Last week we came to the end of Sefer Shmot and if you were at all like me, you were saddened to leave the section of Torah behind that has such a commanding narrative of the Exodus from Egypt. It certainly is a book which lies in contrast to the new book of the Torah that we started reading today, Vayikra. Vayikra begins with a set of mitzvot and in fact except for two short narrative passages, the entire books consists of laws. The Torah's narrative aspect will not resume until we come to Bamidbar.
Many of the laws deal with the mishkan and the laws of korbanot/sacrifices. The word sacrifice in English, implies that when a sacrifice is made, something is given up in return for nothing. That implication is far from the meaning of the word korbanot. Korbanot comes from the root K R V (karov) and it implies that one is drawn closer to G-d. The animal that is sacrificed is seen as the vehicle through which the person will come closer to G-d.
In fact if you remember last week's parasha, the mishkan was established to provide a place for G-d to dwell within the midst of the children of Israel. The mishkan's purpose was to enhance the nation's relationship with G-d. Vayikra is the manual for HOW to use the mishkan.
Vayikra speaks about two types of offerings that can be given by the people. The first, N'DAVA, found in chapter 1:1-3-17, is a voluntary sacrifice. The second, CHOVAH, found in chapter 4:1-5:26, is an obligatory sacrifice. If one wants to offer a korban to G-d voluntarily, one must first choose a category for the offering. The three choices are the olah, that will be totally consumed upon the altar (composed of a cattle, sheep, or fowl), the mincha that is composed of flour (and 5 different ways are offered for how to bake it), and the shlamim, the peace offering which is partially consumed by the owners (composed of cattle, sheep, and goats).
The N'DAVA oferrings /voluntary offerings/ occur after an act of smicha has been enacted upon the animal used in the Olah and Shlamim categories. In other words, the owner's weight is place on an animal in a symbolic transferring of identity to the animal. Sometimes the owner's emissary, a kohen or Levi, lays his weight upon the animal, but in either case, the message is the same. The animals represents the offering of one's self to G-d in the same way that the ram was substituted for Yitzchak on the mountaintop during the story of the akedah.
On the other hand, the Chova offerings, obligatory offerings, are given for transgressions that have been committed. They are organized by events and the nature of the sin determines the required offering.
One type of transgression is the unintentional violation of any of G-d's mitzvot. Depending upon the financial status of the offender, the required offering is altered (pardon the pun!). If one is rich, the offering is a sheep or a goat, if one is middle class the offering is two birds, and if one is poor, the offering is made of flour. Perhaps because this category of obligatory offering was for unintentional wrong doings, and the frequency of the transgressions could be high for those who are prone to slipping up, the different sized offerings made sense because it did not put too costly a burden upon a person who unintentionally violated a mitzvah.
If you think about the organization of Vayikra, one might wonder why it didn't start out with the obligatory offerings and then move to the voluntary offerings. The voluntary N'DAVA offerings reflect the ideal of a human being wanting to improve his/her relationship with G-d. The obligatory CHOVA offerings reflect the need to rectify a problem when the individual's relationship with G-d has been tainted by sin. Prior to the Book of Leviticus, we read about the Israelites' experience at Har Sinai, Mt. Sinai. Their experience brought them closer to G-d yet while Moses was on top of the Mountain they still managed to create the Golden Calf. Having the mishkan in their midst was also supposed to perpetuate their experience at Har Sinai by allowing them to draw closer to G-d through voluntary offerings and to atone for their sin of the Golden Calf through obligatory offerings.
Today, prayer takes the place of the korbanot. It is designed to reflect our aspiration to draw closer KRV to G-d and also offers us an opportunity to amend our tainted relationships with G-d. Not all of us in this modern era know how to use prayer as a unique opportunity to try to come closer to G-d, but its purpose is no different than that of the korbanot expressed in Vayikra.
Shabbat Shalom.
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