Shabbat shalom, everybody. 

I’d actually like to start out with a bit of a content notice today: this sermon will talk about blood, and sacrifice, and also about war and other widespread violence and the effects of the trauma of war and violence cause on soldiers and civilians alike. It’s going to be a bit of a heavy sermon. 

I’d also like to break with my usual practice, and let you know ahead of time what my thesis is for this sermon. I’m doing this because I’m not trying to shock anyone or give anyone emotional whiplash.

My thesis is that while we modern Jews often distance ourselves from the bloody sacrificial system described in the Torah, it is actually more similar to our modern lives than we would like to admit. Furthermore, I think we can and should learn an important lesson from this week’s Torah portion about ownership of and agency over sacrifices. My goal is for us to truly consider the violence done in our names that we support and tolerate in modern times, through the lens of biblical sacrifice. 

So, here goes.

This week, we dive into the book of Leviticus. Leviticus is challenging for many reasons, and the Torah portion we read today, parashat Vayikra, is no exception.

Parashat Vayikra is graphic, outlining in detail the specifics of various blood sacrifices God required our ancestors to offer and how they were carried out and by whom. That meant we heard about entrails and burning fat and blood being dashed on the altar and more. The words and images of the physical sacrifice are vivid-- the colors, the scents, the smells portrayed in this portion are difficult to stomach, and the death being inflicted upon animal after animal by our ancestors can feel almost impossible to identify with in a sympathetic way. 

Especially for those of us like me who are big animal lovers, this sort of parasha can hurt. Beyond the blood being spilled, we can also imagine the moral and emotional sacrifice that was required of the priests, the ones who had to do so much of the killing and blood-dashing. The priests themselves had to make immense sacrifices of the soul in order to facilitate the physical sacrifices of the animals. And that would have been an extremely difficult thing to experience on a regular basis.

I do think it is significant that in our parashah, God commands that each Israelite bringing an offering not only show up at the appropriate time with the appropriate animal, but also demonstrate ownership and intention of the slaughter that is about to happen in their name. The Torah says that after bringing a choice animal to offer at the Tent of Meeting:

וְסָמַ֣ךְ יָד֔וֹ עַ֖ל רֹ֣אשׁ הָעֹלָ֑ה וְנִרְצָ֥ה ל֖וֹ לְכַפֵּ֥ר עָלָֽיו׃

“You shall lay a hand upon the head of the animal for the offering, that it may be acceptable in your behalf, in expiation for you.”

Only after the Israelite had laid their hands on the head of the animal, and felt its warmth and pulse under their palms, only then could the animal be slaughtered by the priests-- only after the owner of the animal had understood the significance of the bloodshed about to happen.

And that’s tough to stomach for us.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this sermon, I think there is a tendency among us modern Jews to respond to the ancient practice of blood sacrifice by distancing ourselves from it.

We explain that things were different “back then”, and that societies functioned in a different way thousands of years ago than they do now. We reassure ourselves by saying that blood sacrifice was widespread in the ancient world. And we also remember that as Judaism evolved, especially after the destruction of the second Temple, our sages ultimately steered us away from killing animals and instead towards a pattern of regular prayer and ritual corresponding to the schedule of the Temple’s slaughter of animals so long ago. 

We no longer teach our children that God is commanding us, personally, to kill animals the way our ancestors were commanded. Gone is the required emotional sacrifice of the priests, and gone is the required physical sacrifice of the cows, the lambs, the doves, the many creatures named in our Torah.

However, although our tradition has indeed evolved to the point that we no longer teach that God commands us to offer blood sacrifices, it would be false to say that the sacrificial system is entirely foreign to us. Today, it’s just that other forces in our lives demand sacrifice, including blood sacrifice-- and the consequences for us, both physical and emotional, and just as real as they were for our ancestors. 

And because of this, I believe it would be beneficial for us to explore the ways in which our current lives do, in fact, mirror and parallel the sacrificial practices outlined in parashat Vayikra.

To do this, let’s first try to put ourselves in the mindset of our ancestors, thousands of years ago, in the desert-- and then compare it to ourselves, today.

Our ancestors had fled Egypt with only what they could carry, taking their livestock with them. This must have been exhilarating and terrifying. Wandering longterm in the wilderness, they relied on manna from heaven, water from divinely appearing wells, their faith in God, and in their own ingenuity and teamwork to survive. 

I imagine that such an existence would have been both a huge relief, after slavery in Egypt, and also utterly exhausting. There would have been no sense of security at all, which explains why it was so crucial for the people to have trust in God. This reminder of how insecure Bnai Yisrael must have felt helps us to also understand how they could have decided to build a Golden Calf when Moses disappeared up the mountain for 40 days. This insecurity can also illustrate for us a bit of why our ancestors were willing to go through the bloody, emotional process of animal sacrifices. 

Livestock would have been among the most prized possessions of any Israelite. Livestock were a source of renewable food, milk, leather, wool, eggs, transport, and more. Given how precious livestock would have been, God’s command that the Israelites sacrifice their animals must have deeply impacted the lives of those making the sacrifice. Imagine having only what you could carry, and yet still being willing to give up one of your most prized possessions just for the sake of God. That speaks volumes to how much the Israelites were willing to go through for safety-- and for their faith. They made immense physical and emotional sacrifices, both because they were commanded to, and because they believed in something greater than themselves.

