TORAH PORTION: LAST DAY OF PESAH
Parashat Achrei Mot
April 30, 2022 | 29 Nisan 5782
Torah: Leviticus 16:1-18:30 | Triennial: 17:1-18:30
Haftarah: I Samuel 20:18-42
14th day of the Omer
In this week's Torah Sparks, you'll find a D'var Torah on the Parashah by Ilana Kurshan called "I Need Your Sacrifices After All", Vered Hollander-Goldfarb poses questions titled "Biblical Satyrs" and Bex Stern Rosenblatt writes a dvar haftara called "Fathers".
D'VAR TORAH
I Need Your Sacrifices After All
Ilana Kurshan
 
This week’s parashah contains God’s instructions to Moshe concerning Aaron’s entrance into the holy shrine of the Temple to achieve atonement. The Torah describes in great detail how the high priest is to cast lots upon two goats—one marked for God, and one marked for Azazel—and sacrifice a bull as a sin offering to atone for himself and his household. He must then scoop a pile of glowing coals from the altar, along with two handfuls of incense, and bring them behind the curtain on the fire burning before God, raising a cloud of smoke. He sprinkles blood over the curtain covering the ark, and applies blood to each of the four corners of the altar, before sprinkling the rest of the blood with his finger seven times to atone for the sins of the people.

These rituals, familiar to us from the Avodah service chanted during Musaf on Yom Kippur, became the basis for the Talmudic tractate Yoma—Aramaic for “the day”—which consists primarily of a step-by-step description of the activities of the high priest in the Temple on Yom Kippur. Seven of the eight chapters in tractate Yoma are focused on this ritual activity, and as such, they ostensibly have nothing to do with Yom Kippur as we observe it in a Temple-less world. But the rabbinic discussion of Temple worship suggests that the principles and ideals underlying ritual sacrifice are in fact the basis for the type of religious worship that God demands of us today, not just on Yom Kippur but on every day of the year. 

The rabbinic discussion of the high priest’s activities on Yom Kippur is focused on the precision and accuracy with which each step must be taken. The rabbis insist that in order for the high priest to achieve atonement for himself and the people, he must ensure that he follows the order of the complete ritual narrative outlined in our parashah and expanded upon by the sages, allowing for no errors or lapses. For instance, the Torah teaches that the priest “shall take from the blood of the bull and of the goat and apply to each of the corners of the altar” (16:18). The rabbis stipulate that if the blood spilled on the floor when the animal was slaughtered and was then collected in a vessel for use when applying it to the altar, the sacrifice is considered invalid, because the Torah says that the priest must take “from the blood of the bull,” and not from the blood on the floor (Yoma 48a). Only if the blood is properly received and sprinkled can atonement be achieved. Here, as throughout the tractate, the rabbis emphasize the high priest’s perfectly accurate performance of the rites detailed in our parashah. 

It is not just the high priest’s actions that must be performed in strict accordance with a pre-ordained script; his thoughts and intentions, too, must be perfectly aligned with the requirements of the day. The rabbis teach that if the priest merely plans to perform certain sacrificial actions incorrectly—even if he in fact does everything right—the sacrifice is declared invalid as if those forbidden acts were actually performed. For instance, if he scoops handfuls of incense from the altar while intending to burn it after the appropriate time for burning, this thought invalidates the sacrificial rite (Yoma 48a). This emphasis on correct thought as well as correct action applies not just to the high priest on Yom Kippur, but to every priest offering a sacrifice in the Temple. A sacrifice becomes disqualified if the priest merely plans to consume the meat outside of the Temple precinct, or if he plans to consume it after the designated time for eating that particular sacrifice. Even if the priest actually eats the sacrifice in the right time and place, an improper intention at the time of slaughtering renders the sacrifice invalid. 

