Animal Sacrifices

Considering my blog is called ‘A Tree Of Life And All The Other Stuff.’, it seems appropriate to have my first post centred on A Tree Of Life (the expression ‘a tree of life’ comes from the Book of Proverbs and refers to the Torah, for whose that didn’t have a clue what I was on about). This week’s parashah (Torah portion) of va’yikra (first five chapters of the Book of Leviticus) is a perfect example of how an apparently outdated and primitive practice contains some truly eternal concepts.

Va-yikra is a parashah that is often dreaded. I’ve heard it said that some people have begun to read the five Books of Moses, and abruptly stopped at Va-yikra (The Book of Leviticus). A quick read reveals why. The first five chapters are entirely concerned with animal sacrifice and ritual slaughter. The precise details of how to sacrifice various animals, and which parts can be eaten, are painstakingly described in exquisite detail. The idea of sacrificing an animal to appease a vengeful God is one that instantly meets most readers of the twenty-first century with unmitigated animosity.  It radiates primitiveness, and is apparently wholly irreconcilable with today’s modern theologies.  But is this the case? Is there nothing we can extract from such an apparently abhorrent concept? I believe there is.

It’s often misunderstood that sacrifices were intended to appease a deity. That is, to achieve expiation for a sinful act. A closer reading of va-yikra, however, suggests this wasn’t entirely true. The first three chapters fail to mention once any idea of expiation or purification. In other words, the sacrifices were more of an attempt to show immense gratitude towards God for all the material benefits man received from the earth, but also, and perhaps more importantly, they acted as a means to thank God for their simply being alive. An offering was described as an isheh, a gift to God, which led some commentators to suggest that just as we feel closer to a person when we give them a gift (e.g. birthday gift), so too the Israelites felt closer to God after giving him a gift (don’t worry about my use of the masculine personal third-person object pronoun. That’s whole a whole essay in itself). It’s also worth mentioning that the offerings were referred to as isheh reich nichoach l’adonai (gifts of pleasing odor to God). The idea of God physically smelling the aromas was never endorsed, however, Eliezer Ashkenazi suggested that “Should the worshippers imagine that they have atoned for their sins by bringing a sacrifice, the Torah informs them that the sacrifice is merely a foretaste of proper behaviour in the future, even as a smell of food is only an anticipation of the meal.” This idea of being a foretaste of future behaviour finds strength when we think about where the animals to be sacrificed came from? They were brought to the temple by individual Israelites; that is people willingly brought their own livestock, and therefore livelihoods, to be transformed into a gift to God. There is a very powerful message behind this, in that people could instantly overcome their own egotism, and realise their potential for selflessness.

The final two chapters of va-yikra, however, do mention the idea of confessing sin, and expiation. There is a very good reason why confession is mentioned so little in this parashah. The situations that call for confessions are those that are private acts, after people have come to realise their guilt on their own accord. Other acts that involve a second party are never found to require confession. Why is this? Hidden beneath all of this is a principle that transgresses millennia. Sinful (again a whole essay on the meaning of sinful is required) acts concerning a second party never require confession to God, as everything needed to amend the situation can be found within the situation i.e. the offender and the victim. No confession to God can remove the hurt and pain afflicted onto one person by another: only active reconciliation between the two persons can heal any wounds. It simply isn’t God’s place to forgive one man for causing distress to another: only the victim can exculpate the offender. Private acts of sin, however, that do not directly affect a second party are placed between the dimensions of God and man, and necessitate active confession to God.

The final chapter of the parashah concerns sins of omission, whilst chapter four specifically addresses sins of commission. In this nuance we find the final branch of this part of the tree.

We often associate sin with wrongful acts. According to our individual faiths we all possess some idea as regards sin. Atheists and agnostics will also hold certain actions as being ‘sinful’, although a different word may well be used. What the final chapter of va-yikra­ does, is challenge our idea of sin by specifically addressing the ritual sacrifices associated with sins of omission. We are provided with a framework of offerings for acts that we fail to do, as appose to acts that we succeed in doing. In other words, we are challenged to think that sin encompasses failing to act when we have a responsibility to do so, as well as performing morally repugnant deeds. The Talmud teaches us that one who fails to inform a court of law of knowledge regarding a crime is “innocent before a human court but liable in the sight of God” (BT BK 56a). Sin is much more than simply bad things we do. It also concerns things that we fail to do. 

I’m not for one second advocating a return to animal sacrifices (interestingly there were also grain sacrifices as well), and I’ve failed to mention the various different types of offering (i.e. burnt, wellbeing etc), because I didn’t want the emphasis to be placed on the physical action of sacrifice, but rather to exhume the recondite principles that animal sacrifice rested upon. It’s important to understand that the Israelites were surrounded by peoples that offered sacrifices to their deities (some sacrifices were even human), and so it simply wasn’t realistic for them to conceive of worship without sacrifice. It has been argued that once God saw the Israelites worshipping the Golden Calf, he was convinced that humans needed animals as part of their worship routine, and so the sacrificial system was created to address this fundamental need of the time. What is important however, is that the act of animal sacrifice was turned on it’s head by the Israelites, and a multitude of revolutionary concepts was added to a very primitive and ancient act.  One final point of worth, is that regardless of how one sees animal sacrifices, the Israelites had a daily routine of introspection and benediction facilitated by the sacrificial system. In the twenty-first century how many times a week does man stop, and declare his gratitude for simply existing? I can’t help but think that we may have lost more than we gained through the termination of sacrifice.

This is by no means a thorough reading of this parashah, and Midrash teaches us that there are 70 ways to read Torah. This particular reading is indebted to the Eitz Hayim Chumash.