Vayikra/Leviticus: Explaining Animal Sacrifice

By Rabbi David Mark

    We Jews have been urbanized for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years. In our holiest literature, the Torah, a great deal of the text consists of descriptions of sacrifice—how much to offer, how to prepare it, including anatomical descriptions, and who gets to eat of it. We stand in awe of Aaron’s four sons—Nadav, Avihu, Elazar and Itamar—the elder pair of whom died for the crime of offering “strange fire” before God during the coronation of the Sanctuary. Making sacrificial offerings, we learn, could be dangerous for the careless and unwary, and they did not take this responsibility lightly.

    At the same time, even the vegans among us can recognize the centrality of animal (as well as grain and incense) offerings in the Holy Place. Our ancestors were shifting from a pastoral existence to agriculture, which we understand to be a higher level of civilization. As long ago as the early-Genesis tale of Cain and Abel—the farmer and the shepherd—God showed a clear preference for meat over grain, beef over fruit and vegetables. 

Even God Himself is depicted as being attracted to the smell of meat being cooked in the open air, and the late-Judges kohanim, Hophni and Pinchas (I Samuel), are punished for being selective about which sections of meat they receive and how it ought to be cooked—boiled beef was, to their greedy selves, less attractive than roasted, and they died for altering God’s commands.

How shall we understand all this preparation and slaughter? Was the Holy Sanctuary truly holy by our modern lights, or simply an abattoir? Another way of understanding this primitive field-to-burnt-offering process is taken from the verse, “And if a person wishes to offer an offering from the cattle” meaning that a person does not only make a meat-offering, but rather takes a part of his animal nature, subdues it, and subjects it to the will of God. This means that the sacrifice symbolizes the human struggle to lift up our animal selves in search of the spiritual. I am uncertain as to how much I agree with this, but there are aspects of the idea that make it attractive as a way of comprehending the efficacy of sacrifice.

Clearly, our ancestors came from a different view of human thought and behavior than we. It is probable that a priest of the olden days would not take seriously our modern requirement of certain prepared foods that their ingredients be guaranteed not to be derived from animals. More than we, they lived closely connected to the soil that sustained themselves and the domesticated animals with which they shared their existence. I am certain that many modern Jews, disagreeing as we do with the sacrificial laws of the Torah, can nonetheless garner some insight from the values of our forebears who, when all is said and done, ate a great deal less meat than we do. In the end, it all comes down to serving God, and the degree to which we seek to hallow our existence through what we eat.

OUR RABBI - David Hartley Mark

WATCH RABBI MARK , To Life, L'Chaim #217 - Rabbi David Mark (You Tube)

Rabbi David Hartley Mark was born in New York City, and grew up on the Lower East Side, that legendary Jewish immigrant neighborhood, attending Hebrew Day School. He was first from his school, the East Side Torah Center, to attend Yeshiva University High School for Boys—Manhattan. David attended Yeshiva University, where he attained a BA in English Literature, a BS in Bible and Jewish Education, and a Hebrew Teacher’s Diploma (HTD). He spent his third year of college at Bar Ilan University in Ramat-Gan, Israel, where he developed a fluency in Hebrew, and toured around the country. He has also attained a Certificate in Advanced Jewish School Administration from the Hebrew College in Brookline, MA.

David attended the City University of New York Graduate Center, where he earned an MA degree from Queens College, as well as an M.Phil. degree, majoring in 17th Century English, specializing in the work of John Milton, as well as the Romantic Poets. A year teaching Hebrew School in a Reform temple in Brooklyn convinced him of his great love of Judaism, and he began attending the Academy for Jewish Religion, Yonkers, NY, where he was ordained a rabbi in 1980.

He met Anbeth, who was hired as temple secretary the same day he was hired to teach. They were married in 1978. They have two grown children, Tyler and Jordan, as well as a grandson, Aidan.

Rabbi Mark served pulpits in Warren, NJ, Fayetteville, NC, and Portsmouth, NH, in which last pulpit he spent 22 years, a record for that state. Seeking warmer climes, as well as closer family members, he and Anbeth took the pulpit of Temple Sholom in 2009. He also fulfilled a lifetime dream of teaching English at Keiser University in Ft. Lauderdale.  

OUR CANTOR - ANITA SCHUBERT

 

Cantor Anita Schubert, grew up in Queens and Lynbrook in New York, says it was a combination of her love for both singing and religion that led her to train to become a cantor. “I grew up in a conservative synagogue. My parents weren’t super religious,” she said. “I started going to shabbat services and never stopped. I learned the musical chants . . . all the right stuff. I picked it up and was able to lead services as well. When I was a teenager I was asked to be one of the adult leaders in the junior congregation. I graduated to running it.”

Although she found her niche leading her congregation, it never occurred to her to be a cantor. “I was the wrong gender until the 80s.” As for her musical style, “It’s mostly a cappella. But I have been accompanied by someone on guitar and piano.”

Her academic background includes both undergraduate and graduate courses in music theory, sight-singing, ear-training, music history, conducting, choral arranging, voice building for choirs, vocal training, as well as studying the piano and flute. Plus, “I began singing in choirs starting in the third grade.”

She also took college courses in Hebrew, modern Jewish thought and the history of Jewish music.

Schubert said although women had been taking cantorial courses, they were not considered cantors at first. However, things changed for the better when women were finally accepted into the Cantors Assembly, an international association representing the cantorial profession.

Schubert has been actively working as a cantor at various congregations around the nation for many years before her new position at Temple Sholom. She realizes her coming here will be an historic event for the local place of worship. And what will she bring to her new congregation? “My spirit, my choice of music. We have a lot of options. We go beyond the traditional.”

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