When it came to sacrificial worship, the rabbis insisted on the perfect and accurate performance of stipulated activities, along with perfect and accurate thoughts and intentions. As Mira Balberg demonstrates in Blood for Thought: The Reinvention of Sacrifice in Early Rabbinic Literature (2017), the rabbis believed that sacrifice was less about creating a channel of communication between people and God than it was about the accurate and attentive performance of divinely stipulated actions. Atonement on Yom Kippur was not based on the sincerity of the people’s contrition, but on the high priest’s precise adherence to the ritual narrative outlined in our parashah, as elaborated upon by the sages in tractate Yoma. As such, Temple worship was less about piety than precision. It is not the offerer’s willingness to give up a choice animal to God that the rabbis valorized, but rather the priest’s steadfast, accurate, and devoted performance of the sacrificial rites. As Balberg contends, such steadfastness, accuracy, and devotion were regarded as a model of religious life in a world devoid of a Temple. For the rabbis, sacrifice was about the meticulous and scrupulous performance of required actions, offering us a way of thinking about what it means to live in accordance with the dictates of halakhah. 

This notion of sacrifice as perfect action may seem just as archaic as sprinkling blood and casting lots for goats. In our modern world we tend to more closely associate devotion with purity of heart than with strict adherence to a pre-ordained script. Devotion is more closely associated with purity of heart than with strict adherence to a pre-ordained script. But as the rabbis understood, living a life of Torah and mitzvot is also about subsuming one’s own priorities and preferences to the will of God—“Make His will into your will,” as Rabban Gamliel teaches in Pirkei Avot (1:4). We are charged to privilege what God demands of us over whatever it is we might want to do at any particular moment. To give just one example: A halakhic Jew does not wake up and do whatever she feels like doing; a halakhic Jew wakes up and davens. 

Perhaps we might think of the perfect adherence to God’s will as a model for devotion and attentiveness in all aspects of our lives. Can we be as wholly present for the person sitting before us on a low stool at a shiva house as the high priest was present and focused on carrying the incense into the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur? Can we be as steadfastly committed to eradicating poverty as the priest was focused on clearing off the ashes from the altar? God does not need our sacrifices, as the biblical prophets eloquently and repeatedly insist. But God’s world stands much to gain from the intense devotion that sacrificial worship entailed, and as such, the actions of the high priest in our parashah are a paradigm for us all.
QUESTIONS TO PONDER
Biblical Satyrs
Vered Hollander-Goldfarb

Text: Vayikra 17:1-7
1And the Lord spoke to Moshe, saying, 2“Speak to Aharon… and to all the children of Israel… 3“Whatever man of the house of Israel who kills an ox or lamb or goat in the camp, or who kills it outside the camp, 4and to the door of the Tent of Meeting he did not bring it to offer an offering to the Lord…, the guilt of bloodshed shall be imputed to that man… 5to the end that the children of Israel will bring their offering which they offer in the open field, …to the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of meeting, to the priest...  7 They shall no more offer their sacrifices to the se’irim (satyrs), after whom they stray…

  • Why might people kill an animal outside the Mishkan? How is such a kill perceived? 
  • Why and to whom do people sacrifice outside the Tent of Meeting? How does the Torah view this practice? 
  • What might we deduce about the nature of the se’irim and people’s involvement with them based on this section?

The se’irim appear in several other biblical passages. Let’s consider the following sources to learn a bit more:

 II Chronicles 11:14-15
14For the Levites… came to Judah and Jerusalem, for Jeroboam (the first king of the Northern Kingdom) and his sons had rejected them from serving as priests to the Lord. 15And he appointed for himself priests for the high places and the se’irim, and for the calves which he had made.

  • Se'irim seem to have a cultic role. What might be the reason for such a practice? In what ways does this description suit what we learn in the parashah? What might it add to our understanding?

Isaiah 13:19-21
19And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms…
 Will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.
20It will never be inhabited, Nor will it be settled …
21But wild beasts of the desert will lie there,
 And their houses will be full of howling creatures.
 Ostriches will dwell there, and se’irim will caper there…
  
  • What seems to be the natural habitat of se’irim? How does this add to our understanding of the cultic practices of se'irim-worship? How does this help explain the practice alluded to in the parashah?

