Dr. Thomas Dooley
The Book of Leviticus
is all about sacrifices. Parshat Vayikra
opens with instructions concerning the olah,
the only sacrificial offering that is not eaten by either priest or Israelite,
but rather is burned entirely (with the exception of the skin) on the altar. It
is dedicated in its entirety to God’s “pleasure” and “benefit.”
If your
offering is a burnt offering from the herd, you shall make your offering a male
without blemish. You shall bring it to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, for
acceptance in your behalf before Adonai. You shall lay a hand upon the head of
the burnt offering, that it may be acceptable in your behalf, in expiation for
you. The bull shall be slaughtered before Adonai, and Aaron’s sons, the
priests, shall offer the blood, dashing the blood against all sides of the
altar, which is at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. (Leviticus 1:3-5)
Not only is the olah
the first offering discussed in Sefer Vayikra
(the Book of Leviticus), but it is also
the first offered on occasions when a variety of sacrifices are being offered
at the same time. A commentary in The
Torah: A Women’s Commentary, which addresses the relationship of the person
who brings the sacrifice to God who receives it, got me thinking about the olah in connection with personal
relationships, as well as our relationships with God. Here’s the commentary:
“The fact
that the burnt offering usually appears first in a series of sacrifices
suggests that its purpose may be to open
up communication with the Divine; if so, then that goal would be
accomplished by manifesting generosity
— giving part of one’s wealth to God.” (p. 572)
How do we open up communication — initiate meaningful
relationship — with God and with other people? Another way to ask the question,
using Martin Buber’s idiom, is: How do we move beyond an I-It relationship, and
enter into an I-Thou relationship?
Beginning with our relationships with other people: People
continually parade through our lives (as we do through the lives of others), but
every once in a while, someone enters our lives who is different — someone to
whom we are drawn to create an opening that turns our I-It encounters into
I-Thou encounters. We want to go past conversations about politics, philosophy,
children, culture, and all the other things that we are delighted to discuss.
We want to touch souls.
Does that require a sacrifice? I think it does. To reach another’s
soul, we have to open ours. We bring our olah
to the altar. Our olah takes the
form of entrusting this person with something that makes us feel vulnerable,
something deeply personal and meaningful, and knowing that the outcome of that
trust is that we are going to be changed. From the other side, when someone
reaches out to us to create such an opening and we want to accept their olah, we must suspend judgment, which is
to say, sacrifice the stereotypes and pre-conceived notions we harbor to make
ourselves feel safe, and be open. From this side, as well, we will be changed.
This opening is, as the passage from A Women’s Commentary suggests, a generous gift. It is the gift of
the self. What is more, Torah requires the olah
to be tamim — pure and without
blemish. How does this translate into our efforts to open up deep, meaningful,
and transformative communication with another person? Certainly we are not
without blemish (no person is) but our sacrifice — our gift of self — can be tamim. When we offer our true selves,
unvarnished and detached from the projection of an image of how we would like
others to see us, we are offering an olah
that is tamim.
The sacrificial cult is long gone and has been replaced by
prayer. In fact, shacharit and minchah, the morning, and afternoon
services, are direct replacements for the morning tamid and afternoon minchah
offerings. The word for prayer in Hebrew, l’hitpalel,
is a reflexive term meaning “to judge or examine oneself.” This suggests that
to a very great degree, praying is introspective. (It’s difficult to square
this with the high degree of petitionary prayer found in the siddur, but that’s
a subject for a separate discussion.) Can prayer that is l’hitpalel — introspective self-examination — provide a way to “[open]
up communication with the Divine”? The genuine spiritual connection requires
sacrifice: it requires us to look deep within and reveal to God-within, our
whole and true selves. Introspection of this sort is difficult and makes us
feel vulnerable. When it is honest, it is tamim.
If the divine in us can accept our sacrifice — that is to say, if we can accept
ourselves with love and with gentleness, we will emerge changed, transformed.
Charles Du Bos
The French essayist Charles Du Bos (1882-1939) wrote in his
book Approximations (published 1922):
"...premier tressaillement vital; surtout il s'agit à
tout moment de sacrifier ce que nous sommes à ce que nous pouvons
devenir." "The important thing is this: to
be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become."
A worthy exchange indeed!
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