This sheet on Leviticus 1 was written by Anna Calamaro for 929 and can also be found here
Poor Dorothy.
Following a wild goose chase through Oz orchestrated by Good Witch Glinda, the movie concludes with Dorothy beseeching Glinda for help returning to Kansas.
“You’ve always had the power to return,” Glinda answers.
“Why didn’t you tell me before?” cries Dorothy, exasperated after being assailed by snarlling trees, malevolent flying monkeys, the wicked witch, and an interminable trek down the yellow brick road.
“You had to learn it yourself,” Glinda preaches.
Leviticus 1-6 teaches, in painstaking detail, the step-by- step guide to the laws of Korbanot, animal sacrifice and meal offerings brought into the sanctuary. This portion is not for the faint of heart. God explains that you “shall slaughter it on the northern side of the altar... shall dash its blood upon the altar, around... cut it into its [prescribed] sections, with its head and its fat, and the kohen shall arrange them on top of the wood...” (Leviticus 1: 11-13). Leviticus continues, explaining the detailed steps for disposition of the sacrifices’ entrails, and how to incise a sacrifice without tearing it.
If God only wanted the Israelites to sacrifice animals as sin offerings, why jump through multiple hoops to get the job done? Did God truly care about which side of the alter the animal was slaughtered on? Or that it was important to lean “forcefully” upon the head of the burnt offering? (Leviticus 1:4) Undoubtedly, just killing the animal would be much easier.
By mandating these time-consuming, manually intensive, emotional steps for animal sacrifice, God teaches that repenting of sin is not merely about checking off a to-do list. Just as Glinda required Dorothy to learn through her journey, God teaches through Leviticus' detailed Korbanot instructions that it is not about a means to an end, but rather that there is value in the journey.
Today, we obviously no longer practice animal sacrifice. However, Leviticus' lessons still elucidate the meaning of being a Jew. When we pray the V’Ahavta, “you shall love,” he paragraph after the Shma’ prayer, it is insufficient to mouth the words; instead, we must focus on what we do each day to love God with “all our heart, all our soul, and all our might.” It is not enough to affix a mezuzah to the doorpost of your home; instead, we must make an effort to bring the words of God into our daily lives inside of our homes.
May we continually remember to appreciate, not the end goal, but rather our mindful journey on that yellow brick road.
Anna Calamaro is a rabbinical student at HUC-JIR and a JDC-Weitzman Fellow
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