Of Blood and Sacrifice

https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1616176635/wbtlaorg/v5xm9jcgx9knweai0lys/VaYikra-Five-Kinds-of-Offerings.pdf

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/sacrifices-and-offerings-karbanot

Five kinds of offerings (Korban – from “karov” which means to draw close)

Bull, Sheep, Goat, Turtledove (Adult bird only), Pigeon (Young bird only)

Burnt Offering (Olah)

To connect with God, to offer something to acknowledge that everything comes from God, to express generosity. Voluntary at the individual level for private practice, but it was mandatory for the following specific public occasions. Daily sacrifice every morning and evening; weekly sacrifice on the Sabbath; monthly sacrifice for the first day of the month or the New Moon Offering; seasonally for the seven Holy Seasons or Feasts of Israel; annually for special annual offerings. An olah is completely burnt on the altar, no part of it is eaten by anyone. This offering burns slowly day and night.

Meal Offering/Gift Offering (Minchah)

Made from grain. A meal offering represented the devotion of the fruits of people's work to God, because it was not a natural product, but something created through effort. A representative piece was burnt on the altar and the rest consumed by the priests.

Well-being/Peace Offering (Shlaymim)

To celebrate a happy occasion. A peace offering is an offering expressing thanks or gratitude to God for Their bounties and mercies. Includes thanksgiving-offerings (which was obligatory for survivors of life-threatening crises), free will-offerings, and offerings made after fulfillment of a vow. A representative portion of the offering is burnt on the altar, a portion is given to the kohanim, and the rest is eaten by the offerer and their family.

Sin Offering (Chatat)

To express atonement and be purged from an accidental violation of an ethical or ritual prohibition. Some chatat are individual and some are communal. Communal offerings represent the interdependence of the community, and the fact that we are all responsible for each others' sins. A few special chatatot could not be eaten, but for the most part, for the average person's personal sin, the chatat was eaten by the kohanim.

Guilt Offering (Asham)

A guilt offering is an offering to atone for sins of stealing things from the altar, for when you are not sure whether you have committed a sin or what sin you have committed, or for breach of trust. After restoring justice, this offering is made to God. Part of the meat is burned and the rest given to the priest.

Nissan Dovid Dubov, "Kohanim and Leviim," https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2313791/jewish/Kohanim-and-Leviim.htm

The Tribe of Levi

Through loyalty to Hashem, they were rewarded with special privileges that would otherwise have belonged to the firstborn of Israel. These special privileges involved carrying the Mishkan [the Tabernacle] and all its furniture when travelling in the desert and serving in the Temples in Jerusalem. The Leviim were musicians and singers who accompanied the Kohanim as they offered the sacrifices in the Temple. In addition, the Leviim served as teachers of Torah, touring the country and instructing the people in the ways of the Torah. Because of their special duties, they were not given a portion in the land to cultivate as were the other tribes, rather they lived in cities dotted around the country. The Torah commands that they were to receive Maaser a tenth of the produce of the land, which was paid to them as a kind of wage for performing their work on behalf of the people.

The Kohanim - Priests

Hashem chose Aharon, Moshe’s brother to be the High Priest — Kohen Gadol. All Aharon’s descendants became Kohanim — priests. [It must be noted that all Kohanim belong to the tribe of Levi — they are just a select group within the tribe of Levi]. The Kohanim had special privileges in the Temple that included; bringing the sacrifices, offering incense, lighting the Menorah. Kohanim wore special garments in the Temple and had to be particular in the laws of purity — not allowing themselves to become Tameh — impure — by being in contact with something impure, for example, a dead body.

The Kohen Gadol

Amongst the Kohanim, one Kohen was chosen to be the Kohen Gadol, the High Priest. He wore eight special garments and was considered to be the holiest person in Israel. One of the garments was a breastplate with twelve stones with the name of one tribe inscribed on each stone. Within this breastplate were the Urim VeTumim — a piece of parchment on which was written the Divine Name of Hashem. The Urim VeTumim guided the Kohen Gadol in his decisions.

Rambam, Commentary on Vayikra 1:9

Sin the actions of humans are comprised of thought, speech, and action, God commands that when an individual sins and brings an animal sacrifice, they should rest their hands upon its head, corresponding to the element of action; they should verbally confess what they did wrong, corresponding to the element of speech; they should burn the innards and kidneys that are the seat of all human thought and passion, and the animal's limbs, corresponding to the sinner's hands and feet, which carry out all of their activity; and they should cast the sacrifice's blood upon the altar to bring to mind the phrase, "For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have assigned it to you for making expiation for your lives upon the altar; it is the blood, as life, that effects expiation" (Lev. 17:11).

[This is] so that the person doing [or watching] all of these actions will come to realize that they have sinned against God with their body and should, and that they deserve that their own blood be spilled and their body burned, had it not been for the compassion of the Creator who has accepted a susbstitute instead. Therefore the sacrifice atones by its blood corresponding to the sinner's blood and soul, its limbs corresponding to the sinner's limbs; and the portions (that are given to the priests) will give life to Torah teachers, who will in turn pray on their behalf.

