Parashat Va'Yikra

The first portion of the Third Book of Moses – Leviticus – is called Va’Yik’ra (literally to call, as in “and [the Lord] has called on to [Moshe]”).  At first blush, this is not one of the most intriguing portions – most of it deals, sometimes in excruciating detail, with the issue of how to present an offering – usually in the form of a slaughtered animal – to God. Among others, the portion describes what parts of the animals should be offered and which parts should not, what to do with the blood, how to skin the animal, what to do with the internal organs, and so on and so forth – not exactly the material that makes exciting reading.

And yet a closer look would reveal a fascinating portion, offering a true synthesis of – and an ingenious solution to – the issues we discussed in recent weeks.  On that, and on one other aspect of the portion that shows, once again, that not much has changed in the past 3,000 years, I would like to comment shortly today.

I. The Offerings – A Great Synthesis

In past weeks we have discussed the nearly insurmountable tension between the First Commandment – “I am the Lord your God,” which requires us to worship a transcendent, impossible-to-see, hear, or feel divine entity  – on the one hand, and the all-too-human impetus to worship something much more tangible (the so-called “Santa-Claus image of God,” if you will) on the other.  This is the tension between the notion of one transcendental God, untouchable, unimaginable, “which has no form, no shape, and no body” (Maimonides), and the almost irresistible impulse to see, feel, smell, hear, and taste the subject of our worship.  We saw how this tension led the Israelites to commit what many consider their worst religious sin ever – the creation of the Golden Calf. But we also saw how the same tension led Moshe himself, to ask God specifically for a more concrete communication form. How could this tension be resolved?

Enter the offerings.  A God-certified worshipping program, allowing any Jewish person of faith to actually see, hear, smell, touch, and – yes – taste the fruits of his or her worship.  It was the Rambam (Maimonides), of course, who first made this remarkable connection. He understood that only such comprehensive framework of God worshiping would contemporaneously demonstrate a great belief in God, and allow the believing worshipper to comply with their earthly needs. Moreover, the Rambam emphasizes that worshiping in this particular way – through presenting of offering in the ways detailed by the biblical text – would create an insurance program against worshiping other gods in similar ways. 

Armed with this new insight, we can now re-examine the same “dreary” verses in the text that explain in great detail how to treat the animals we sacrifice. Now we can understand why those verses are so exact. Now we can appreciate why those verses, while seemingly dealing with mindless details of animal internal parts and blood residue, are actually dealing with the most important part of our faith – how to properly worship our God. Only in that way could we really appreciate this opening portion of the Third Book of Moshe. 

To be sure, not everyone share the Rambam’s pragmatic (and may I add, ingenious) insight. The offerings, say those critics, occupy too much room in the Text, not to mention the rest of Halacha, to serve merely as a practical barrier to idol worshipping. It therefore must be treated as an end by itself, rather than a means to an end. (See the Ramban view, in particular). But I think that the Rambam is right precisely because of the large space dedicated to each and every detail of the offering’s work. We must recall that, in the religious sense, the entire five books of Moshe are nothing but a manual for servicing God properly. It is for that reason that the building of the Mishkan receives ten-fold the amount of verses than that of the entire creation of the universe. It is for that reason that every aspect of providing of the offerings is analyzed and described to such great detail. And finally, this type of practice is also probably the most effective way to assure continued allegiance to the Jewish God, or, in other words, to make sure that the First Commandment – “I am the Lord your God” – is followed closely. Is there anything more important than that from a religious perspective?

[Keen readers of the blog would probably notice that such a form of worship may not appear, on its face, to be “Lee’shma” or “for its own sake” alone; rather, it seems to be more “she’lo lee’shma” or “not for its own sake.” This issue is beyond this week’s blog post, but I’ll be happy to answer questions about it.]

