This week, we start the 3rd book of the Torah: Vayikra (Leviticus).

This week’s parsha (Torah portion) gets into the blood and guts of sacrifices.  It is not one of the prettier parshas, but it is an important one nevertheless because it tells us how we can redeem ourselves when we sin, not just as a person, but also as a community or a community leader, including the high priest and the king.  One of the things I like about our tradition is the fact that it takes into account that everybody, even the highest of the high, is still human and will make mistakes.

As I was reading the parsha, I was struck by all the repetition (didn’t I say that last week too?).  A couple of words in particular struck me: the word samach, the words that all have the same root of karav, and lastly the word yeseerna.  Let’s see what these words mean and see if we can find out how they relate to sacrifice and atonement.

The word samach means to lay an object on another object.  Specifically it is referring to the laying on of hands.  Before every animal sacrifice, you are supposed to lay your hands on the head of the animal.  What a strange thing to.  Another place we find this word used is in the 5th book Moshe (Moses) wrote, Deuteronomy (or Devarim in Hebrew) when Moshe passes the leadership to Yehoshua (Joshua) by laying his hands (samach) on the head of Yehoshua.  The juxtaposition of these two might lead one to think that Moshe is raising Yehoshua up to be the sacrificial victim.. .I mean leader. 🙂  I see another way of looking at this.  Perhaps when Moshe is laying his hands on Yehoshua, he is giving a part of himself, the part of him that talks w/haShem (god) and leads the people, to Yehoshua.  In the same way, I propose that when one is laying his hands on the sacrificial animal, she is putting a part of himself onto/into the animal.

Which leads us to the question of what a sacrifice is.  In Hebrew the word is karbon.  This is related to the verb karav which means to come close.  Also we see that the Hebrew word for innards, in the parsha, is kerev.  As you can see from the Hebrew, a sacrifice has the function of bringing one close.  The question is to whom and why does one need to be brought close.  The answer of to whom is easy, it is to haShem.  The question of why is a little more challenging for we see two types of karbons: a peace (shlaymim in Hebrew) offering and a sin offering. Let’s look at the sin offering first.

The definition of a sin, that I would like to use, is to move away from haShem.  If you do haShem’s will, you are close, or moving closer to him.  If you turn your back on what haShem wants you to do, you are distancing yourself from haShem because to get back to where you were, you have, at the very least, to turn around.  More likely, you have not only turned away; you also have started moving away.  So, the purpose of the karbon is to bring you close to haShem again.  It is interesting to note that the Hebrew word for repentance is tshuvah which means to turn.  A shlaymim (from the same root as shalom) offering you bring because you want to get even closer to haShem then you already are.  It is like bringing flowers to your wife or girlfriend when you haven’t done anything wrong: you are earning major points and bringing the two of you closer together.  It is called shlaymim because shalom, besides meaning peace/hello/goodbye, also means to be complete or whole, and the closer one gets to haShem, the more whole or complete one is.

I mentioned the word kerev (innards) also has the same root as karbon. To explain how it comes into play, and to give an explanation of how a sin offering works, I need to bring back the word samach.  Let’s say you have sinned (heaven forbid), and you have brought your karbon.  You lay your hands on the head of the animal and take that part of you that has turned away from haShem and put it on the animal.  Now it doesn’t just sit on the animals head, but goes into the animal itself, into its innards, its kerev.  The animal is the intermediary or vehicle to bring that wayward part of you back to haShem.  You then remove the kerev and give it to the priest (Cohen in Hebrew) who puts it on the altar where it goes up to haShem via fire.  Now the word for removed is yeseerna and removed is a bad translation; it means to lift up.  So it is you, yourself, that, after putting yourself into the animal, and slaughtering the animal, that lifts up the part of you that you want to bring close to haShem, the kerev or the innards.  At this point can you be sure if it is still the innards of some animal, or if it is the innards of you?

One last point I want to make before I close, regarding the word yeseerna.  English translations have done a poor job in translating gender from Hebrew to English.  Everything is male, male, male.  Well, the truth is that the genders are mixed together, often within the same person, depending on what they are doing are feeling.  Yeseerna is a perfect example.  It is actually the third person plural FEMININE.  So, what this means is that the feminine parts of the person are lifting up the part that sinned.  Now what is this all about?  Well, in Jewish tradition, the feminine is considered to be more holy then the male.  For example, it was only the men involved in the sin of the golden calf and not the women.  And this is not the only place where the women stay pure while the men sin.  So, I think what is going on here, is that when you first sin, it is a part of your male aspect that has turned away, and it is the feminine aspect that needs to raise up that part and give it to haShem.

I gladly welcome all thoughts and ideas and questions, so feel free to comment below.

And as we head into the last few weeks before Pesach/Passover, I bless everybody that this year, you really free yourselves from whatever is encouraging you to turn from haShem, and that you can discover your process for turning those parts of yourself and raise them up and get closer to the Creator.

About the Author

Shmuel Shalom Cohen spent 10 years studying Torah in Jerusalem. Six years ago, he started Conscious Torah to help Jews connect to their tradition in ways they didn’t think possible. Shmuel also started, and is the executive directory of Jewish Events Willamette-valley, a non-profit whose mission is to build Jewish community, pride, and learning. In his free time, Shmuel likes walks in nature, playing music, writing poetry, and time with good friends.