“Vayikra – And He spoke.” The opening word to the book of Leviticus is something that echoes throughout the entire book. He spoke to Moshe, He commanded the sacrifices the rituals, the day-to-day activities to be performed for His service. The last letter of this word, those, is smaller than all the other letters. Why? Rosh comments that this is to show the humility with which Moses accepts his position as leader of the Jewish people. The entire parsha, I believe, is a show of humility for all men.
Vayikra is full of sacrifices for various sins or peace-offerings, willful or intentional, personal or communal. The act of bringing a sacrifice, according to the great Rabbis of the Middle Ages – Rambam, Ramban, and Sefer HaHinnuch – was to humble a person. There are three different ways we must transform ourselves to completely atone for our sins: we must change our thoughts, we must change our words (tefillot), and we must change our actions. It is never through sacrifice alone that we are atoned; but only through sacrifice as a synthesis of all three ways we must change. When we bring a sacrifice we our humbling ourselves by recognizing that we acted like animals in lowering ourselves to the sin we committed and failing to rise above it. We disregarded – if only momentarily – God’s charge to by holy. Perhaps only for a moment we were not worthy of the life God granted us. And for this we must bring a sacrifice and as the ritual is being performed by the priest in front of us, we think: “that should have been me; I acted like a lowly animal when I committed a sin. But through God’s mercy I have been granted more life and the opportunity to be a holy person. This animal, in my place, has been sacrificed to God.”
It seems an archaic practice and I have no idea how I would react if such a sacrifice was to take place in front of me today. But I can certainly appreciate the power that it help for the people of Temple-times. To humble oneself is an important trait and the sacrifices were supposed to help in our honing of this trait in us.
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