One of the enigmatic things about the Bible is, no doubt, its obsession with animal sacrifices, which are described at length in this week's Torah portion Vayikra and in many others to follow in the book of Leviticus.
How do the many laws of animal sacrifices...serve as a road map for our personal journeys...?While not getting into the widely debated issue of the morality behind animal slaughtering, the question remains: Why does the Bible, the divine blueprint for living, find it necessary to devote hundreds of its verses to the laws of animal sacrifices? How do the many laws of animal sacrifices described in the Torah serve as a road map for our personal journeys in life?
Know Thy Animal
We have noted numerous times that every law and episode recorded in the Torah
may be appreciated not only from a physical and concrete point of view, but also
from a metaphysical perspective.
The detailed laws of animal sacrifices are no exception. Physically, they don't
relate to us in our present age, but on a psychological and spiritual level,
these laws relate to us a timeless message for human challenge and growth.
Deleting them from the Bible is an amputation of a vital, indispensable
component of the spiritual opportunities life offers us.
Every human being possesses an animal-consciousness within him or her. This dimension of our identity, constituting our regularly experienced sense of self, is self-oriented and self-absorbed. Its exclusive quest in life is self-preservation and gratification. It’s one question, repeated before every encounter and before every endeavor, is "What is in this for me?"
In stark contrast to this conspicuous layer of self lays a deeper dimension of
identity, a G‑dly consciousness, a yearning to transcend the self and to connect
with ultimate truth and reality. It is a layer of self that allows us to love
altruistically and to seek higher, idealistic goals in life.
This inherent dichotomy in the human structure gives rise to the perpetual
struggle existing in the human psyche: the conflict between self-centeredness
and self-transcendence, the tussle between frivolousness and immorality and
genuine meaning and spirituality.
The Mission of Life
According to the Kabbalah (Eitz Chaim
Portal 37; quoted in Tanya chapter 37) the G‑dly
consciousness was born into this world and tucked into an animal consciousness
and body with the sole purpose of refining this inner animal identity and
elevating it to the plane of the spirit.
It is called upon to take a
rock and turn it into a diamond.
Each soul was given a "custom-made" animal consciousness as its special pupil
for the years they will be spending together on earth. The Divine soul is
charged with the mission of educating and sublimating the animal self, of
actualizing its deepest, yet latent, potentials. It is called upon to take a
rock and turn it into a diamond.
When the G‑dly soul fails to perform its task of cultivating and educating its
animal-student, the animal self can become a dangerous force. To be sure, the
animal self is not inherently evil, merely selfish. Yet in its never-ending
quest for self-preservation and self-enhancement, it can turn into a monster,
demolishing itself and other people in its beastly urge for self-assertion and
gratification. What was a little once-upon-a-time cute animal existing in our
heart may turn into an undomesticated wild beast that is coarse, profane and
destructive.
This is why the Bible is so obsessed with animal offerings. After all, our chief task in life is to challenge our own inner animal, every day anew, bringing it one step closer to our higher, deeper self, and to the G‑dly space within us.
[In fact, the Hebrew term for sacrifice is 'korban', which does not really mean sacrifice but rather "to draw near." This demonstrates the Torah's approach to korbanot: a way to bring the human animal closer to its own inner reality and source. —YYJ]
The Four-Step Program
But how does one achieve this difficult goal?
That's the reason for the many nuanced laws concerning animal offerings
throughout the Bible. It is no easy task to refine your animal and different
people struggle with different types of animals. Therefore, the Torah devotes
hundreds of verses to the subject, guiding human beings on their path to
confront and deal with the various forms of animals existing in their psyche.
Generally, the Bible states that all animal offerings required the following
four steps. First, you had to verbally declare that you are dedicating this
animal to become an offering. Second, the animal was slaughtered by cutting both
its esophagus and trachea (food pipe and windpipe). Third, its blood was
sprinkled on the walls of the altar situated in the Holy Temple. Finally, parts
of the animal fat were removed and burned in a flame on top of the altar.
What do these rituals represent in man's psychological work on his animal self?
The first step in dealing with the animal in you is the determination and
commitment to change the status quo of your life and to challenge your animal
identity.
In the next stage, you must take the bull by its horns and exert full control
over its very life and identity. To really refine your animal, you have to show
it who's boss. No ifs, ands or buts. If you let your animal continue living its
own life, there is no hope for genuine refinement and reorientation.
Particularly, you must challenge the way your animal eats and drinks, symbolized
by the cutting of the food pipe, and the type of oxygen it inhales, symbolized
by the windpipe; you have to change both the atmosphere which surrounds it and
the type of information being fed to it.
...you ought never to destroy the fervor and
passion of your animal self.
In the third step, you take the blood of your animal and sprinkle it on an
altar. This signifies the fact that you ought never to destroy the fervor and
passion of your animal self. Rather, you must take it and sanctify it to G‑d,
reorienting it toward lofty and spiritual goals.
Finally, you take its fat and burn in on top of the altar. Fat represents
indulgence and pleasure seeking. As you begin the process of animal sublimation,
you will discover how the same "fatty" enjoyment you experienced previously in
your animalistic patterns can now be experienced in living a life of meaning.
So for those of us who struggle with such animal-like aspects as laziness,
anger, self-centeredness, addiction, depression, apathy and dishonesty, the laws
of animal offerings provide a written plan for corralling those impulses,
breaking their wildness and converting them to a G‑dly use. By doing so, we take
our animal personality and bring it closer to the higher truth.
(Based on Likutei Torah Vayikra; Likkutei Sichot vol. 4. Hosafot Vayikra.)
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