What has always, in the past, been the most
boring book in the Bible to me, has become more interesting with this reading
because of Richard Elliott Friedman’s notes in his Commentary on the Torah. Thus, for these chapters, I am including
even more notes from Friedman than usual. His first bit of intriguing
commentary begins with Leviticus 4:2….
At the time that I am writing this, it has been almost
two thousand years since the second Jerusalem Temple was destroyed and
sacrifices ended in Judaism. The two largest religions, Christianity and Islam,
also do not perform sacrifices, and so it has been so long since we have seen
or done this practice that all but a few people are unclear about what
sacrifice was. Frequently they imagine that it meant that people regularly
destroyed much of their livestock for no reason. This is wrong.
The purpose of sacrifice was to recognize that an
animal’s life was sacred….
Most sacrificed animals are eaten by the persons who
bring the animals to the altar. There is also a second group of sacrifices,
which involve the ritual slaughter of an animal that is not for consumption by
the person who brings the sacrifice. Rather, the meat is eaten by the priests
or is entirely burnt. Such sacrifices relate to guilt and expiation…. Besides
addressing matters of punishment (compensation, execution), the system requires
some means of dealing with individual’s feelings of guilt—and with public
condemnation. This is achieved through the sacrificial system, including
sacrifices for unwitting violations, by individuals or the community (Leviticus
4 and 5), and sacrifices for various other feelings on the part of the offerer
(Leviticus 1-3). The system that provides grounds for guilt also provides a
mechanism for expiation and forgiveness.
Sacrifice is the only mechanism for forgiveness in the
book of Leviticus. There is no suggestion in Leviticus that repentance alone
can bring forgiveness for violations of the laws, no indication that one can
appeal to YHWH’s mercy, His grace, or His kindness for atonement. Indeed, the
words “repentance” … “mercy” … “grace” … and “kindness” … do not occur in
Leviticus. Thus the psychological and spiritual state of the community is
linked powerfully to this visible, tangible act….
4:2 by mistake.
This begins a lengthy section on what to do when people sin by mistake…. But
even a sin that is committed by mistake requires some act of atonement. People
still feel guilty when they do harm, even if they meant no harm, and so this
provides a mechanism for purging the guilt and putting the act in the past.
Now, in the absence of sacrifice, other means of atonement have risen in
importance. Notably, the Day of Atonement (Yom Kuppur) has become the most
sacred and widely observed holiday; whereas, in the Torah, Passover stands out
as the first and foremost of the holidays.[1]
In Leviticus 4:3 we have the first occurrence of
the word “Messiah” meaning “anointed”. In the Torah this word always refers to
the high priest and not, as later in the Bible, to the king.
In Leviticus 5:1 we read, “And a person who will
sin in that he has heard a pronouncement of an oath, and he was a
witness—whether he saw or he knew: if he will not tell, then he shall bear his
crime.” Friedman has this comment on the phrase bear his crime:
This expression means that the person is not punished by
a court. It is between the individual and God. After all, in this case, it may
be that no one but the person himself is even aware that he did the sin. The
reverse expression occurs in the great formula of God’s compassion in Exod
34:7, where it says that God bears
crime … for humans. That very emphasis on the usual divine mercy makes cases
like the current one so frightening: here it is the human who must bear the
crime himself. This expression will be used in a number of cases in Leviticus
and Numbers. By saying that a case is beyond the jurisdiction of any court or
ruler, the Torah recognizes that some things are beyond humans’ ability and
humans’ right to judge or punish.[2]
Friedman is, of course, correct when he notes
that Christianity does not have animal sacrifices. The reason for that is
because the one sacrifice of Jesus the Messiah on the cross has taken the place
of the animal sacrifices. The writer to the Hebrews says of Jesus,
Unlike the other high priests, he has no need to offer
sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for those of the
people; this he did once for all when he offered himself. (Hebrews 7:27)
The atonement that Jesus achieved was once for
all and is now made available to everyone ... past, present, and future.
Comments