Vayikra
Parashat Vayikra is the first portion of the book of Vayikra/Leviticus. It begins with God instructing Moses to describe 5 types of sacrifices to the Israelites. The text describes the procedures for the people and the priests to follow and the part of the sacrifice which is to go to Aaron and his sons.
Vayikra – Paul Freedman
Paul Freedman is the Rabbi of Radlett and Bushey Reform Synagogue.
Five years ago I took a spring holiday camping and walking in the Lake District. The countryside was as stunning as ever but it was also, I honestly hope, the closest I will come to experiencing the outward form of Temple worship and the animal sacrifices we read about in Vayikra. The outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease at the time meant that as we walked through the countryside we encountered strategically placed containers of disinfectant in which to stand in order to decrease the risk of spreading the disease. More memorable even than the experience of standing in a tub of disinfectant halfway up a Cumbrian hill were the piles of burning animal carcases dotted around the area that you could see - and smell if the wind blew the wrong way. Reading the opening chapters of Leviticus with its detailed instructions for animal sacrifices has never been the same for me since.
It's those detailed descriptions, the blood and guts and the "pleasing odour" that can make Vayikra tough work for a modern reader. It's enough to turn a meat-eater vegetarian - or at the very least a little queasy. But in our revulsion at the detail, it is easy to forget what this is all about. The English term 'sacrifice' is misleading; the Hebrew 'korban' reminds us that the process is one that we still share, across the centuries and millennia, of trying to draw close to God. (The word 'korban' and the associated verb forms 'yakriv' and 'takrivu' in the opening verses of the portion come from the Hebrew root k-r-b to do with becoming near).
The methods may have changed, perhaps even our conception or understanding of God may have changed, but the need to approach The Unreachable remains the same. Whether we do so in the kindness and holiness of our actions towards each other, in prayer and through our present forms of liturgy, or in moments of contemplation as we walk in the Cumbrian countryside, the fact is it is not just the form of our approach (our 'korban') that has changed, but also our limited conception of that Unknowable One we seek to approach. In the haftarah (reading from Prophets) for this week, Isaiah addresses the community in Babylonian exile who are no longer able to perform the Temple rituals, affirming that God does not need animal sacrifices. Monotheism and accordingly moral behaviour will be sufficient. "Do not be afraid; do not tremble," Isaiah has God reassuring the Israelites, "You are My witnesses." [Isaiah 44:8] Similarly, "As you are My witnesses, says the Eternal, I am God." [Isaiah 43:12]
Midrashim (traditional rabbinic narratives) on this verse offer the possibility that in our efforts to approach God, we in turn bring God near, even that we – as it were – bring God into being. Searching for God, or through our own conduct bringing holiness into the world, is today's korban.
When you are My witnesses, I am God. When you are not My witnesses, I am [as it were] not God. [Sifrei Deuteronomy 346; Midrash Tehillim 123:2; Pesikta deRav Kahana 12:6].
Rosh Chodesh Nissan: My Favourite Jewish Text
Yisrael Medad, who resides in Shiloh in Samaria, is Director of Information Resources at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem. He formerly headed Israel's Media Watch and served as Parliamentary Aide to Members of Knesset.
Rabbi Yehoshua said (Rosh Hashana 10b): "In Nissan, our forefathers were redeemed; in Nissan will occur the future redemption".
On the eve of Pesach 1948, Uri Tzvi Greenberg published a four-part poem in the Ha'Aretz newspaper special holiday literary section entitled "The Grave in the Forest", later incorporated in his classic Holocaust themed volume Rechovot Hanahar. It tells the tale of a fictional vengeance by a son upon the murderer of his father in the Ukrainian forests, one Ivan, son of Stefan Godpodar.
The second section, "Passover in the Forrest", opens with some of the most musical, if chilling, lines in Hebrew poetry as Ivan the Goy prances about, chanting:
"Tam–Tam - - - Tam Tam, Glin-Glan and Bam-Bam
It's our holiday, a festival; there are no more Jews here
Not here and not there - - - Glin-Glan, Bim-Bam
- - - - -
We have killed them all, into the pit we pressed them
- - - - -
A night without any Jews in the world!
A pleasure, divinely mighty! Joy in our hearts.
And grazing grass grew up there
And the thick snow came down - - and all.
And no blood redeemer has remained to come after them."
Two years ago, my son and I, he just after army service, joined my wife's high school class on a trip to Poland. We were in Warsaw, in Chelmno, in Treblinka, Maidanek and in Auschwitz. We travelled out to Sobibor where we reburied bone remains that had resurfaced.
But we were also at Lishansk to drink a l'chaim at Elimelech's grave and at Lanzcut where we were told humorous stories of Naftali Tzvi, the Ropshitzer, at his burial site. And we spent an afternoon and evening wandering through Piaseczna where, until World War I, Kalonimus Kalmish Shapira, the Esh Kodesh, had a home and to where he retreated for the High Holiday seasons.
Rabbi Yehoshua said (Babylonian Talmud, Rosh Hashana 10b): "In Nissan, our forefathers were redeemed; in Nissan will occur the future redemption". That year that we were in Poland, I could see on the boys' faces and in their manner that a minor redemption of a sort had taken place. Rosh Chodesh Nissan we spent on Polish soil and while we witnessed the destruction of the past, we were able to celebrate the heritage of that past as it was being fulfilled in the future.
The visits to Poland, land of Jewish death and disappearance, are no easy thing. But they do offer a promise of renewed Judaism and Jewish life. The month of Nissan symbolizes the possibility of a spiritual and physical reconstitution, of hope and improvement.
Let us then welcome the new and renewing month of Nissan with the knowledge that personal and national redemption is attainable.