It is often said that the laws of ritual sacrifice that dominate the early chapters of the book of Leviticus (or VaYikra in Hebrew), are among the most difficult to relate to in our day. That is largely because of our discomfort with the idea of animal sacrifice (even though not all sacrifices are of animals).
If we ignore for the moment the issue of what is to be sacrificed and focus instead on the questions of why sacrifices are required; how they are to be made; and, what they accomplish; some of the aversion might be avoided.
It is important to distinguish between the issues that require sacrifice and those that do not. The commentary to the Etz Chayim Chumash states the case clearly:
“The laws of the Torah did not permit Israelites to atone for intentional or premeditated offenses by bringing a sacrifice. There was no ritual remedy for such violations. In such instances the law dealt directly with the offender, imposing punishments and acting to prevent recurrences. Gaining atonement through ritual sacrifice was restricted to situations in which a reasonable doubt existed about the willfulness of the offense.”
The first category of offense this portion of our text discusses is the “unwitting” one; a transgression of a commandment by mistake: bish’gaga.
The sacrifice to be offered varies depending on the offender. The penalty to be brought by a priest is different from that required of an individual, which is different from that required if the transgression involved the whole community.
I considered the issue of transgression, atonement and sacrifice as I sat in my car last week by the side of a busy roadway near my home. I had been pulled over by a policeman and asked for my license, registration and proof of insurance.
I am not a car person. I’ve been leasing my cars from the same dealer for 25 years and when a lease term is up I sometimes fail to return the car on time, just continuing to pay the monthly bill until something spurs me to action. The downside to that is that the leasing company doesn’t always send me registration renewal paperwork.
My registration, as it turns out, had expired at the end of February. It was now March and I was driving an unregistered vehicle. (Just for the record, that was my only violation!)
But I had indeed committed an unwitting, victimless, civil offense for which both a penalty and a process for paying that penalty were prescribed in laws of the State of New Jersey.
The penalty of $54 was payable in money; not in the form of an animal or bird or foodstuff. But we know that when some offerings were required to be brought to the Temple from far away they could be converted to money, which was more easily transported. How different was my $54 fine from a sacrifice?
I learned that I could pay my fine (or offer my sacrifice) online, but that I first needed a PIN number for which I had to call the Department of Motor Vehicles and demonstrate that I qualified to complete the transaction online.
I called the DMV and, after being on hold for 20 minutes, I spoke to a person who, after some questioning and checking of records, gave me the PIN number I needed.
How different was that person, whose job was to make sure that the proper procedures were followed in payment of the proper fine, than the priest whose job was to confirm the appropriateness of the offerings being brought for sacrifice and then conducting the ritual properly?
The DMV clerk was, arguably, performing the same kind of services as the priest. A functionary, not a judge.
And, importantly, once I paid my fine and received my registration, my offense was “forgiven”. No further guilt attaches to my having operated an unregistered vehicle for a couple of weeks. The bit of embarrassment (guilt or shame) that I felt at having been found to have transgressed, was gone.
The offense was clear, the penalty prescribed, the procedure for atonement straightforward and the forgiveness automatically granted upon completing the steps required.
What’s to complain about? It’s a perfectly fair and reasonable system.
Let’s get past the “ick” factor and recognize the sacrificial system for the blessing that it was and the genius that it represented in its time and place.