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    Parashat Vayikra 5780

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    Jamily Mohammad
    The Torah portion discusses the five types of sacrifices described in Leviticus - burnt offerings, meal offerings, sacrifices of well-being, sin offerings, and guilt offerings. While animal sacrifices were central to worship in the ancient Temple, prayer has replaced sacrifices as the primary mode of connecting to God. The concept of sacrifice as a means of effecting change remains important. Though traditional forms of religious expression have changed, the basic human need for meaning and transcendence continues.

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    Parashat Vayikra 5780

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    Jamily Mohammad
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    The Torah portion discusses the five types of sacrifices described in Leviticus - burnt offerings, meal offerings, sacrifices of well-being, sin offerings, and guilt offerings. While animal sacrifices were central to worship in the ancient Temple, prayer has replaced sacrifices as the primary mode of connecting to God. The concept of sacrifice as a means of effecting change remains important. Though traditional forms of religious expression have changed, the basic human need for meaning and transcendence continues.

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    The Torah portion discusses the five types of sacrifices described in Leviticus - burnt offerings, meal offerings, sacrifices of well-being, sin offerings, and guilt offerings. While animal sacrifices were central to worship in the ancient Temple, prayer has replaced sacrifices as the primary mode of connecting to God. The concept of sacrifice as a means of effecting change remains important. Though traditional forms of religious expression have changed, the basic human need for meaning and transcendence continues.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    6 views3 pages

    Parashat Vayikra 5780

    Uploaded by

    Jamily Mohammad
    The Torah portion discusses the five types of sacrifices described in Leviticus - burnt offerings, meal offerings, sacrifices of well-being, sin offerings, and guilt offerings. While animal sacrifices were central to worship in the ancient Temple, prayer has replaced sacrifices as the primary mode of connecting to God. The concept of sacrifice as a means of effecting change remains important. Though traditional forms of religious expression have changed, the basic human need for meaning and transcendence continues.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
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    Parashat Vayikra 5780

    Shabbat Shalom! I hope this finds everyone well and adjusting to our changed routines.
    This Shabbat’s Torah portion is Vayikra, the first parasha in the third book of the Torah
    which is called by the same name in Hebrew, Vayikra, and is called Leviticus in English. The
    name Leviticus comes from the word Levite, the tribe of the twelve tribes that was responsible
    for the ritual/spiritual lives of the ancient Jews. The Levites were the one tribe that was not given
    a portion of the Promised Land. They were supported by the rest of the people who did possess
    land. All the names of the twelve tribes come from the names of the sons of our patriarch Jacob.
    So the tribe of Levi comes from the name of the third son of Jacob with his wife Leah. Moses
    and Aaron were from the tribe of Levi. The tribe of Levi, the family of Aaron (Moses’ older
    brother) became the Priestly caste (the kohanim, plural of kohen which means priest).
    The book of Leviticus largely discusses the ritual obligations and tasks of the Levites and
    kohanim. Relevant to this, however is a statement in the book of Exodus (Sh’mot) that states that
    the Jewish people shall become a “Kingdom of Priests” and “a holy people.” In this parasha
    various sacrifices that the kohanim would make are described. There were five different types of
    sacrifices: burnt offerings, meal offerings, sacrifices of well-being, sin offerings, and guilt
    offerings. They are described in considerable detail in the Torah portion. As I’m sure we’ve all
    noticed, sacrifices don’t play a big role in synagogue services today. In fact they were beginning
    to be replaced by prayer even in the last few hundred years of the existence of the ancient
    Temple in Jerusalem, (the Beit HaMikdash, as it’s known in Hebrew). Sacrifices were only made
    at the Beit HaMikdash in Jerusalem and nowhere else in the country. However around the third
    century BCE, synagogues were coming into existence throughout the land of Israel. So by the
    time the second Beit HaMikdash was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, it was a natural
    transition for the ancient sages to declare that prayer was the substitute for sacrifices.
    The generic term for “sacrifice” in Hebrew is korban. The word korban has the three
    letter root (kuf, resh, bet – i.e. the “k,” “r,” and “b” sounds) that means to “draw near” or “bring
    close.” In other words the act of offering something precious of one’s own to G!d was meant as
    an expression of trying to draw close to the Eternal One. Most of the sacrifices were eaten with
    only part of the animal burnt, with the exception of the “burnt offering” which was entirely
    burnt. Even though we clearly no longer offer animal or even meal sacrifices, the concept of
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    sacrifice as a means of effecting change in our lives remains. The idea of a korban, a sacrifice,
    clearly expressed a great desire to connect with the Force, the Power, the Being that transcended
    our purely physical existence. Do people still feel that drive, that urge? Somehow I believe that
    people do, even if it’s hard to articulate what that means. I believe the search for “meaning” in
    life is an expression of that desire, that inner need that most of us probably harbor. I believe that
    the creation of art of any form is also part of that great drive for meaning.
    It seems that for many people the more traditional forms of expressing that desire for
    connecting to that which transcends ourselves has lost its impact. In a way you could say that the
    transition from sacrifices to prayer was an example of how the older form of connecting to the
    Transcendent (i.e. sacrifices) was replaced by a newer form (i.e. prayer). Our ancestors retained
    the drive to connect, but they required a new means. Interestingly, many of the words of the
    prayers come from passages of the Tanakh (the Bible). In fact the Levites used to chant Psalms
    in the Beit HaMikdash. (The Book of Psalms in the Tanakh is called Tehilim in Hebrew and is
    comprised of 150 Psalms. Psalms, Tehilim, means songs or poems of praise). In earlier times
    prayer services used to have an overall structure and order, but were also improvised by
    individuals, but as our ancestors became less adept at improvising their own words around the
    themes and structure of the services, prayer books (siddurim), with fixed formulations for the
    prayers came into being. The oldest prayer books that we have are from the late 800’s to early
    900’s CE from Babylonia.
    Prayer is characterized by our ancient sages as “the worship of the heart” (avodah
    sheh’balev). Another traditional description of prayer is termed “the pouring out of the soul”
    (hishtapkhut hanefesh) i.e. expressing our innermost feelings. Prayer can express gratitude; it can
    articulate our ideals, our hopes, our deepest inner feelings, our longing for connecting to the One.
    Prayer is an art, not a science. Like any art it requires an inner cultivation that comes with an
    engagement with it. It’s a lifelong endeavor, just as it is a lifelong endeavor to try to connect to
    our own inner selves, and to attune ourselves to that part and level of our being. It can be done
    anywhere at any time with a scripted formula, as in a siddur (prayer book), or with our own
    spontaneous or improvised words. It can be done without words too as, for example, with
    melodies (niggunim) or with silence (as in meditation).

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    Though we live in a very materialistic world, I deeply believe that the need for meaning,
    and for transcendence - connection to that which is timeless - remains a real hunger in people’s
    lives.
    I will leave you with two phrases. The first is from a midrash to the book of Leviticus
    (Vayikra) which is called Vayikra Rabba. The phrase in the original Hebrew is: de’ah kanita,
    meh khasarta, de’ah khasarta, mah kanita (If you have acquired knowledge, what do you lack,
    and if you lack knowledge, what have you [truly] acquired?)
    The second phrase is from Isaiah 11:9, which defines the kind of knowledge that is most
    prized by our tradition: Ki mal’ah ha’aretz de’ah et Hashem kamayyim la’yam m’khasim (For
    the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Eternal One as the waters cover the sea).
    Shabbat Shalom, take care and stay well.

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