Vayikra Cycle Five Vayikra

Finding True Prayer

By Chava Lion

I went hiking today with one thing in mind. I wanted to find goats. Big goats. Thin goats. Goats chomping on the weeds. Goats climbing on the hill. That’s what I needed. Goats.

Given the actions of humanity for decades I figured it was time for the goat-sacrifice, that ultimate offering, Goat-Peace.

Of course, I love goats. The idea of dashing their blood on the sides of an imaginary altar, removing layers of fat, the kidneys, the fat on the flanks, and the lobe over the liver, then burning them on this same altar… well it was hard to embrace.

Another problem was the lack of goat-accessibility. I live in a place where there are dogs on walking paths and people and sometimes a bear but never a goat. I think I’ve seen one once… a baby.

So, because we just moved through the month of Adar and we are slowly approaching Pesach I allowed myself to dream of a situation in which there was a goat-plague. Yes, I imagined them blanketing the lovely hills, chewing on the sides of houses, wrecking flower beds, guillotining any hope of healthy vegetation, stopping traffic, annoying the tourists, annoying the deer. The goat plague would become so bad (in my hypothetical reality) that the town hall would issue an edict to kill all goats on sight.

Suddenly, I could pick up the first imagined filthy but blemish-less goat and carry it to the houses of certain politicians or administrators. I could write a note and attach it to the goat’s ear: Here’s what you need for the sacrifice. See you tomorrow morning outside the ohel moed.

There would be a problem though. Torah is quite specific that the person offering the goat must bring it of his/her own free will. The word used is ratzon (Vayikra 1:3). As our great sages might say: You can’t force a goat on anyone. Even on ourselves.

This is a difficult lesson to learn.

In fact, this is one difficult book to understand. Certainly this week’s parasha (Vayikra) is not exactly accessible in 2013. The whole idea is that there’s this altar outside the tent of meeting and we are to present the kohanim with animals to be killed and burnt as offerings to God. There’s a purpose for each offering. They are to free us of guilt or sin as a community or individually. And they also offer repentance for the priests themselves.

It’s a science. The kohanim are instructed to handle each offering with exquisite detail. In short, we, the common man, bring the animal to the priest and it’s his work to kill the beast as instructed, sprinkle the blood, cut out parts, pile parts, and set the animal on the flames. This, we are told will create a pleasant fragrance for God. Of course there is blood flying, animals squealing, people sweating and watching and crying. Yet, despite the primal reality, these offerings are a metaphor for prayer, according to Rabbi Jonathon Sacks in the Koren Siddur.

Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Kook (first chief rabbi of Eretz Yisrael) explains this prayer/sacrifice connection by commenting on the tiny aleph at the beginning of the parasha. The aleph is at the end of the word Vayikra…and He called. Rabbi Kook says that the tiny aleph makes room for more white space. It’s pretty simple. Less ink on the page means more white space. Here, God calls to Moshe from beyond the ink on the page, from a place called the white fire (Zohar), the center of creation and breath, from the greatest degree-of-intimacy possible. This place of intimacy manifests itself as instructions, as a how-to manual to approach God. This approach therefore… the sacrifice… is a means not an end.

Prayer as well is an approach. It’s the means not the end. But how do we give prayer the solidity and the realness of the events at the mishkan? A person can be praying for forgiveness and while it’s deep and real for that person we can’t see or touch it to witness it. It’s hard to see the heart-blood, feel the freeing of the person approaching God. It’s hard for each of us personally to know the exact reach of our own prayers. We can mean something. We can mean it kind-of. We may not mean it at all.

Therefore the question is what do we do to really approach God? When the temple was destroyed in the first century C.E. we stopped the sacrifices. This is good. But that knowledge, that basic action, that submission before something as great as the creator of life and death…this we yearn for. We beg God so that the altar in our minds can have that finished feeling. So our hearts can really be clinched.

If prayer (as we've been praying) was the answer, in my opinion, we wouldn’t need to pray anymore. We would have already offered-up all of the possible mind-goats and mind-rams to expiate ourselves from even the most unconscious petty actions. We would be finished with the lowest part of ourselves. We wouldn’t feel the urge to force goats. We wouldn’t need goats. We would be conscious people acting in a world of consciousness.

Unfortunately, we are not there yet.

Meanwhile though we can prepare for the approach. We can dig as deep as we can in our gut to create our own offerings. Then maybe one by one the whole community will as well. Soon, with the strength of community, we will be finished wrapping our minds and souls around present and past goats. The prayer will be rational as well as joyous and heart-opening….such an intense experience…so true and authentic that we may even surprise ourselves. We will have finally really moved beyond the thing…beyond-the-goat…to a true service of soul and Peace.