Sacrifice and Innocence

Inherent in traditional Jewish thought is a longing for the Holy Temple. Many Jews long for the days when columns of smoke rose from the flames of the altar as devout worshipers brought their sacrifices to the priests.

Despite the destruction of the Temple and the cessation of animal sacrifice, thousands of pages have been written exploring and explaining the meaning of the sacrifices. On the simplest level, the Hebrew term for sacrifices is korbanot…the root of which, “k-r-v,” is also the root of the word “close.” The sacrifices in the Temple were meant to help the Jewish people draw close to God.

Wait…what? Let’s be honest, most Jews of our era find the idea of animal sacrifice uncomfortable and strange. Killing an animal to draw close to God? But, we live in an age when a person must struggle in order to even conceive of the spiritual realm, let alone to begin to understand it. We are rational and scientific … and, in many ways, we have lost our innocence.

In fact, Rav Assi, one of the great Talmudic sages, notes in Leviticus Rabbah 7:3, that children should first be taught the Book of Leviticus (Vayikra – the third book of the Pentateuch) rather than Genesis (Bereshit – the first book of the Pentateuch). He reasoned that the purity and innocence of childhood allowed children to have an easier time understanding the pure motives of the sacrificial service.

Because we as a people, and humankind on the whole, have lost both our innocence and much of our spiritual connectivity, it is much harder for a twenty-first century Jew to relate to the sacrificial service. It is the Jewish belief and hope, however, that someday the Temple will be rebuilt and all such esoteric matters will once again be understood.

Copyright © 2010 National Jewish Outreach Program. All rights reserved.