Over the past few years at my different pulpits I have had the pleasure of speaking to several different Christian groups. During my talks, I always leave time for a Q and A session. I love this part because I often would get some of the most challenging and interesting questions. Undoubtedly, someone will ask a question about sacrifices. Maybe this has happened to some of you when talking to believing Christians. There are the questions that are a little misinformed about current Jewish practice. They sometimes start like this: Rabbi, I thought the service was beautiful, but when does the animal sacrifice happen? Then there are the Christological questions like: Without animal sacrifice, how do you Jews atone for your sins?
The reason that well meaning people ask us these questions is of course because they read the Bible where the Israelites are always sacrificing animals, and if we modern Jews are the decedents of our biblical ancestors, shouldn’t we be doing the same thing? As it says in this week’s parashah, Pinhas, among other places, “The Eternal One spoke to Moses, saying: Command the Israelite people and say to them: Be punctilious in presenting to Me at stated times the offerings of food due me, as offerings by fire of pleasing odor to me . . . . A regular burnt offering every day.”
Now, most of us, myself included, are probably satisfied with the main Jewish mode of worship that has taken hold after the destruction of the two temples. That is, namely, prayer. Instead of offering sacrifices, the Rabbis say that we offer avodah she’ba’lev—worship of the heart, which they say is prayer. While not wanting a reinstitution of the Temple system, I would like us to do a reexamination. Let us now take a close look at what the sacrifices were and what they meant to the Israelites.
Offering up animals and crops (sacrifices were also vegetarian) as worship to gods or God was very natural in the ancient word. From Greece to India, that was the normal mode of praise. Many cultures believed that the sacrifices were actually sustenance for their gods, and there are hints of that in our Torah portion and elsewhere in the Torah, but many scholars think that the Israelites felt that this was symbolic. As God exclaims in Psalm 50, “Were I hungry, I would not tell you, for Mine is the world and all it holds. Do I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of he-goats?” But God is not against the sacrificial system; God decreed it according to the Torah and this Psalm. I continue, “Sacrifice a thank offering to God, and pay your vows to the Most High. Call upon Me in time of trouble; I will rescue you, and you shall honor Me.”
So, if sacrifice to the Israelites was not a way for the people to appease their hungry God, what was it? Sacrifice was a way for the worshiper, or worshipers, to feel close to God, for one Hebrew word for sacrifice is Korban which literally means “something brought near.” The worshiper experiences this nearness to God through ritual and a sacred meal.
As I said before, I do not want a return to Temple sacrifice, but I would like to see a return to the spirit of sacrifice, and I’m not using the English meaning of the word “sacrifice” (to give up something) but the Hebrew term korban—to draw close, bring something near.
And where are we nearer than when we are eating with each other? When the Temple was destroyed, the Rabbis decreed that our Shabbat tables become like the alter. This is why many Jews will wash their hands ritually and put salt on their challah mimicking the priests in the Temple. But, what does this mean that our tables are like the alter? Well, for one, we have these rituals and others like blessings—motzi, Kiddush, etc. Our blessings and rituals can bring us to the mindset of holiness, of sacrifice. When we say motzi, “. . . who brings forth bread from the earth,” we are recognizing the Diving/human partnership in our food. We know that God did not literally bring bread from the earth, but created the world in which farmers, bakers and we can bring forth this bread. Like the priestly rituals around the sacrifices brought the right amount of awe, reverence and thanksgiving, our rituals and blessings can do the same to our meals.
Second, though, is that we can and should be eating in communion with others, just as the Israelites and priests ate together in the presence of God. How many times have we had a great meal with great conversation and the time just blew by and we felt sublime during it. This is what korban is about because when we connect with each other, we are connecting with the divine. We are drawing near to God, and we are bringing God into our relationships. Our meals can become sacred, like in ancient times, we just need to make the time. This is the spirit of sacrifice.
Another way to bring the spirit of the sacrifices into our lives is by looking at what we do eat. The ancient Temple had prohibited and accepted foods which have been brought down to us as the laws of Kashrut—kosher laws. Kashrut has been interpreted as a way of bringing holiness into one of the most animal acts that we do, namely eating. This was done by separation between fit and unfit, as Kashrut literally means fitness .
Whether we follow the traditional laws of kashrut or not, we can still make a separation with our food between fit and unfit. Is the food that we are eating processed in a plant where they are cruel to the animals? Or, is the food that we are eating processed where they treat the workers like animals? These are two things that the biggest Kosher meat producer in America is being accused of.
We can also ask about the environmental impact that our food is creating on our planet. Do we need fruit shipped to us all year long from South America or New Zealand, or can we eat local fruits and veggies? The food that we eat affects the whole world, just as our ancestors believed that their sacrifices at the Temple did. The sacrifices they brought, they felt, sustained the world, (Al shlosha d’varim . . . avodah . . . Temple worship), and our food can be sustainable.
There are Jewish organizations that are trying to bring back this spirit of korban, sacrifice, to our food like the website the Jew and the Carrot, Hazon, and Magen Tzedek. Rabbi Allen Morris, the founder of Magen Tzedek writes, “We need to be in a world where we can say that keeping kosher is the way in which I demonstrate not only a concern for my relationship to God and Torah but the Jewish concern for our relationship to the world in which we live.”
Just as our ancestors brought their foods to Jerusalem to eat in the presence of God, we can bring the presence of God back into our meals as we eat in the spirit of sacrifice—the spirit of the korbanot.
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