Vayikra

Sacrifices

Sacrifices do indeed present an esthetic, sometimes a moral, problem to many modern Jews who are unable to envision being spiritually uplifted at the sight of slaughtered animals, spilled blood and burning incense. Yet, with all the reservations prophets, rabbis and philosophers have expressed about sacrifices they are indisputably an integral part of Torah legislation, as well as of Jewish history in the First and Second Temples…What is left then for us to do in dealing with the chapters of the sacrifices is to learn from them, each one according to his own understanding.

Pinchas Peli (20^th Century)

Whenever the matter of animal sacrifices is discussed, there are some difficult questions that cannot be ignored. Is it not unavoidable that sacrifices will be viewed as attempts to bribe God to forego the anger caused Him by the sinner who offers the sacrifice? Does it not seem that the donor tries to placate God just as he would attempt to placate a mere mortal ruler, thereby insulting God and reducing His stature?...Clearly what is stressed is that one of the things Israel did to placate God or bribe Him has had the slightest impact on the well being of God Himself. God forgives for His own sake. He emphasizes that there is no other consideration, repeats His name when He proclaims that He dispenses forgiveness, in order to stress that there is no personal benefit involved.

Yitzchak Arama (15^th Century)

Accepting the yoke of Torah and Mitzvot commits one to the political-social arrangements presupposed in the books of Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy and all the oral Torah deriving from there, and obliges us to strive to establish precisely that system and those conditions which enable the literal realization of the Torah. When these conditions do not exist and we are unable to create them, we are forbidden to undertake all independent political activity “till a spirit inspires us from above.” A fitting analogy may be the sacrifices, which are conditioned upon the rebuilt Temple, pedigreed priesthood, purity of the Temple, its utensils and those who serve, and so on.

Yeshayahu Leibowitz (20^th Century)

Offering a sacrifice in the holy Temple instilled the powerful message that it should really be the offender’s blood spilled and body burned, were it not for God’s kindness in accepting a substitute and a ransom. This visceral experience was a humbling encounter, subduing one’s negative traits and desires.

Abraham Isaac Kook (20^th Century)

The reasons usually given for rejection of sacrifices are so weak that they obviously cannot be the true ones. For the horror at the “slaughter of innocent animals” is comical rather than serious on the lips of confirmed non-vegetarians…Still, there is a difference even for one who sees this motivation quite clearly. He too finds it difficult to utter the prayer for the reinstitution of sacrifice. And that is as it should be. The difference between prescribed prayer and spontaneous prayer is that the latter is born out of the need of the moment, while the former teaches him who prays to feel a need he might otherwise not feel.

Franz Rosenzweig (20^th Century)

In a world in which nothing is Jewish, only the text reverberates and echoes a teaching that no cathedral, no plastic form, no specific religious instruction can content itself with summary notions because other cultures are here and present, giving these notions a concrete meaning and confirming them every day. The notions that a Jewish child picks up on Sundays and Thursdays from the synagogue are limited – without Hebrew – to schemes whose meaning is watered down or dispersed in the face those forms which Western humanism itself has for so long been linked. If emancipated Judaism has managed to survive as Judaism for more than 150 years, despite the progressive drying up of Hebrew studies, it is because this drying up was only progressive and because, while one moved further away from the age in which moral and social structures of life were steeped in Jewish knowledge, this atmosphere had for a long time been transported within the family furniture. But family memories cannot ultimately take the place of a civilization.

Emmanuel Levinas (20^th Century)