress experienced by Moses and the Israelites when God threatened to withhold the Divine Presence from dwelling within it amidst them. Now that the Tent has been set up, the Divine Presence has settled within it, and God’s voice calls out (vayikra) to Moses as follows: Speak to the Israelite people, and say to them: When any of you presents an offering of cattle to GOD: You shall choose your offering from the herd or from the flock (Leviticus 1:2).
God then proceeds to set out the order of sacrifices: the Burnt Offering (olah), the Cereal Offering (mincha), the Well-Being Offering (sh’lamim), the Purification Offering (chatat) and the Reparation Offering (asham). And that’s it. As it turns out, the purpose and function of the Tabernacle of the Tent of Meeting, the mode of connection and communication between God and Israel, the way in which they are to experience the Divine Presence dwelling amongst them … is by bringing animals, birds and cereal goods to be sacrificed on the altar. My questions are, in what way could this have been meaningful for them, and how can it become meaningful for us now that the sacrificial system is no longer in operation?
In modern English (according to the Oxford English Dictionary), sacrifice is the destruction or surrender of something valued or desired for the sake of something having, or regarded as having, a higher or a more pressing claim. Every sacrifice listed in this week’s reading is something of value (a food source) given over to God for a specific purpose: to give thanks to God, to seek to repair one’s relationship with God after some personal failing, to repair the damage done to ourselves and others. How can we relate to that in today’s terms?
In biblical times, food scarcity was a real concern: Every day we pray for dew and — between Shemini Atzeret and Pesach — for rain and dew. In the absence of moisture, people will die. This is not our current reality. We throw leftover food away without concern for what we will have to eat tomorrow. So, surrendering food resources to God isn’t much of a sacrifice. What’s truly precious to us is our time.
The prayer service was set up as a reflection of the sacrificial system. Our morning prayers, Shacharit, are offered in the same timeframe as Olah that was offered every morning on behalf of the entire nation. The afternoon service, Mincha, corresponds to the Mincha that was offered in the afternoon. Our evening service, Ma’aviv/Arvit, is held when the priests would eat their portion of the day’s sacrificial offerings as their evening meal. On Shabbat and festivals, the Musaf (additional) sacrifice is remembered by our addition of the Musaf Service. And these services take time — time that we could be spending on other activities.
Attended regularly, synagogue prayer services can consume an hour of one’s day during the week and three times that on the Sabbath and festivals. While this may seem like a lot, a glance at our smartphone’s report of our screen time may reveal that we have the time to spare, if we are willing to surrender it to a higher purpose.
Like the animals and cereals that were dedicated to sacrificial service, we have a limited lifespan. Time is our most precious resource, and the sad reality is that much of it is wasted without much second thought. Perhaps being forced to give up our time according to the schedule of prayer can help remind us to appreciate the time over which we have full control and use it more wisely. If this week’s Torah reading can help us realize it, then it is a sacrifice worth making.
Rabbi David Cantor leads Congregation Beth El in Yardley, Pennsylvania.
, the Cereal Offering (mincha), the Well-Being Offering (sh’lamim), the Purification Offering (chatat) and the Reparation Offering (asham).){kind=link}