Sacrifices and Prayers

This week we begin the Book of Leviticus.  Its chapters are filled with practices we no longer observe, in particular sacrifices.  In ancient times we did not pray as we do today.  Instead, we sacrificed animals and presented meal offerings.  The Torah states, “The bull shall be slaughtered before God; and Aaron’s sons, the priests, shall offer the blood, dashing the blood against all sides of the altar that is at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting.” (Leviticus 1). It is hard to connect to these passages and their blood. 

When Jerusalem’s Temple was destroyed, and the place where we performed these sacrifices no longer existed, the rabbis urged us to offer sacrifices of the heart, to offer prayers.  Where the Torah mandated sacrifices, the rabbis instituted prayer services.  Prayer became the legal substitute for sacrifice.  They continued to hope that one day the Temple will be rebuilt and the sacrificial system restored.

The tradition offers this prayer, “Find favor, Adonai our God, in your people Israel and in their prayers.  And return the sacrifice to the Holy of Holies.  In favor accept the fire-offerings of Israel and their prayers in love.  And may the service of Israel your people always be favorable.  May our eyes behold your return to Zion in mercy.  Blessed are You, Adonai, who restores God’s divine presence to Zion.”

To be candid, this is not my prayer.  In fact, our Reform prayerbook eliminates the hope to restore the sacrifices of old while clinging to the desire to return to Zion.  As I often joke to our b’nai mitzvah students who are challenged by such Torah portions, “I am really glad my job does not involve slaughtering animals and sprinkling their blood all over the bima.”  I hold out no hope that these sacrifices will be restored.

And so, what are we to make of these portions?  Do we, along with Moses Maimoindes, view sacrifices as a necessary first stage in the evolution of prayer?  At first, the Jewish people could not begin with the abstract idea of prayers of the heart.  They began with the concrete as a young child does. 

Still, these ancient sacrifices offered something that the abstract cannot.  One can hold them in one’s hands.  The person making the offering had to select the choicest of animals.  It must be without blemish.  That requires careful and thoughtful examination.  One could not approach the sacrifice with nonchalance. 

During prayer services our minds can wander.  They can challenge our attention span.  We prefer some prayers over others.  Some songs speak to us more than others.  Sometimes, we can find ourselves on a different page than what the cantor is singing, especially if I forget to announce the page number.  The concrete sacrifices seem more tangible than our abstract prayers.  They appear easier to grasp.

The Hebrew word for sacrifice is korban.  It derives from the word meaning to draw near.  The essence of the korban offering is that one must give up something precious in order to draw near to God.  We make an individual sacrifice in order to get close to something even greater. We give up something we love to get closer to something even better. 

That of course is still the meaning of the word sacrifice.  I am wondering what we must give up so that our prayers can be even more meaningful.  Perhaps it is this.  We must sacrifice our individual desires and needs in order to enter the communal prayer experience. 

Everything about our prayers is about the collective. 

We celebrate together.  We mourn together.  We pray for the sick together.  We do not speak about individual needs, but instead about what we need.  It is about our hope.

We must sacrifice the “I” if but momentarily when entering prayer.  At least for one brief hour every week this is what we must let go of.  We must put aside the thoughts about what I want to do or even what my family needs and think only of the community at large.  Only then can we draw near to something even greater. 

The “I” gets plenty of time in our world.  The “we” deserves far more.