Why do we sacrifice? (Rabbi Sacks on Vayikra, Covenant & Conversation)

The Office of Rabbi Sacks

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 601 Ratings

🗓️ 2 April 2025

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Welcome to Covenant & Conversation essays, Rabbi Sacks’ commentary on the weekly Torah portion, explores new ideas and sharing inspiration from the Torah readings of the week. Listen to this audio recording from Rabbi Sacks in 2015. To read and download the written essay and translations, click here: https://rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/vayikra/why-do-we-sacrifice/ You can also find our written article on Parshat Vayikra available to read, print, and share in multiple translations. For intergenerational discussion on the weekly Parsha and Haftara, a new FAMILY EDITION is now also available: https://rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation-family-edition/vayikra/why-do-we-sacrifice/ ----- For more articles, videos, and other material from Rabbi Sacks, please visit www.RabbiSacks.org and follow @RabbiSacks. The Rabbi Sacks Legacy continues to share weekly inspiration from Rabbi Sacks. With thanks to the Schimmel Family for their generous sponsorship of Covenant & Conversation, dedicated in loving memory of Harry (Chaim) Schimmel.

Transcript

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0:00.0	What do we sacrifice?
0:02.0	The laws of sacrifices that dominate the early chapters of the Book of Vajikra
0:07.0	are among the hardest in the terror to relate to in the present.
0:11.0	It's been almost 2,000 years since the temple was destroyed and the sacrificial system came to an end.
0:18.0	But Jewish thinkers, especially the more mystical among them,
0:21.6	strove to understand the inner significance of the sacrifices, the statement they made
0:26.9	by the relationship between humanity and God. They were thus able to rescue their spirit,
0:33.6	even if their physical enactment was no longer possible.
0:43.3	Among the simplest and yet most profound was the comment made by Ravshnei Zalman of Ladi,
0:45.1	the first Reba of Lubavich.
0:50.1	He noticed a grammatical oddity about the second line of today's parcia.
0:53.2	Speak to the children of Israel and say to them,
0:56.5	Adam ki Akriev Miqum, Korban Hashem.
0:59.9	When one of you offers a sacrifice to the Lord,
1:04.1	the sacrifice must be taken from the cattle, sheep, or goats.
1:07.5	Or so the verse would read if it were constructed according to the normal rules of grammar.
1:10.6	However, in Hebrew, the word order of the
1:12.7	sentence is strange and unexpected. We would expect to read Adam Mikhem Kiyakriv, when one of you
1:20.8	offers a sacrifice. Instead, what it says is Adam Kiyakriv Mikem, when one offers a sacrifice of you.
1:29.8	The essence of a sacrifice, said Rav Shnoya Zalman, is that we offer ourselves.
1:35.4	We bring to God our faculties, our energies, our thoughts and emotions.
1:39.8	The physical form of sacrifice, an animal offered on the altar, is only an external manifestation of an inner act.
	...

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