Leviticus Cycle Two Vayikra and Tzav 1:1 to 8:36

Vayikra and Tzav

Here, in these parshas, we have the blood and guts and pieces and parts of perfectly innocent animals. You can’t miss them. They are everywhere. Blood is everywhere. It’s dramatic, seemingly barbaric, seemingly rough and sad. But just like with so much in Torah, we need to take the idea of animal offerings to another level to really understand the true meaning. If we can’t, we are stuck with blood and guts and pieces and parts of perfectly innocent animals. And that’s not someplace where I personally want to be stuck.

So first let’s see how the laws around the offerings are communicated. In Vayikra they are for the people. In Tzav, they are for the priests (Rashbam). In Vayikra, God is calling. In Tzav, we have an order. A call infers distance, a general but wider message. We will call to a mass of people on a football field. We will call down the path during a hike. An order is closer, more intimate and direct.

No matter how you figure it though, whether command or call, whether there is a deeper meaning or a filtered message for a wider public, these offerings cut straight to the heart.

They symbolize the eternal struggle to close the gap between our physical and spiritual selves. They remind us, through their very violent visuals, that we are not physical beings who sometimes have spiritual experiences. Rather, we are spiritual being plunged into and shocked by the physical world. So, though necks are being cut what we are being asked to do is to momentarily feel our spiritual essence. And what does the spirit want? To break free of the body-vessels and to rise. To not only merge but to heal God. This brings us to the subject of prayer.

If you like, prayer can be seen as the internalization of offerings. They are feelings hopes and fears placed into orderly procedure. The attention to detail in these parshas is mind boggling. After all, what exactly should be done with the fat, the breast, the legs? What about those disparate and cut off pieces inside of us? As for the idea of order, even the word siddur or prayer book means order. Jonathon Sacks says in The Koren Siddur that the shape of prayers reveals the basic shape of the Jewish spirit as it has been molded by its encounter with God.

I think therefore we can learn a lot by the shape of the offerings in Vayikra and Tzav.

First, look at the wording. In Vayikra the offerings are from the animals. The word min is repeated three times in 1:2. From the cattle. From the sheep. From the goat. So, the offering is not the animal itself. It’s from the animal. The word min is used at another important place in Torah. If we look carefully at Genesis 21:15 after the akeda an angel from heaven (min ha-shamayim) comes to talk to Abraham. The covenant is then repeated. By using the word min therefore Torah is not only logically saying that the animal is not the offering. Torah is saying that the animal is the heavenly body that houses the offering. Likewise, a prayer is not the words. The words are the heavenly body that houses the prayer. In the long run, we can’t just sacrifice an animal and think the dead will get us closer to God (see Jeremiah and Isaiah). We also can’t just say a prayer by rote and think the words are it.

Next, we aren’t the ones bringing the animals to the altar. It is brought of our will (ratzon). The spark in us is letting loose the spark in the animal. In terms of prayer, the spark in us is letting loose the spark in the words. To be more specific, as we read the words we might see or feel a powerful vision. That radiance soon opens more words and it becomes a continuum of revelations, healing and love.

Next, the hands of the person making the offering are placed…or pressed (samach) on the head of the animal. This really only need be mentioned once…in the general all encompassing statement (1:4) at the beginning of Vayikra. Yet it’s repeated for each specific type of offering. Why? To enable atonement (1:4). But how can hands on a head of a soon to be dead animal help free us of our sins? This is what I think. The sparks of the offering must merge with the spark of the man doing the offering. This is best done through the mind, the highest place of consciousness. Touch creates transference. In a way, the spark of the man is transferred into the animal so that when it dies the spark rises to God. That makes it a self-sacrifice. In terms of prayer, we merge our love for God with the love in the words. In the speaking of them our love is transferred into the prayer and flows towards God.

Next, there’s the idea of eating. The priests, for example, eat the breast of the offering, the choice piece. I really think this is about knowing the prayers so well they are fused in our minds. The other day I was running on the beach. It was a beautiful morning. I stopped by some rocks and sat. I was going to pray when I got home. Instead, I decided to chant the morning blessings there in that perfect moment. I did some of the Amidah but couldn’t do all and I guess you could call it a partial morning offering. The partiality of it felt fine though given the embodiment of that divine merge. I really felt like the blessings were a part of me.

Whenever we go home we touch our mezuzah. At temple some of us wear tefillin. Metaphor will always bring out the mystical, the secret interconnections that we yearn to understand and to enable. As we read about the offerings therefore I think it would be nice if we could say to ourselves…ah, this is what they did and how did it get them closer to God? And what can we take or not take from it in order to be at one with God as well? There’s great beauty in all that represents that oneness. There are secrets within the scent and ashes of a physical offering, many of which are still waiting to be revealed as we enter a more conscious time.

So, may we embrace the physical offerings as our prayers continually flow from our lips. May we learn from them. May we be in the high drama of the blood to observe, to cherish and to rise. May we transfer our divine sparks into the words of our prayers. May we become the prayer. May we see ourselves as the heavenly body that houses the divine spark. May we see ourselves as the spark. May we be gentle kind and loving with each other as we transform together into the one eternal offering.