Smoke Signals: Sacrifices as a Ritual Vocabulary

Annie LaMott, who writes on Christian spirituality, says that the two best prayers she knows are "Help me, help me, help me" and "Thank you, thank you, thank you" (Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith [New York: Random House, 2000], p. 82). The ancient Hebrews would add, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," while the psalmists would add, "Oh wow!" (or some more-nuanced expression of sheer wonder). Ancient sacrifices may appear mysterious to us — these crude outpourings of blood and incinerations of fat and meat —but they, too, constituted a vocabulary for communicating with God. That is why they are called korbanot, "coming-near offerings." You might say that sacrifices stood for certain kinds of prayers sent aloft with the rising smoke to come near to God.

In Parashat Vayikra and again in our present parashah, Tzav, we learn about a variety of offerings. There are the olah, "burnt offering," chatat, "purgation" or "sin offering," and asham, "reparation" or "guilt offering." Finally there is the zevachsh'lamim, "sacrifice of well-being" or, as Baruch A. Levine calls it, "the sacred gift of greeting" ( The JPS Torah Commentary: Leviticus[Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1989], p.15n). If these offerings are a vocabulary, what do they say? What prayers do these offerings articulate?

The olah is complicated. Olah means "ascent." The olah offering is transformed into a cloud of smoke on the altar. Cloud and fire are two of the manifestations that accompany the Divine Presence. A pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night lead the Israelites out of Egypt (Exodus 13:21-22). Both fire and cloud are seen on Mount Sinai. Fire and cloud are mysterious phenomena. Neither is tangible. Neither can be grasped. They hinder and obstruct, even endanger: "For the Eternal your God is a consuming fire," says Deuteronomy 4:24. Jacob Milgrom ( Leviticus 1-16, Anchor Bible [New York: Doubleday, 1991], p. 173) tells us that the root alah (ayin-lamed-hei ) means "disappear" as well as "ascend." Maybe the olah is meant to greet God in God's language of elusiveness or concealment, sending above an offering similar in form to what God sends below. This elusive Deity, the God who hides God's self (Isaiah 45:15), receives the pleasing odor of the olah (Leviticus 1:9) as the offerer's plea: "Favor me" or "Favor us, O hidden God."

The chatat, the "purgation" or "sin offering," and the asham, "reparation" offering, are less obscure. Each is a sacrifice of expiation for unintentional sins having to do with the negative commandments, the sacred place, or its property. Offenses toward another person cannot be expiated through sacrifice nor can deliberate violations.

Are unintentional lapses that serious? Yes, indeed! Priests and leaders can bring blame on the community by inadvertent sin. The holy place itself becomes defiled because of it. Were the sanctuary to become more and more defiled, God would eventually depart from it. The sanctuary is purged of its accretions of impurity by the High Priest every Yom Kippur, so the One who is utterly pure and holy can dwell there. Meanwhile the chatat sacrifice, calibrated according to the status and power of the offender — a bull, a goat, a sheep, or even two turtledoves for the poorest worshipers — allows individuals who profaned the holy a chance to make their amends.

What must have been powerfully moving in expiatory sacrifices was the sense of closure. The sacrifice expressed the prayer "I'm really sorry." As the smoke of the sacrifice rose, the offender could know that the expiatory process was now completed — he or she was now forgiven. "The priest shall make expiation . . . on behalf of that person, who shall be forgiven" (Leviticus 5:16). We, today, are less certain about the resolution of our unintentional sins. The promises we failed to keep, the civic duties we didn't do, the tzedakah (charity) we forgot to give when it was needed, the sick friends we did not visit in time. Often they are the omissions or errors about which we mutter, "I can't forgive myself." It's much more difficult to forgive oneself than to be forgiven by another. In that far-off time, with a contrite heart and a sacrifice, one could even be sure of being forgiven by God. It's no wonder people mourned the destruction of the Temple. We will never be that young as a religious tradition or that confident in our absolution ever again. Only on Yom Kippur do we recover the power of the prayer that says, "For all these wrongs, O God of mercy, forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement" (Gates of Repentance, rev. ed. [New York: Central Conference of American Rabbis, 1996], p. 329).

And what about the happy sacrifices — the various permutations of the sacrifice of well-being? They fulfill vows or serve as freewill or thanksgiving offerings. Unlike the expiatory sacrifices, which could not be eaten by the guilty parties who brought them, the zevach sh'lamim is shared with the sanctuary priests and portioned out by the offerers to their families at a sort of sacred barbecue within the sanctuary precincts. One said thank you with one's own hands and body, elevating the breast of the sacrifice toward heaven and then feasting before God, in innocence and joy. We have nothing quite like it today. But at our holiday feasts, the Pesach seder, Rosh HaShanah, weddings, birthdays, and bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah celebrations, we can remember to "bring near" the invisible participant in all our simchahs (festive occasions) and say, "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

Professor Rachel Adler is professor of Modern Jewish Thought and Judaism and Gender at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Los Angeles. She was one of the first theologians to integrate feminist perspectives and concerns into the interpretation of Jewish texts and the renewal of Jewish law and ethics. She is the author of Engendering Judaism, which won the National Jewish Book Award for Jewish Thought, and many articles.