We usually read this week's Torah portion perfunctorily, not really connecting to its message. This week's Torah portion, Vayikra (and many of the other Torah portions in the book of Leviticus) is about the various animal sacrifices performed in the Holy Temple. Modern man cannot grasp the connection between the ritual slaughtering of animals and connecting to the Creator. A slaughterhouse seems diametrically opposed to the Holy Temple.
The reason for this inability to connect to animal sacrifices has nothing to do with animal rights. After all, most people have no problem biting into a juicy steak. The bite of steak comes to quiet hunger and to satiate a physical appetite. We can easily understand and accept that. But the thought that an apparently similar action can fill a spiritual need cannot be easily integrated into our modern consciousness. A priest is not supposed to marry and a person who is busy perfecting the physical world is expected to accept his inferior spiritual status. Our difficulties with animal sacrifices stem from the fact that we no longer have the holistic consciousness that would allow us to understand them. The Holy Temple is not the problem; we are.
Those people who have the merit to ascend to the Temple Mount in purity are familiar with the northern side of the plateau. There, at the place where the plaza that was north of the altar is in full view, the Mishna in Tractate Zevachim that we read every morning becomes tangible and inspiring:
"What is the place of the sacrifices? The kodshei kodashim are slaughtered in the north, the bull and the goat are slaughtered in the north and their blood is gathered in the holy vessel in the north."
The Mishnah goes on to depict the specific place in the Temple where the animals are slaughtered. Most of them are slaughtered exactly at this northern point. Suddenly, the technical words that we read in this week's Torah portion or mumble every morning, totally disconnected, come alive. Suddenly, the heart opens again and ascends from the grave of destruction and exile to a complete and connected reality.
And the question no longer exists.
Shabbat Shalom
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