I often find the Torah’s preoccupation with animal sacrifice unrelatable and repulsive. Unless one is involved in farming or kosher slaughtering, most of us are far removed from killing animals, let alone killing animals as a ritual offering to God.
This week’s Torah portion, Vayikra, is all about animal sacrifices. It opens the book of Leviticus with a detailed list of the offerings to be brought before God in the ancient Temple. Reading the language closely, and specifically the original Hebrew word choices, reminds me that animal sacrifice was as much about closeness and intimacy as it was about death.
Leviticus 1:2-4 provides instruction around the burnt offering/sacrifice of atonement, and I want to look at the words chosen to describe it:
When any of you presents (yakriv) an offering (korban) of cattle to God: You shall choose your offering from the herd or from the flock… You shall lay a hand upon the head of the burnt offering, that it may be acceptable on your behalf, in expiation for you.
The language of sacrifice is based upon the biblical Hebrew root kuf-resh-bet (krb). At its heart, the root krb is not about slaughter. Instead, words deriving from this biblical root are about closeness, intimacy, and internality. The passage above speaks of people offering (yakriv) a sacrifice (korban) before God, both from the root krb.
Words in the Tanach deriving from this root indicate various things, including:
- closeness: “God is near (karov) to all who call, to all who call with sincerity” (Psalm 145:18);
- internality: “Fashion a pure heart for me, O God; create in me (b’kirbi) a steadfast spirit” (Psalm 51:12);
- or even close combat: “Blessed is God, my rock, who trains my hands for battle (lakrav), my fingers for warfare” (Psalm 144:1). (Close does not always mean comfortable.)
Seeing these usages of the root, I believe that bringing a sacrifice before God in the ancient Temple was to make a bid for connection. An animal offering was never impersonal. A person would touch an animal’s head right before it would be slaughtered. This human-initiated, priest-facilitated process was understood to bring a person closer to God and community.
The biblical text leaves out an important set of details: Who can offer a sacrifice to God and what actions are required to effect expiation and atonement? Put differently, who has intimate access to God in this way? The Mishnah provides uncomfortable answers to these questions.
The Mishnah is often referred to as the Oral Torah, and many Jewish communities believe it was also revealed at Sinai. Although it was codified in around 200 CE, the Mishnah preserves an ancient record of many Second Temple ritual practices. It teaches about who can and cannot offer a sacrifice:
Everyone who brings an animal offering places hands upon its head, except for a deaf-mute, an imbecile, a minor, a blind person, a gentile, a Canaanite slave, the agent of the owner of the offering who brings the offering on the owner’s behalf, and a woman. And the requirement of placing hands is a non-essential mitzvah; therefore, failure to place hands does not prevent the owner from achieving atonement. (Mishnah Menachot 9:8).
As a conservative rabbi committed to pluralistic Judaism, it is hard for me to read this text as anything but exclusionary and offensive. Only a full-grown, able-bodied, neurotypical Jewish man is halakhically permitted to participate in an animal sacrifice at the Temple, a ritual action that initiates atonement, connection, and intimacy with God. Everyone else is excluded. Knowing that this text and others like it continue to be used as justification to exclude categories of people from full ritual inclusion in Jewish spaces further challenges me.
My rush to judgment against this text is moderated by two factors: First, I wonder if the text intends to exclude groups of people or whether it is describing the world as it was. Perhaps an individual needed to have full personhood and autonomy to engage in such an intense, intimate, and powerful act before God. Saying that women, visually impaired, minors, and neuroatypical folks couldn’t participate in these sacrifices was not meant to be proscriptive, but descriptive. These categories of people were not considered full members of society at the time.
Reading the Mishnah generously, this passage could be saying that a person must have a fully developed, autonomous sense of self and be recognized as such by society to be able to initiate, participate, and consent to ritual sacrifice of animals. This text could be safeguarding the vulnerable of society who might otherwise be forced into being unwilling participants within this sacrificial system.
Second, the text itself may provide an interpretive out. When it describes the placing of hands upon the animal as “a non-essential mitzvah,” this indicates that atonement (and presumably, renewed closeness with God) is available to all, whether we are ritually or personally able to participate in a sacrifice or not.
Put differently, sacrifice is an important and powerful way to achieve intimacy; however, it is not the only way. God’s Torah is not to be found far away in the heavens, but “the thing is very close (karov) to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to observe it” (Deuteronomy 30:14). God is always close, no sacrifice required!
In my work as a rabbi, I see many people longing for connection and closeness. Giving of ourselves to others and perhaps even sacrificing our egos (rather than animals!) can be an incredibly powerful driver of intimacy. I believe that everyone in our society today deserves the right to give of themselves to others in some fashion.
However, for many people the language and imagery of sacrifice is a barrier to connection, rather than a pathway. Let’s remember that while sacrifice is powerful, it is not the only way to connect with others. Every one of us has an innate ability to seek and experience deep connection.