Commentary: Ibn Ezra Vayikra 17:7
To the se’irim - Se'irim are the demons.… The word "more" teaches that the Israelites did so in Egypt. After whom they stray - For whoever seeks after them and believes in them strays from under his God, for he thinks that there is someone aside from God… who does good or evil.

Ibn Ezra points out that the practice of se’irim-worship was already practiced. Why might people not have felt a conflict in worshiping demons while worshiping God? Why is the practice unacceptable? 
HAFTARAH
Fathers
Bex Stern Rosenblat

This week, we read 1 Samuel 20, the story of Jonathan helping David escape from King Saul, in conjunction with Parashat Achrei Mot. We read the David story because it is the haftarah for shabbatot on which the following day is Rosh Chodesh, the first day of the new month and this haftarah features the phrase “machar hodesh,” “tomorrow is the start of the month.” But this haftarah also happens to be a good companion to the parashah this week. Both feature fathers whose sons have moved past them. 

Aaron’s sons haunt this week’s parashah. The parashah begins with Moses speaking to Aaron “after the death of his two sons when they drew close to God and died.” His sons, Nadav and Avihu, had offered a strange fire as a sacrifice and had been consumed because of it. They had tried to perform their father’s duties, but slightly differently. It ended catastrophically. Aaron was not permitted to grieve at that time but had to keep being functional, serving as first high priest to the Israelite nation. We get glimpses of the grief he felt, but for the most part we see only his public face, Aaron as high priest rather than Aaron as father. 

The haftarah offers a retelling of this theme. In the role of Aaron, the first high priest, we have Saul, the first king of Israel. In the role of Aaron’s sons, we have Saul’s son, Jonathan. And in the role of agent of God, played by the consuming fire in Aaron’s story, we have David in Saul’s story. This time, we watch Saul lose his son, his heir, slowly and painfully. We are privy to the ways it destroys him even as he tries to maintain his public facing persona. 

Although Saul is a doomed king, with God having rescinded support for his kingship, he refuses to act like one. Most important to Saul is ensuring that his kingship will become a dynasty, that his son will rule after him. But Jonathan, his son, refuses to be the sort of heir apparent that his father demands. Rather, Jonathan chooses to follow David, who Saul sees as a threat to both of them and as a usurper of the throne. Jonathan rejects the methods of his father much the same way as Nadav and Avihu had rejected the strict instructions given to Aaron about how to approach the altar and what was permissible there. 

Saul tries to eliminate David, to remove this threat to Jonathan’s succession to the throne. Jonathan refuses to play along. And it drives Saul mad. At a festival that Saul throws, David does not show up. Saul questions Jonathan as to David’s absence, knowing that his big-hearted son does not realize how dangerous it is to befriend someone like David. When Jonathan explains that he has given permission to David not to be there, Saul loses it. He sees the self-destructive impulse in Jonathan’s behavior. He knows that to allow David to live and to thrive is to destroy Jonathan. We read Saul’s words, as translated by Robert Alter, “O, son of a perverse wayward woman! Don’t I know you have chosen the son of Jesse to your own shame and the shame of your mother’s nakedness? For as long as the son of Jesse lives on the earth, you and your kingship will not be unshaken! And now, send and fetch him to me, for he is a dead man!” When Jonathan refuses, Saul tries to kill Jonathan. He has been so consumed by his fear of losing his son to his rival that he does lose control of himself and try to kill his own son. Eventually, Saul’s paranoia overwhelms him completely. He loses all sense of right and wrong, real and make believe. He no longer can function as king at all. We never see Aaron like this. We see his resolve, his silence. But perhaps Saul’s story can help us to hear the pain that Aaron as high priest could never permit himself to show. 
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