When we compare and contrast their experience with our own, we see a multitude of differences-- but also key similarities. Yes, we now live in a world with modern conveniences, and with prayer services instead of Temple sacrifice and pilgrimage. 

But we also know what it is like to live in real fear:

-Fear of terrorism

-Fear of antisemitism

-Fear of world leaders with dangerous motives having access to nuclear weapons

-Fear of losing our civil rights

And more.

We know, like our ancestors did, what it is like to yearn for a sense of safety. And, as a society and as individuals, we are having blood spilled in the name of our security and our way of life-- soldiers, protesters, detainees, immigrants, police officers, and more. 

This means that today, we still have to ask ourselves the same difficult questions our ancestors did, questions like:

What are we willing to give up, for a world of safety?

What-- and more painfully, whom-- are we willing to sacrifice, to see the future come about that we are hoping for? 

What physical injuries-- and what moral injuries-- are we willing to suffer, or have our children suffer, in the name of something greater than ourselves?

And which causes do we feel strongly enough about to ask our fellow citizens of this country and this world to lay down their lives for?

These are not theoretical questions. Ours is a world where bombs are actively falling in the name of international security and safety and where malicious actors force civilians in the path of tanks and shells in the name of dangerous ideologies. In government rooms and bunkers, and around dinner tables, difficult conversations are happening: How many lives are we willing to sacrifice in the name of our cause? Which lives are we willing to sacrifice?

But what often goes unsaid is the other part-- What emotional sacrifice does this require of us, and what emotional sacrifice can we, and our children, bear? What moral injury is being caused to those pulling the trigger, or clicking the button, that brings death to strangers on the other side of the world, or to the person right in front of us?

Just like the priests, whose emotional sacrifice was having to take life after life of animals, how many soldiers will have to be haunted for the rest of their days because of the human lives they have had to take?

As Golda Meir famously said in regards to those who wish Israel harm, “We can forgive them for killing our children. But we cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children.”

She was alluding, of course, to the fact that the trauma of having to spill blood leaves devastating and long-lasting effects on those who have done so.

Thousands of years ago, God commanded the Israelites to dash blood on the altar. Human governments and human political philosophies and human conscience now command similar dashing of blood-- but it is not animals being killed in the name of something bigger than ourselves, but rather our fellow humans. 

The sacrifice of war and civil unrest is real. There are those in this community who have served and know the pain of violence firsthand. There are those in our community who have lost loved ones in combat.   

And this, too, is a real sacrifice, in the name of our way of life, in the name of ideals bigger than ourselves.

There is not a literal altar in this exchange, but blood is being dashed onto this Earth regardless. And like the sacrifices in our Torah portion this week, the dashed blood of soldiers and civilians in war sends a message to God, and to the world. If the smoke from sacrifices thousands of years ago reached God, so too must the smoke from a bomb, from a drone strike, or even from a single gunshoty. The question we must ask ourselves is: does our smoke also cause a re’akh nikhoakh, a pleasing smell, to God?

Now, I am not one who believes that violence is always wrong. I come from a family where relatives have served in every generation back to the war of 1812, including both of my parents, who were commissioned officers in the United States Air Force. The Jewish people also know very well that at times in our history there have risen individuals capable of horrendous evil--including Pharoah, Amalek, Hitler, and more-- who needed to be stopped, sometimes by force. This is not a sermon condemning all sacrifices, or saying that blood should never be shed in the name of a worthwhile cause.

But it is a sermon suggesting that there is less distance between our world and the sacrificial world of our ancestors than we might like to think. 

And, this sermon is also suggesting that not only is it acceptable for nations and individuals ask ourselves “when is it justified to require moral or physical sacrifice?”-- but rather, it is essential that we ask this question, and that we be cognizant of the literal sacrifices we are requiring of the most vulnerable members of our society, who in this country are disproportionately the ones sent into the line of fire.   

Regardless of how each of us may feel about the conflicts around the globe today, or the ongoing civil struggles here at home, what is consistently true is that real sacrifice is happening, right here on this world, right now. Real blood is being dashed on the altar. 

But it is also true that our tradition, and our Torah portion this week, tell us two things: first, that there are, indeed, causes that are worth making sacrifices for, and second, that we must be intentional when we decide which causes are worth sacrificing for.

Just like the Israelite in our Torah portion today, who had to put his hands directly onto the head of the unblemished animal and look into its eyes moments before it was killed, we cannot look away from what is happening in our world, and what is happening in our name. We cannot pretend that it has nothing to do with us, because it is so far away.

Though we may wish that sacrifice was a thing of the past, the reality is much murkier. 

I believe we still have what to learn from our ancestors and their personal ownership of what they were willing to go through, and give up, in the name of safety, security, and faith.

And I believe we owe it to ourselves, and to each other, to acknowledge what we are, and what we aren’t, willing to sacrifice, in the name of the same things.

Shabbat shalom.