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Parashat Vayikra - Leviticus 1:1-5:26
(with Matt Plen and Yael Unterman) When a person unwittingly sins in regard to any of God's commandments about things which are not to be done, and does one of them. (Leviticus 4:2) MATT: With this verse - a tantalizingly incomplete sentence - Parashat Vayikra begins to address the issue of how to make amends for sins committed unintentionally. The question is clear, but the author seems to have forgotten to supply the answer. Even though the rest of the parasha provides the missing information in great detail, the incomplete syntax of this verse indicates uncertainty and implies that the answer - sacrifice - does not fit the question of how to make amends for sin. How can the ritual slaughter of animals provide a solution to moral transgression? One possible solution rests on the fact that the verse does not specify which sins are being discussed. Perhaps it is only referring to ritual commandments, those "between people and God." Regarding ritual sins, the solution fits. A ritual error could logically be dealt with within the frame- work of ritual. But here I encounter a different problem: can such a ritual error truly be described as "sin"? Who's to say one set of practices or ceremonies is better than another? The other possibility is that these particular sins are ethical, as suggested in Leviticus 5:20-26. As well as compensating the victim of the crime, the sinner is commanded to make expiation by offering a sacrifice. However, if the sinner realizes the error of his ways and the compensation offered to the victim puts right the damage caused, it seems that the ritual element - the focus of this entire parasha - is superfluous. YAEL: If I understand you correctly, you are making two points: How can a sacrifice - in your terms, the "ritual element" - make amends for moral transgression? And why should ritual transgressions - a set of arbitrary "practices and ceremonies" - be considered as sin? While I believe there may be deep spiritual messages embedded in the notion of sacrifice, there is also the evolutionary rational model suggested by Maimonides in his Guide to the Perplexed (3:32), which implies that they served a limited purpose of gradually easing the Israelites into a purer form of religion. I prefer, however, to address your assumption that there is a clear differentiation to be made between moral and ritual transgressions on the level of atonement. The Torah requires a sacrifice - the symbol for atonement - for both categories equally. I, as a Jew committed to the overall Torah system, accept its assumption that when I distort or omit the rituals, I am missing the target (the Hebrew word for sin, het, also means to miss a target, as in archery). You, however, are saying that the Torah's set of rituals (with their rabbinic interpretations) are arbitrary, so transgressing them is not a sin. My challenge to you then is threefold: (a) Why bother with this particular set of rituals at all, especially since some of them are downright weird? (b) Who says the Torah's moral system is not equally arbitrary, based as it seems to be in ancient Near East realities? Why not just embrace modern Western moral philosophy instead? And (c) if you wish to uproot the Torah's a priori categories, where does that leave the entire notion of sin, which also derives from the Torah? MATT: Your three challenges boil down to the notion that Judaism is one indivisible system - take it or leave it. If I don't accept the authority of biblical theology and rabbinic law, should I not abandon Judaism altogether? My answer to this question is a resound- ing "no". My attachment to Judaism derives not from a rational philosophical proposition but from my membership of the Jewish people. I could no more abandon Judaism any more than I could abandon my family - however much I sometimes disagree with what they say. To me, being Jewish is not a choice, it's a fact. And this fact means that my life is shaped according to Jewish cultural patterns: what I eat (kashrut), when I rest (Shabbat), how I celebrate (the chagim) and, perhaps most importantly, where I live (Israel). As to the ethical front, I have a problem with any system of morality that bases itself on a handed-down tradition, whether divine or manmade. Instead, individuals and communities have the paradoxical responsibility of trying to realize the unknowable objective moral truth through shaping their own subjective ethical codes. In this sense, we modern Jews have an advantage: living on the cusp between two cultures constantly enables us to critically evaluate one set of values in terms of the other and thereby sharpen our own independent moral judgments. Can the concept of "sin" - the breaking of faith with God - still signify in this context? I believe it can. Mordecai Kaplan, the seminal modern Jewish philosopher, writes that when we talk about "God" we are really referring to the sum of all properties of the universe that "make for salvation." "God" is a label for the natural phenomena of love, creativity, justice and so on. Our role is to exploit the world's potential for perfectibility and to push the process forward, at the same time realizing our own and our communities' highest principles. Kaplan defines sin as human beings' betrayal of God in terms of our failure to live up to our own, self-defined ideals. Since I have made a values-decision to include elements of traditional observance in my life, sin refers not only to my ethical transgressions but also to times when my ritual behavior falls short of my own self-imposed standards. Nonetheless, I still have a hard time with the notion that sin can be atoned for in any other way than through soul searching, personal change and making amends. YAEL: Like you, "living on the cusp" and cultural criticism - the dialogue with modernity - is at the core of my conception of God and Torah, since for me Godliness is about living a holy life in the space where you are. So the essence of our argument seems to be: what exactly is God and what do I "owe" Him/Her/It? The verse with which we began this discussion specifically says God's commandments; the word "God" seems extraneous - we know whose commandments they are! The point is that both morality and ritual are all about Godliness and holiness. You said that tradition or family culture is not a base for morality and right-living. Not only do I agree, I think I take that statement more seriously than you do! Tradition should not serve in any way as the arbiter of my life, because my family may have it wrong; their rituals and morals may actually be highly immoral. I take my lead from Abraham, the first iconoclast, who had to break away from his culture in order to find the (objective!) truth; whereas you say, "being Jewish is not a choice but a fact," undermining the Abraham lesson. The only authority worth obeying beyond that of my own heart is that deriving from a transcendent, eternal Godly source. To me it seems silly to accept or engage the manmade moral/normative criteria of a bunch of ancient Jews (be it Moses or Kaplan) to the point where they shape my life. If I did not believe that the word of the omniscient God nestles within the Torah and also in the Talmud (to some extent), I would probably put all my stock in my own impulses or those of my peers. Returning to the topic of sin: since we no longer have sacrifices, you and I are now in agreement - soul searching and personal change are the only tools we have. But if God is a manmade agglomerate and our standards are self-imposed, then "sin" should not really require any more soul-searching than does breaking my diet by eating a bar of chocolate; and this will never create true soul-searching. For me, only the conception of the subjective within the Divine objective, the notion that I am part of a transcendent scheme, a fine balance set up in the world by its Creator, aiming to live a life of unique individual truth delineated by that greater, absolute, truth (whose ultimate parameters are beyond me and therefore require a certain level of blind obedience, as a religious impulse) would make me feel, when I am false to that scheme, that I have truly "missed the target." Anything else is by comparison a tale of "sound and fury, signifying nothing." |