Gateways to God
Last week’s Torah portion, Vayikra (Lev. 1:1-5:26), begins the record of the Priestly vocation in ancient Israelite religion. Most scholars agree that the entirety of Leviticus was written well after any stage of roving worship, and that the language of Leviticus that prescribes cultic activity based around the mishkan, the travelling abode of God, was written down by the priesthood during the period of the cult being centered in Jerusalem.
This Torah portion recounts the most common of ritual sacrifices of the time. Each sacrifice either requires a domesticated animal or domesticated crops. The individual wishing to make this offering was required to bring it to the altar found in front of the mishkan, where he would have to lay his hands on the head of the sacrifice, and then slaughter the sacrifice for the priests. Then, depending upon the specific sacrifice, the priests would take the blood, either spread it on the altar or scatter it around the altar, and remove specific fat and organs from the sacrifice. If it is an offering of grain, it is prepared as a specific unleavened bread product. The sacrifice is then burnt, its smoke rising as a pleasing odor to God.
It’s a complex, detailed, and messy business. At the time, these rituals were the gateway between God and the people of Israel. But the book of Leviticus stands on its own today, its Priestly writers lost in the mist of history. We are left to decode it, and to understand its underlying values, the spirit it is holding within.
Lurianic Kabbalah tells us that our world is full of empty shells, called klipot, waiting to be opened to reveal their internal holy spark. The shells act as a barrier between humanity and the Divine. To call the rites of Leviticus klipot is surely heresy in some circles, but as we live in a world without a mishkan and without a strong connection to the ritual praxis of the Levites, we are entirely disconnected from spiritual content of these sacrifices. A shell certainly exists around them, especially if we take seriously the reality implicit to the rituals of their being a gateway between humanity and God. With the destruction of the Temples, this gateway was closed.
Rabbinic Judaism attempted to use prayer in place of sacrifice, creating an analogous structure in the prayer service to that of the sacrifice service. Part of the traditional Jewish prayer service is a recounting of portions of Leviticus, followed by a prayer that God will accept the recounting as if it were an actual sacrifice. The early Rabbis’ splitting and reinterpreting of the sacrificial cult via language is a brilliant method of dealing with the very clear problem of how to reopen this gateway to God. Words, in that time, were seen as miraculously powerful. Magic still existed in the minds of the public, and words were able to change and shape reality in incredible ways.
Unfortunately for most today, though, to enter into the real heart of the Jewish prayer structure is requires a great deal of study, a relatively high level of comfort with Hebrew, and an understanding of the meaning of the structure in relation to the Jewish understanding of connection to God. Many find prayer services meaningful without really understanding the background, but my experience has shown me that just as many, if not more, do not.
As Max Weber said, we have disenchanted our reality through industrialization, commodification, and materialization. Words have become nearly worthless. Any shmo such as myself can have a blog where his or her words are posted up for anyone in the world to read. In many ways, silence, the lack of language, has become far holier. In fact, to go back to the original topic, the sacrificial rituals according to Leviticus were completely silent, a far cry from the prayer services we attend today as Jews.
The first parashah of Leviticus is a statement of the general tools of the priesthood; an introduction to the basic procedures that will be expounded upon and specified in greater detail as they become more clearly elucidated. The general outline of sacrifice offered in this parashah gives me my tools to use to interpret it: The main players are the Priesthood, the objects of sacrifice, the methods of sacrifice, and the purpose of sacrifice. Please allow this d’var torah to be the same. As we move forward into further portions, I will attempt to more greatly elucidate our situation today in relation to our own gateways to God, be it through prayer, silence, or attempting to peel away the klipot, the shells, surrounding these rituals to reveal the divine spark within.
