Vayikra: Bridging the Distance

Have you ever experienced the let down of not being asked to attend an event? Yes, your schedule was full and you couldn’t go anyway, but you still thought it would have been nice just to be asked. It was the gesture, the thoughtfulness, the feeling of being included that counted most of all.

Or perhaps someone special to you forgot your birthday. Now, as a grown adult, it’s not really quite the same as the birthday let down of a child, but it’s a let down nonetheless, especially if the person who forgot never remembers on their own and you are the one who has to bring it up. Again, it’s not the present that was missing, but the presence of mind for a day important to you to have had some sort of meaning for someone you hold dear.

Or even the anniversary of the death of a family member. Maybe you’ve been careful not to forget those of your friend’s and to make a special effort to reach out on those days to let someone you care about know they are in your thoughts and you’re here for them. But they were so caught up in their busy life that a day which brings you a struggle didn’t get so much as a nod until you brought it up a few days later. You thought your friendship was deeper than that.

Gestures. Thoughtfulness. Being included. These bring much depth of meaning to our daily lives, even more so when we drown in a sea of FaceBook “likes.” What does a “like” on FaceBook mean, really? It’s a momentary click on a computer screen, and nothing more. It requires neither an investment of time nor effort, really. A momentary click.

And who are those hundreds of FaceBook “friends”? Will they be there for you when you break your leg and need help getting to the store? When your car dies and leaves you stranded on the road in the middle of the night? Will they shovel your driveway because you can’t manage it?

So now we’re getting to the meat of the matter… gestures, thoughtfulness, being included, presence, and actions which show us in no uncertain way that there is a deep and meaningful connection between you and another.

Last month when we met, we had just been instructed in the beginning notes of building the mishkan. Now the mishkan has been completed, and we are being instructed on the various sacrifices which the Jews were either required or voluntarily brought to the Tabernacle.

Our first challenge with Vayikra is that the English word we use –sacrifice– has all the wrong connotations. When you hear the word sacrifice, what comes to your mind first? Maybe we think of giving something up. “Your father lost his job, so this summer everyone will have to sacrifice until he can find a new job.” And then there’s the idea that if I give up something I want, then I'm being oh so virtuous, right?

Or maybe it’s that old idea of the desperate bargain: “G!d, if You'll just get me that promotion, or make her love me, or heal my mother, I’ll take out the trash  without being asked and give up computer games for six weeks. Or, “I’ll stop spreading gossip if you keep that bad photo of me drunk last night from being spread all over FaceBook…”

That’s not the kind of sacrifice we’re talking about here in Vayikra. The Hebrew term is korban, which comes from the root meaning “to draw near.”  Notice that it doesn't even mean to kill something and offer it up; it means “to draw near.” Think about that. Who already knew that?

In those times, sacrificial offerings were the means by which ancient peoples drew near to their gods. The offerings could be grain, frankincense, even animals. It was the only vehicle they knew at that time wherein they could approach the Infinite.

That’s what a korban was: a way of drawing closer. Our ancestors believed that everything in creation already belongs to the One Who created it in the first place. Given that everything we own and everything we don’t own already belongs to the Holy One, what can we possibly offer such that the act itself of offering will draw us closer to the Holy?

The korbanot, then, were the gestures, the thoughtfulness, the presence, the actions which show in no uncertain way that there is a deep and meaningful connection between the individual and the Holy.

Sacrifice-as-worship is wildly strange and foreign to us today, and even repulsive. Burnt offerings and offerings of meal; offerings of well-being, and expiation offerings to atone for sins... this stuff seems way abnormal and outside the realm of our everyday experience and knowledge now. It feels primitive and uncultured, and even inhumane.

In this week’s portion there is an instruction that when a person unwittingly incurs guilt with regard to any of the mitzvot, that person shall bring such-and-such an offering to be slaughtered, and the fat and blood shall be burned. Could this be further from our understanding of t’shuvah as a personal and individual process of soul-searching and turning-towards-the Holy? Avodah, service to G!d, was once physical, concrete, and literally visceral.

It’s easy to feel a cognitive dissonance between what we read here, and the form of worship we now take for granted. And Torah here in Vayikra doesn't even give a nod to that at all.

Wouldn’t we love to read in our text that “this is how you will draw near to Me now, for the time being; later on, when humanity is maybe a little bit more evolved, you’ll find other ways of approaching My presence, offering thanks, and seeking atonement for your misdeeds.”

Wouldn’t it be nice if G!d had given us a heads up, that someday our paradigm for relationship with the Holy would change, moving away from having to take the life of an animal? That we would become capable of finding connection to the Holy through words and music and prayers and the fire of our hearts, instead of blood and bones and sinew and salt and the fire of an altar?

I think the main messages of Vayikra are these:

First, the ancients sensed that there was a literal physical connection between themselves and the Holy. The used physical objects and animals to sense that connection. This means, other people in our lives are important when it comes to drawing near to G!d. The others in our lives are a very real way G!d uses to keep us drawing near.

For example, in my spousal relationship, from time to time, we have a little snit or a disagreement. In our early times together, I often wanted to just leave. I didn’t want to work through it; I most certainly did not want to face anything about myself that I might need to work on. But that relationship is a very beautiful part of my life that has taught me so much, made me a much better woman than I would’ve been, and changed me and made me look at myself in ways I never would have without it.

Our very real physical connections, and I’m not talking about sex here, push us and nudge us towards drawing near to the Holy. Let’s not forget that important part of the equation of deeper, meaningful relationships: they push us and nudge us to draw closer to the Holy.

Second, Vayikra asks us how we develop that sense of connection to the Holy? Last time I looked, G!d did not yet have a FaceBook page, so my gestures have to be something more than clicking a “like” button. What will my gestures be?

Third, the priests acted as the receiver of the offerings that were sacrificed to G!d. That was their avodah, their service. Once, the priests made offerings on our behalf. Today, what do we offer? We are asked to offer avodah she’ba’lev, the service which is within and upon our hearts. We wish to draw near, and to draw near, we must make the time and the effort, the kevah and the kavannah, the korbanot of our hearts and souls, the gestures, the thoughtfulness, the presence, the actions which show in no uncertain way that there is a deep and meaningful connection between me and the Holy.

This is, today, how we draw near.

What meaningful acts and gestures help you bridge the distance between you and the Holy today?