Parashat Vayikra: Sacrifice and Forgiveness - 5785

Christina Mattison Ebert

This week we begin a new book of the Torah, Leviticus; or, in Hebrew, Vayikra. This new beginning coincides with many other new beginnings: the Hebrew month of Nisan; the first budding flowers on the trees around town; opening day of the new baseball season. All of these point to a welcome fact, that Spring - aviv - has arrived. 

With springtime also arrives our holiday of renewal, Passover. In this season our thoughts turn to the celebration of our people’s ancient Exodus. We celebrate the moment in which we took a giant leap of faith from bondage and servitude into an, albeit uncertain, freedom that bestowed upon us the privilege to live as we saw fit and to determine our own future. 

Much of the Torah narrative following the Exodus deals with the question of what we, as Jews, are expected to do with that freedom. These expectations are laid out most explicitly in the 613 mitzvot (commandments) that God gives to the Israelites during the course of their sojourn through the wilderness. The earliest rabbis recognized that there were two primary categories of mitzvot: mitzvot bein adam laMakom - those that define our relationship with God, and mitzvot bein adam lechavero - those that define our relationships with one another. 

This week’s portion deals primarily with the mitzvot concerning the Priest’s work in the Tabernacle, specifically the procedure of carrying out ritual sacrifices as a form of worshipping God. The text carefully details the selection of the proper animal for each sacrifice and the proper handling of its requisite parts as they are prepared for and offered as burnt offerings to God. On the surface, this week’s portion can be read as a long list of mitzvot bein adam laMakom that have little relevance to our lives since we no longer engage in ritual sacrifice as our primary mode of worship. 

However, in the first verses of chapter five we read that if a person has incurred guilt through incorrect action, they are required to make a confession - vidui - of their infraction. This commandment seems to be in tension with the practice of bringing sacrifice as a method to be forgiven for sins and infractions. Why should one be required to both make a sacrifice and make a confession? 

Our tradition suggests that both of these actions are necessary pieces as we attempt to do the difficult work of teshuvah - seeking forgiveness and correction of our actions. The vidui has great spiritual and psychological power, forcing us to bring our wrongdoing into the light and confronting it, no matter how uncomfortable a process this may be. The sacrifice represents a physical return to God, an outward expression of an internal process of course correction we seek to undertake. 

We have been without a Temple for nearly 2,000 years and, in its absence, the act of ritual sacrifice has been replaced in our tradition with prayer. Without sacrifice, the path to real teshuvah, seemingly, is more difficult. Yet the recipe remains the same: real forgiveness and return to a righteous path can only be achieved by admitting our mistakes and then actively taking steps to fix them. Yes we should pray to God to be forgiven as we transgress mitzvot bein adam laMakom. But the process does not stop there. Without ritual sacrifice, we are tasked to go even deeper, to reach out to those we have wronged when we fall short of fulfilling mitzvot bein adam lechavero and directly seek forgiveness from someone we have wronged. 

Expressed concisely and beautifully, we read in Psalm 51, “You do not want me to bring sacrifices; You do not desire burnt offerings; True sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit; God, You will not despise a contrite…heart.”

May this Spring, this season of renewal, also be an opportunity for renewal of spirit, a chance to name where we have fallen short and a path to making right where we have gone wrong. Shabbat Shalom!