Shabbat Table Talk
This week's teaching commentary was prepared by Victor R. Salanga, S.J., Fordham Jesuit Community, Bronx, New YorkParashat VayikraErev Shabbat, 27 March 2009
Week of 22 to 28 March 2009
Click here for Portuguese translation
Torah portion: Leviticus 1:1-5:26
Haftarah: Isaiah 43:21-28; 44:1-23
Sunday Readings, 29 March: Jeremiah 31:31-34; Hebrews 5:7-9; John 12:20-33
This week's Torah portion begins with the book of Leviticus focusing on "sacrifices." Plaut comments that Reform Judaism has given up the idea of restoring "sacrifices." The Orthodox pay allegiance to the sacrificial cult but chiefly verbal -- with vague hopes for the future. It is in Christianity, he says, that "sacrifices" have been reinterpreted and given central importance. That last statement may motivate Christians to pay attention to "sacrifices" today. (Plaut, 754-755)
Allow me to offer four points for reflection. First, about Moses in 1:1: "The Lord called (vayikra) to Moses and spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting." Rabbis note a discrepancy: whereas in Exodus 24:18 Moses at Sinai is admitted into the divine cloud, in this text he is excluded from the Tent. Why is this so? Because at Sinai God gave Moses permission! While at the Tent? The following midrash says. "Moses standing before the Tent explains: ‘To Mount Sinai, whose superiority was only temporary, and whose holiness was the holiness of three days, I could not ascend until the Word was spoken to me. But the superiority of this, the Tabernacle of meeting, is an eternal superiority, and its holiness is an eternal holiness. It is certainly proper that I not enter therein until I am spoken to from before the Lord.' Then did the Word of the Lord call unto Moses." (Tg. Ps.-J., Milgrom, 137) The rabbis use this story to illustrate the humility of Moses. Great as he is, Moses knows how to wait for God's call! As we begin reading this Torah portion, we stand together with Moses. With humility, we also wait on the Spirit to enlighten and help us to delve into the treasures that may be revealed to us.
Second, about burnt offerings (côlâ): The burnt offering seems to have pride of place among the sacrifices -- by virtue, it is said, of "its antiquity, popularity, versatility and frequency." A midrash offers another reason: "Why is it called côlâ? Because it is superior (celyônâ) to all sacrifices ... (because) no creature partakes of it but it all ascends (côlâ) to the Holy One who is superior (celyôn)" (Midr. Tanh. B. Zav, a in Milgrom, 146). The most probable reason according to Milgrom is not historical or ethical but banal. In naming the series of sacrifices in prescriptive texts, the côlâ is listed first. Be that as it may, there is a genuine attraction in entrusting all of one's possession (even of one's whole being) to the Almighty. The idea of whole and entire comes from another rendering of côlâ.-"whole offering," in Hebrew, kālîl. Why was kālîl replaced by côlâ? Milgrom speculates: "Perhaps originally the whole, unquartered animal was sacrificed on the altar. But after the skin was awarded to the officiating priest (7:8), the name kālîl was regarded as inaccurate and misleading, because it implied that all of it went up in smoke" (Milgrom, 173).
Mention of "smoke" brings us to our third point-- about "pleasing odor" (rêah nîhōah) in 1:9. Many commentators have suggested "appeasing, placating, soothing odor' as the better translation. Milgrom argues that "the rarity of this term in Israel's expiatory sacrifices can only signify that even if it had this meaning originally, it lost it in the cultic terminology of Priestly tradition." (Milgrom, 162). Hence what is underlined in cult and worship is the "pleasure" and "joy" of the deity in receiving a gift.
To illustrate this point, the vow formula of a Jesuit upon completion of two years of novitiate ends with these words: "Therefore I suppliantly beg your immense Goodness and Clemency, through the blood of Jesus Christ, to deign to receive this holocaust in an odor of sweetness, and just as you gave me the grace to desire and offer this, so you will also bestow abundant grace to fulfill it." The context clearly does not indicate any offense being made to God and of the corresponding need to appease and placate the deity; rather, it is the context of total giving - the holocaust, the burnt offering - offered in "an odor of sweetness," not in an odor of appeasement and placation.
The word qorbān in 1:2 "When any of you presents (yaqrîb) an offering (qorbān)..." may help us further reflect on the point above. Both yaqrîb and qorbān have the same root q-r-b, with a range of meanings like "to come close, approach"; also "to present" a tribute to a ruler. This latter meaning from the context of diplomacy may have been borrowed by the priests and applied to the divine ruler, the king of kings (Milgrom, 145). The offering, qorbān, is an offering or gift to almighty God, king of kings, to bring the human person close to God in worship.
[As an aside, qorbān rings a bell because the word is found in Mark 7:11. Jesus opposes the commandment to love one's parents with the Pharisaic interpretation that children could remove the support they owed to their parents by declaring it a qorbān, an offering dedicated to the Temple - thus removing the offering once and for all from the reach of parents (Fabry, "qorbān," TDOT, 158).]
In the New Testament, the primary analogue of a "burnt offering" given in an "odor of sweetness" is Jesus' own holocaust. This is clearly picked up in the letter to the Hebrews. One memorable text of that letter is: let us "[look] to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God" (12:2).
The fourth point deals with what Milgrom calls a leitmotif found in these texts on sacrifices. That leitmotif concerns the poor. Everyone, regardless of status or means, should be able to bring an offering acceptable to the Lord. Burnt offerings refer to the offering of animals with four legs, quadrupeds, for example, bulls, rams, sheep and goats. But it could happen that a person could not afford them, so "birds" (turtledoves or pigeons) were added to the list of burnt offerings (1:14-17). Recall the offering of Mary and Joseph! Moreover if a person could not afford birds, then the person could bring a cereal offering. This concern and compassion for the poor is reflected in the prescribed sequence of offerings found in Lev 5:6-13: flock animal, bird, and finally cereal. Everyone, especially the poor, is given the means to offer an offering, qorbān, to the Lord.
By way of summary, I made four points: 1)The Rabbis underline Moses' humility before God as he waits to be called - a very good attitude to have as we begin to read this week's Torah portion. 2) A Burnt Offering, originally called a "whole offering," has pride of place among the sacrifices - the same kind Jesus offered to the Father. 3) While it may originally have had a meaning of appeasing the deity, it took on the language of diplomacy, of gifts being presented to the king of kings in an odor of sweetness, giving pleasure to God in genuine worship. 4) Finally, everyone, especially the poor, is given the means to give a qorbān, an offering acceptable to the Lord.
For Reflection and Discussion: [1] In your life what can be the equivalent of a "burnt, whole offering," offered in an odor of sweetness to God? [2] As we offer gifts, do we detect in the different levels of our being that appeasement and placation can crowd out a genuine worship of God? [3] In what way does the haftarah on Isaiah underline the elements of a genuine worship of God?
Bibliography: Fabry, "qorbān," in TDOT (13: Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1974); Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16 (AB 3: New York, 1991); Plaut, The Torah, A Modern Commentary (New York, 1981).
