I often start a d’var by asking how anyone can cover the material on the triennial cycle, much less the annual.  My question here is the reverse.  Why deal with this Parashah at all, or anything in the first seven chapters of Vayikra, which focus on the sacrifices brought to the Temple in Jerusalem.   How can this priestly stuff,^[i] which ceased to be relevant with the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, say anything to us modern Jews living two millennia later in the Diaspora?  After all, these issues are totally ignored in the Shulchan Aruch.^[ii]  Why not then skip them and spend more time on, for example, the Holiness Code which appears later in Vayikra?

After I thought about those concerns a bit more, I decided that they broke down into three more specific questions:

Ø  Should we bother to read these chapters at all?

Ø  Should we learn more about the Temple sacrifices?

Ø  Should we study the sacrificial system in detail?

The operative verbs in my three questions are read, learn, and study.  And, because I am an old prof, I will tell you in advance that my answers are yes, yes, and no.

Should We Read?

It is not hard to argue that we should read these chapters of the Torah, at least once every three years.  After all, it is not just Torah in the general sense of Jewish learning but The Torah in the specific sense of the first five Books of Moses.  We would be out of step with every other Jewish community in the world if we ignored this part of our tradition, and tradition is important.  (If you listen carefully, you can hear Zero Mostel singing the song from Fiddler on the Roof in the background.)

Moreover, the Temple and the sacrifices are not just part of our tradition; they are also part of our history.  There really was a Temple, and the Temple really was served by priests, and those priests really did offer sacrifices.  The Temple and the sacrifices are mentioned in every Amidah, and it would be inconsistent if we decided not to read about something that is included in the central prayer of our service.

Finally, if nothing else, we should read these portions because they are about food, and, throughout history, food has played a central part in Judaism, religiously as well as culturally.  Start with the fact that most sacrifices were divided into three different portions, one burnt completely and thus going to heaven, another for the priests, and the rest for the family that brought the animal to the Temple.  In Hallo’s words, Judaism was already beginning the process that leads us to, “sanctify the very act of consumption, . . . “^[iii]  Perhaps that is why the Book of Vayikra does not begin, as one might expect, with God telling Moses to instruct Aaron and his sons about the sacrifices, but rather with God telling Moses to instruct all the people.^[iv]

Should We Learn?

If it is therefore incumbent upon us to read about the sacrifices, why should we go on to learn about them.  The answer, as so often in Torah study, is that there are lessons to for us in the sacrificial system, lessons that are applicable today.  Certainly the Rabbis found these sections interesting, for there is extensive Midrashic comment on them.^[v]

Lesson Number One comes from the first sacrifice in the Bible, which is in the Cain and Abel story.  After rejecting his sacrifice, God tells Cain that it isn’t all that important:

Why are you distressed, and why is your face fallen?

Surely, if you do right, there is salvation.  (Ber.R. 4:6-7)

Lesson Number Two is about God.  As Hammer says, by offering sacrifices, Cain and Abel may have been reflecting the way that ancient peoples related to their gods, but:

. . . from the very first the attitude of the Bible toward sacrifice was totally different from that of pagan religion.  Sacrifice was seen not as essential to God nor as sufficient to express the proper relationship of human beings to God.  (Pp. 41-42)

Judging from the number of times the prophets had to remind the Israelites that God wanted good deeds, or in some cases obedience, rather than sacrifice, it appears that  this lesson was hard to get across.  Over and over again, using some of the greatest poetry ever written, Amos, Hosea, Jeremiah, Micah and Samuel  thundered that sacrifices were at best a means – certainly not the essence of Judaism.  True, the prophets were not opposing the sacrificial system itself.  (See for example the first part of today’s Haftarah from Isaiah.)  Rather, they were fighting “the substitution of ritual for morality.”^[vi]  No doubt, many (perhaps most) Jews living during Temple times believed in their hearts that sacrifices could influence our God, and, likely, the bigger the sacrifice the greater the influence.  Indeed, we have not fully absorbed the lesson yet.  We all find it easier to observe the forms of religious service, or to make financial donations, than to follow the moral precepts for which Judaism is so justly proud.

However, at no time in Jewish history did sacrifices replace, or even substitute for, prayer.  In short, Judaism quite divorces prayer from sacrifice.  Thus – and this is the Third Lesson – whether the means is prayer or sacrifice, the object of the exercise is for the individual to come closer to God.  That is why, as many commentators have noted, a word for sacrifice in Hebrew has the same root as the word for approaching (krb).

