Bridging the Distance

By Rabbi Michael Pincus

How do we bring k’dushah, “holiness,” into our lives and into our world? The entire Book of Levitcus challenges us with this question, and it is through this lens we must view this portion. As we learned above, this question is not reserved for our leaders, but rather it is a challenge directed to each of us.

The sacrificial system of yesterday is not the only set of rituals that today have lost their sacred meanings. While we yearn for holiness in our lives many of us struggle to find it.

Maimonides suggests that perhaps these primitive rituals reflected the time in which they were given. In other words, the Torah offers these animal and meal offerings to humanity as an intermediary step between the physical world of idolatry that our ancestors came from and the world of ideas where our tradition sought to arrive.

We live in a world that is increasingly less physical and more virtual. (For example, our ideas, once written with paper and ink, are now read from dots that appear on a screen.) It is an era in which what is holy seems less and less real.

The korbanot, “sacrifices,” that make up the Torah’s sacrificial system perhaps gave our ancestors the opportunity to feel to close to the Divine. And for those who had committed a chet, a “sin,” the sacrifice may have offered a process to help them find their way back to feeling closer to God again. The root of the word korban means “to get close”; the word chet is related to a term that means “to miss the mark,” as an archer might miss a bull’s-eye. By extension, it can refer to anything that distances one from others, from God, and from one’s “true” self. Today, there are lots of distractions that can create distance, but do we have real ways that enable us to get closer?

This week’s Torah portion reflects the distance we have traveled from a physical way of dealing with our failings to a more abstract process. As we reread the text, may it guide us to find meaningful ways in our lives to express ourselves and draw closer to the holiness we seek in our lives.

Pincus, Michael. "Davar Acher: Bridging the Distance." Ten Minutes of Torah, ReformJudaism.org. (Viewed on March 8, 2014). http://www.reformjudaism.org/learning/torah-study/vayikra/looking-through-smoke-transparent-message

Dvar Tzedek

By Mollie Andron

She gently took my hand off of her back, looked me in the eye, and said: “Sarah, these laws are like sealed books to us: we comprehend neither their basic meaning nor the purport of their rules and regulations.” We must honor what is being asked of us. Today you must bring your offering of flour to the priest who will make expiation for you; even if your act was beshogeg (accidental).”

This was hardly the answer that I was seeking. While my mother was a person of complete faith who accepted the laws from Mt. Sinai without hesitations or questions, my sisters and I struggled. “Ema,” we would say, “we are from a different generation. We didn’t experience the miracles that happened when you left Egypt or the revelation at Sinai. We have only your words, but hearing about something is radically different than seeing it with your own eyes. You always taught us that it wasn’t until Moses saw the golden calf with his own eyes that he broke the tablets.”

She saw the truth in our argument, but she also fully believed in her relationship with the Divine. She trusted God even if God’s actions were beyond her human understanding. “Sacrifices,” she said, “are not only about atoning for a wrongful act; they are also a way to draw closer to God. “Remember,” she said, “even the word for sacrifice—korban—comes from the root karov—closeness. Sacrifices are a privilege, a way of communicating with God.”

“But I didn’t even do it on purpose,” I said. “It was beshogeg,” I muttered under my breath. I sat in the kitchen alone fixated on the laws of shogeg—accidental sins. “If a soul shall sin inadvertently against any of the commandments of the Lord concerning things that ought not to be done, and shall do any of them…”

After repeating the words to myself again and again, I suddenly noticed something strange in the language of the commandment. Why does God use the language of “soul—nefesh”? Why not “person—adam”? My accidental sin was a physical action, committed by my body, not my soul. So why then is God talking about souls? I always thought of my body and soul as two separate and opposite entities, but God seems to be suggesting that my soul and my body are one, and that human actions, which come from thoughts, reside in the soul. According to that logic, even if I sinned accidentally with my body, it came from my thoughts. That idea made me quiver. How could I have thoughts that I didn’t even know about?

I grew more and more upset and confused by the sacrificial system. Even if I agreed that I was responsible for my subconscious thoughts, why did I need to perform a physical ritual to atone for them? And also, how could the system guarantee that a physical act will cause an internal change? What about people who sacrifice just because they are told to do so? Or those who simply offer their sacrifice without actually changing their behavior or attitude?

Without noticing what I was doing, I snatched a jar from the kitchen counter and flung it across the floor. The jar immediately shattered into several tiny pieces and flour scattered across the floor. In disbelief, I looked down at my hands. How had I once again managed to do something that I hadn’t intended?

On one of my fingers a cut from the broken glass began to gently bleed. A few droplets of blood dripped into the flour. Looking at it, I realized that this flour on the ground—roughly a tefach—was the flour that had been intended for my sacrifice. I started to cry. There was none left for my offering. I had missed my chance.

As my tears touched the flour, they slowly started turning it into dough. I sat there cupping the dough in my hands and began to knead it, pressing and sculpting it with all of my strength. In those brief meditative moments, gazing down at the fragmented jar, I recognized the power of a physical action accompanying a verbal intention. This flour scattered across the floor was my offering, I realized, although it didn’t occur in the place that it was supposed to, or with a witness nearby. But it had the same intended effect: I experienced the power of a physical action causing an emotional transformation.

***

Author’s note: As I grappled with the notion of a shogeg, described in Parashat Vayikra, I was struck by two elements: the relationship between our subconscious thoughts and our actions, and the value of a physical atonement ritual. I wrote this story in order to explore the relationship between these two ideas. Drawing from the ideas of several commentators, I came to appreciate the significance of a system that asserts that we must be held responsible for our actions, even those actions that are motivated by thoughts that are somewhat hidden.

The prescription to engage in the physical act of sacrifice was about helping people pay attention. It was a way of reminding people of the danger that can come from not being mindful of one’s behaviors. Today, we engage in many acts that can unintentionally result in negative impacts on people around the world. We may purchase clothes that were produced by workers whose rights are violated or consume food from other countries that struggle to feed their own populations. In the absence of a sacrificial system, Parashat Vayikra reminds us to consider what physical actions we can take to help us be mindful of our thoughts, actions and their impact. By paying closer attention, we can simultaneously be drawn closer to ourselves and to one another.

Andron, Mollie. "Dvar Tzedek 5774 Vayikra." American Jewish World Service. (Viewed on March 8, 2014). http://ajws.org/what_we_do/education/publications/dvar_tzedek/5774/vayikra.html?autologin=true&utm_source=education&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20140303-E-DT