Ok, you may say, this is all good and well; but the practice of sacrifice offering has been eliminated nearly 2,000 years ago with the destruction of the Second Temple. Now what? This is a tough question, to which I can offer no complete answer. I may offer some guesses, however.  One possibility is that since there is no good substitute, many people – much more than ever in the history of Judaism – no longer completely follow the First Commandment; they no longer believe in God (at least not in the way meant by the Torah) and do not follow His commands. Another possibility is that these days, more than ever before, Jews all over the world are in constant search for a satisfactory alternative to the actual work of offerings – alternatives like Zen Buddhism, spiritualism, yoga, and other practices not mentioned in the biblical text, all in an attempt to compensate themselves for the lack of using their senses during worshiping. And while the search is still ongoing, it would be safe to assume that none of the alternatives are as satisfying as the original prescribed in the text. But that same search symbolizes that even today the tension between a transcendent God and our earthly desires is far from resolved. Finally, it is possible that the answer to this question simply lies with us, with the “here and now” form of practicing Judaism all over the world. Any occasional visitor to a Synagogue would not be able to miss the physical aspects of worshiping – from the actual coming together to stand in a place of worship, to kissing the Torah scroll, to the opening and closing of the arc, and so on and so forth. This, perhaps, is the best substitute we can offer to the original form of worshiping. 

So much for understanding the offerings. 

II. When a Ruler Hath Sinned…

The second point I would like to comment on today relates to yet another form of the tension we mentioned earlier, with a slight twist: This time the tension is between the Torah as a treatise that recognizes one, and only one, true leader and the pragmatic human need for human leadership (rather than merely divine authority).

In that respect, this week’s portion deals with several instances where the possibility of committing a sin or an error is plausible. Thus, for example, it instructs us what to do – or, more precisely, what type of offering to present – “if” a member of the community unintentionally commits a sin (Leviticus 4:27); or “if” the entire people commit an error, a result of which is a violation of one of the biblical laws (Id. 4:13); or “if” the Anointed Preach himself has sinned against God, even through no fault of his own (Id., 4:3). The text, in other words, recognizes that these instances may or may not occur. If they do occur, however, the text provides the remedy. 

When the text arrives, however, at the subject of a sin committed by a lay leader of the community, the possibility that he or she would make even an unintentional sin against God is no longer conditioned; the term “if” disappears and is replaced by the ever present “whenever”: “Whenever a ruler has committed a sin (against God) . . . without intention”  (Id., 4:22) In other words, there is no question that any human ruler would sin. There is no “if” here; the only question is “when” this would happen.

This is a very interesting insight by the text. It shows us, once again, that not much has changed over the past 3,000 years (at least in terms of human leadership).  Leaders have come and gone, and they have always sinned, either intentionally or not. They still commit sins today, and would probably sin as long as they would rule. Indeed, one could argue that the tendency to sin lies at the very heart of governing, in the very nature of the situation in which one person has power over others. As Lord Acton famously noted in 1887: “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Similarly, the Babylonian Talmud teaches us that we should never choose a leader over our communities “unless a can of worms is hanging from his back” (that is, in free translation, unless there is clear evidence that he has many a skeleton in his closet). The idea was that whenever his title and office “alter his mind” (that is, whenever he begins to think of himself as above other people, or above the law), the people would be able to remind him: “look behind your own back,” and thus restore his good behavior. (8 Bab. Talmud, Yoma, Page 25, 2). 

Here, again, we see Judaism’s ambivalent relation to – and deep understanding of – human nature.  On the one hand, our forefathers realized that leaving the entire role of leadership to God alone would create an “earthly” vacuum that the community would not be able to fill (See the Golden Calf example). The same Jewish leaders wanted to emphasize that no leader, not even Moshe himself who spoke to God face-to-face, is above ordinary human tendencies and behavior.  All those human leaders sin, the portion tells us this week, and therefore all should be treated with the same amount of suspicion. Only God does not sin, and only He should be worshipped. 

Shabbat Shalom,

Doron