The difference from pagan sacrifice could not be greater, and it reflects the revolution implicit in the development of Judaism as a religion and as a moral force.  Pagan gods could be propitiated and even controlled by appropriate actions.  Judaism makes not the least suggestion that God could be influenced by sacrifices.  Indeed, the use of sacrificial remains for soothsaying or divination is expressly forbidden.^[vii]  The closest we come to pagan notions in Torah are occasional anthropomorphic statements, as when sacrifices are described as “the food of your God”^[viii] or when God is said to smell the pleasing odour of a sacrifice.^[ix]  (Odour does not refer to that barbecue smell; rather, the sacrifices were burned with incense.)  If these differences were not enough, one of the remarkable characteristics of the sacrificial system is that, so far as we know, it was a silent service;^[x] no blessings or petitions are known to have accompanied a sacrifice, which makes it different in form as well as substance from Egyptian and Babylonian practice.^[xi]  Thus, Hammer states:

From the standpoint of the Bible, it is obvious that sacrifices are not God’s need, but a favor He grants to the people in order to permit them to feel close to Him.  Sacrifices became a method of expressing human emotion . . . [but] they could not substitute for right conduct and had absolutely no independent value.  (P. 46)

This perspective finds its way into aggadic comments in the Talmud:

The Holy One said . . . , “Better to me is one day that you engage in Torah before me than one thousand sacrifices.^[xii]

And: Torah study is superior to building the temple.^[xiii]

No doubt this perspective reflects the bias of rabbis in their academies.  A stronger point is made half a millennium later by Rambam (Maimonidies) and Abarbanel who see sacrifices as a concession to a naive people not ready to accept the full implications of the mysterious God that Moses presented to them.^[xiv]  To be fair, other commentators, including Ramban (Nachmanidies) and Ibn Ezra, argued to the contrary.  In their view, sacrifices were a judicial admission of guilt, which allowed, by the grace of God, for the transfer of punishment.^[xv]

In contrast to sacrifices, prayers require words even if they are said silently.  And words, particularly words in the form of petition, as with the Amidah, are recognized as efficient and effective ways to reach God.   Note also the lovely anecdotes quoted on pp. 15 and 17 of Sim Shalom -- one where Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai tells Rabbi Joshua not to grieve over the destruction of the Temple because we can equally well gain atonement through deeds of loving kindness; the other where states Rabbi Elazar that charity is greater than all of the sacrifices.^[xvi]   It is no accident that we use the same word, Avodah, to refer to both the prayer service and the sacrifices -- nor that, in the view of most authorities, it is a Torah commandment for each of us (male and female) to pray.^[xvii]

In short, by learning about the sacrifices, we can see how little they really counted for, and, in contrast, how important the alternative of prayer is.  The Hebrew Bible is filled with prayers uttered by individuals at particular moments.  One scholar found 97 instances of personal prayer, without counting the psalms, which are “professional prayers written by a class of experts.”^[xviii]  Judaism, which had first injected an element of equity by providing for low-cost as well as expensive sacrifices -- in effect, from each according to means -- then went further and, by emphasizing the importance of prayer, created a truly democratic religion within which everyone had access to God.  Sacrifices could only be offered by one sub-caste in one location in a specific ritual.  Words could be offered by anyone at any place in any way.

Should We Study?

Having learned something about the sacrifices and having drawn lessons from the role they played when the Temple was standing, should we go on to study the sacrifices in  sufficient detail to be able to offer them?  Here is where I answer with an emphatic No!  Along with what must be the great majority of Jews, I have not the least desire to see the Temple rebuilt, the priesthood re-established, and sacrifices reinstated.  My view on the subject does not stem from concern for animals, compelling though this reason might be.  Rather, I want both to protect a democratic Judaism, a Judaism of people not priests, and I also want to emphasize good deeds and responsible action that is the essence of Godly behaviour.

Fortunately, there is no inconsistency in what we, as Conservative Jews, say during the Amidah and rejection of any intention to re-institute sacrifices.  The traditional words of the Amidah, including both the 17th blessing of the weekday Amidah and the middle blessing for Shabbat and for the Musaf of Holydays, do request that God restore the sacrifices, and these words are still used by most Orthodox siddurim.  However, most Conservative siddurim have changed the words to a request that God help us to remember the sacrifices, or, as with Sim Shalom, simply to restore services in a vague sort of way.  Reform siddurim typically delete all reference to the sacrifices.^[xix]

At the opposite end of the spectrum are those Ultra-Orthodox groups, mainly in Israel (but supported by some Jews in the Diaspora and some fundamentalist Christians) who want to build a new Temple.  I go beyond objecting to those who pursue this study; I condemn them.  Not only do they ignore what is truly important in Judaism, but, by attempting to destroy Moslem shrines now on the Temple Mount in order to erect a Jewish Temple, they are a  politically dangerous element that is willing to risk destruction of the State of Israel for their misconceived pietism.  As Gershon Gorenberg, who wrote the best book on the subject, says:

The function of the messianic vision is to serve as a criticism of the world as it is.  The crucial error is to believe that we can reach the perfected era. (P. 247)

In conclusion, and in observance of the Rabbinic view that Torah portions should not end on a downbeat, a view that I think should be extended to Divrai Torah as well, let me read one final excerpt from Hammer:

The God of Israel needed nothing from human beings, but He required much of them -- love, mercy, righteousness, and justice: “to do justice and to love goodness, and to walk modestly with your God” (Mic. 6:8).  Anyone who followed those precepts could come before Him at any time and in any place with words alone.  (P. 46)

To which, one can only say, Amen!