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The logic of sacrifice: Parashat Tzav (Leviticus 6:1-8:36)

Have you ever noticed that at the center of the Torah is a cookbook?
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March 25, 2016

Have you ever noticed that at the center of the Torah is a cookbook? 

Until we get to the Book of Leviticus, we read the epic story of the Jewish people. From creation to liberation to covenant, we follow the rise of a family that became a nation. Really great stuff. 

And suddenly, when we scroll down (yes, I know the pun), we find recipes for the various types of sacrifices offered in the ancient Tabernacle. Leviticus teaches us which parts of the animal to cook on the altar for which type of offering and how to share some of the cooked meat with the priests. 

We are told how much flour and oil to use. We are told what clothes to wear in the holy kitchen of the Tabernacle. In the center of our most epic story right at the foot of Mount Sinai, the Book of Leviticus is a manual for sacred cooking, bringing a whole new dimension to the old adage, “They tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat.” 

These sacrifices, the sacred recipes, which are found mainly in our Torah portion Tzav, are not just an ingredient list for a Sunday barbecue, however. They are the Torah’s way of teaching us about how to encounter God through prayer. 

Many of us modern Jews have a really hard time connecting to prayer as it is. Services tend to be long and lack a certain sense of spiritual drama. Many of us don’t know Hebrew, and even for those who do, it remains arcane and mystifying. So we try to find meaning in one another through social gatherings and events that mark the passage of time. 

But there is more to prayer than friendship, more inside of us than the celebration of ourselves. Here is where the logic of sacrifice truly matters, and why Leviticus is so important to the Torah and to us. 

In our common culture, the idea of sacrifice means giving up something important. The soldier who jumps on a grenade and gives up his life to save others is rightly lauded for his courage and conviction. We call his valor a sacrifice for his country. 

The Torah has a different but related understanding of sacrifice. Hebrew University professor Moshe Halbertal teaches that the Torah’s notion of sacrifice is not a giving up, but a giving to. Leviticus, our holy cookbook, is not about giving up something of ourselves in order to be Jewish or to get right with the universe. It’s about bringing a gift to God because there is something in our souls that feels the need to participate in something self-transcendent and to draw close to the primordial rhythm of the world. 

There are times when each of us makes a mistake in our relationships or business dealings, when we stray from being the person we always thought we were. We all experience that time when the world feels a little different, when it vibrates on a different level. That feeling of not being at home in our own skin calls for a response. In Parashat Tzav, those feelings are harmonized through the intimacy of giving the gift of sacrifice. 

The Book of Leviticus teaches that when you come to pray, to give the gift of sacrifice, you are not alone in your agony. You are not alone in your feelings of guilt. You are not alone when you are sinful. There is a partner to receive your gift. There is a place where you can go to get back into the spiritual rhythm. There is a path to drawing close to the Transcendent through the act of offering. The logic of sacrifice tells us that prayer actually matters, not because we can magically change our situation, but because we can connect to the world by becoming holier, better people. 

What if we were to construe our lives as an offering? Instead of organizing our lives around what we can get out of it, we can ask ourselves what we can give back. Instead of focusing only on what we need, we can focus on the needs of others. Instead of thinking of ourselves as receivers, thinking of ourselves as givers. Instead of celebrating our own achievements, we can lift up the lives of others. 

That’s the logic of sacrifice. We give up nothing in order to become holy, but when we give to something greater, we can connect with God, to be holier, and transcend the self and find a way back to goodness again. 

There is great spiritual energy and strength found in Leviticus. It is not merely a collection of arcane rituals. It is a manual of human connection at the moments we need it most. This section of the Torah ends by summarizing the lists of sacrifices. “This is the Teaching [literally “Torah”] of the transcendent offering, the meal offering, the sin offering, the guilt offering, the ordination offering, and the well-being offering” (Leviticus 7:37). 

I like to think of it this way: “This is the Torah that helps us transcend, sustains us, expiates our misgivings, draws us out of depression, charges us with purpose and focuses our lives on giving rather than taking.” It is not just a cookbook for the priestly cult; it’s a recipe for a flourishing life.


Rabbi Noah Farkas is a clergy member at Valley Beth Shalom in Encino, founder of Netiya and the author of “The Social Action Manual: Six Steps to Repairing the World” (Behrman House).

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