Rabbi Daniel Kirzane, "Understanding Biblical Sacrifice (korbanot)," https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/understanding-biblical-sacrifice-korbanot/

Korbanot were used to draw people closer to God. Israelites brought offerings of animals, grain, or money to the kohanim, and the kohanim in turn offered them as sacrifices to God. This was the main process used to connect ancient Jews with God. People gave up their prized possessions as a symbol of their dedication to God, and this became the most important part of Jewish worship.

Today, when we come together as a community to pray, we use the model of the korbanot to guide our prayer. The korbanot teach us that we have to give something of ourselves in order to draw nearer to God. They teach us that it can be easier to come close to God with the help of other people rather than all by ourselves. And they teach us that prayer can be deeper when we use ancient rituals. In all these ways, the korbanot still lead us to holiness today.

Ellen Dannin, "Blood," https://www.reconstructingjudaism.org/dvar-torah/blood

Why do we not eat blood? Because the life of the flesh — the nefesh — is in its blood. [W]hile killing an animal for food is not the problem, eating blood is, and it is no trivial matter. The penalty is to be cut off from one’s people. So perhaps eating the blood makes us unfit to be with those living proper human lives.

The first mention of blood in the Torah is God’s statement to Cain [in Genesis 4:10-11]. Here we have a killing and the pouring out of blood into the ground. The blood cries out from the ground over the injustice, leading to Cain’s curse. He is to be alone, roaming over the earth, an earth that will not give its potency to him.

So if I want to live my life so I do not eat the blood — the life — of others, how am I to do this? Are there ways in which I act toward others so that I consume their life?

To begin to answer this sort of question, I turn to our tradition for sources that help me think through the dimensions of the issue. In this case, I found the Rosh Hodesh (New Moon/Month) blessings helpful. They present a catalogue of what is good about life: “a long life, a life of peace, a life of goodness, a life of blessing, a life of nourishment and sustenance, a life of bodily health, a life with awe for the divine, a life of love for Torah, a life free of disgrace and shame, a life of happiness and honor, a life of integrity and discernment, intelligence and knowledge.” So perhaps when we commit acts that deny these aspects of life to others, we (metaphorically) eat their blood.

Perhaps with each act that denies these blessings to others, we ourselves become progressively so calloused that we become incapable of living a human life, and thereby place ourselves into a spiritual exile. [L]iving a human life means that we must live in a way that does not infringe on the lives around us

Rabbi Dr. Bradley Shavit Artson, "Ears, Thumbs, and Toes," https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/ears-thumbs-and-toes/

Blood is a symbol filled with ambivalent meaning. A symbol of life and of death, it is as a simultaneous expression of both realities–life and death–that blood becomes such a prominent symbol for moments and places of transition. At a child’s birth–with ‘brit milah‘ (circumcision), at the first Passover–when blood was smeared on the lintels of Jewish homes, blood marks the moment or the place as a transition between death and renewed life.

Here, too, by placing sacrificial blood on the priest’s extremities, the Torah indicates that the newly-ordained ‘kohen’ has passed through a transitional moment from being a private citizen to becoming a representative of God and a public leader. Ear, hand and foot–an abbreviated code for his entire body–emphasize that service to one’s highest ideals, to one’s people, or to one’s God, must be total.

Rabbi Avi Shafran, "The real symbolism of the Paschal blood To life!" https://jweekly.com/2007/03/30/the-real-symbolism-of-the-paschal-blood-to-life/

[B]efore the exodus the Jews were all related to one another (as descendants of Jacob) but they were not a people. Any individual was still able to reject his or her connection to the others, and the rejection had an effect. Indeed, our tradition teaches that many in fact did not merit being able to leave Egypt at all, dying instead during the plague of darkness. Their behavior precluded them from being part of the new, holiness-charged nation.

But once the nation-entity was forged, on our ancestors’ very last night in Egypt, things changed radically. With blood on their doorways and satchels filled with matzoh, they readily followed Moses into the frightening desert on God’s orders, knowing not what awaited them. As the prophet Jeremiah described it, in God’s words: “I remember for you the kindness of your youth… your following Me in the desert, a land where nothing is planted.”

And thus the Jews began the process of becoming a living nation, an entity whose members, and descendants throughout history, are part of an organic whole, no matter what any one of them may choose to do.

As the Talmud put it: “A Jew who sins is still a Jew,” in every way. There is no longer any option of “opting out.”

And so, blood in Judaism is a not symbol of suffering, or torture, or even of death, but rather of birth, life and meaning.

For our part, we Jews do well to stay focused on the Pesach blood, the symbol of our birth as a people. And from there, to turn our sights to discerning and embracing the mandate of our peoplehood, the Torah — the ultimate reason for our “blood of life.”