From the Heart Flows Life

This reflection is part of the ongoing Forest Hills Haftorah Series. The rest of the content can be found here: https://www.sefaria.org/groups/FHJC-Haftorah-Series .

The very end of the book of Exodus is an incredibly climactic moment, one that the book had been building towards for upwards of fifteen chapters!

Here is how it all starts, back in chapter 25:

YHWH then goes on to explain, to the very finest of details, exactly how everything is to be set up (and gee is there ever a lot!)

Then after the explanation, we get yet another detailed account of the details, as the Israelites are actually doing the crafting and building.

But all the while, YHWH's stated goal is reverberating in the background:

Finally we would arrive at the grand finale, the last several verses of Exodus, in which the Israelites and YHWH, together, actualize this shared dream:

Thus ends the book of Exodus.

But hold on! The climax is not yet done!

For as it turns out, the very first sentence of the book of Leviticus is basically a continuation of the last sentence of Exodus:

Interesting how the whole book begins with a conjunction! Have you ever noticed that before?

But what's even more puzzling is the very first topic that YHWH would address, upon basically settling down on what will be his permanent throne amidst Israel, a glorious moment!

What would you think is the most appropriate First Pronouncement, or inauguration speech, that a king would make when sitting on his Throne for the first time? Maybe something about his grand vision for the future; Or how he cares for his people and will rule them fairly; Or maybe reminiscing on his people's history and celebrating past accomplishments.

Not YHWH.

YHWH gets right down to business, speaking of the workings of the sacrificial system, a topic he would dwell on, non-stop, for the next seven chapters, detailing all the different categories, occasions, and all the complicated how-to's.

Many people find these chapters a bit of a chore to read. There's lots of talk about blood, lots of talk about procedure, lots of repetition and monotony.

But the authors of the Priestly texts were such deeply philosophical thinkers, who expressed what I think are some of the most profound sentiments in the collections in the TaNaKh.

But they don't just hand it to us; They make us work; It takes digging and reading between the lines to get at the roots of how this intricate and priestly system speaks to a very thoroughly worked-out and thoughtful understanding of far-reaching theological concepts.

I'll give you a taste as to what I'm talking about.

Consider the following spectrum:

Imminence------------------------------------------------------ Transcendence

Where, on this scale, would you put YHWH according to your understanding?

Is he Imminent, in that he is easily accessible to each and every once of us wherever and however we are?

Can we turn to him as child turns to a parent with a request, or with a plea for help? Can we turn to him as we would to a dear friend, seeking comfort and assurance? Is he present, in the world with us, rejoicing at our successes and aching with our pains? And would his immediate presence result in a feeling of security and homeness.

OR

Is he Transcendent, in that he is BIG and LOFTY, unknowable and unapproachable? Such that we can never encounter him, but only whatever footprint he might have left behind in the deeds he has done? And were one to encounter him directly, the experience would be terrifying beyond belief!

If you read the Priestly texts very carefully, I think you'll see that they had such questions in mind, and that wrestling with these very questions informed the development of the whole of the Priestly sacrificial system!

The first offering we read about in Leviticus is called the Olah offering, which you might see translated as the Elevation offering, or the Burnt offering, or the Holocaust offering:

I italicized and bolded the important part at the end. The oleh-offering is an offering that gets completely burnt upon the altar. No one else has a share.

Perhaps you find this unsurprising; For if one is bringing an offering to the Tabernacle, who would you expect would be able to eat from it? Of course it would be burnt completely to symbolize that it is going solely to YHWH - right???

Well, now let's take a look at another offering called the Shelamim, which you might see translated as the Peace-offering or the Well-being offering:

And now we have to pay a little more attention, because it is what's left unsaid that 's of interest.

Firstly, what exactly is being burnt in the above passage?

• The fat over the entrails;
• The two kidneys and their fat;
• The protuberance of the liver

Notice the emphasis in the last verse; Those Aaron's sons shall turn to smoke.

But an animal is made out of much more than these fats, right? So what's happening to the rest of it!

Well for that, we have to jump ahead to chapter 7:

Again, I italicized and bolded the point of importance above, though I included the whole paragraph because we have to take all of it into account, along with the passage from Leviticus 3.

What comes out from this is that YHWH himself receives the fats, the priests get the wafers, and whichever Israelite or Judean brings the offering, he himself gets to eat the rest!

And so embedded within the Priestly sacrificial system are at least two vastly qualitatively different types of offerings that an individual may voluntarily bring;

One, the Olah, which goes to YHWH entirely which no one else can touch.

And another, the Shelamim, which goes partly to YHWH, partly to the priests, but the majority of which the offerer gets to keep himself! Which, in effect, results in communion, the sharing of a meal between an everyday Israelite or Judean and his/her family on one hand, with YHWH on the other. As if they are all sitting at the same table, eating from the very same foods and sharing a moment of closeness!

The Priestly sacrificial system, without doing so explicitly, but just by virtue of the various types of offerings and their procedures, have lots to say about whether our relationship to YHWH, or how YHWH manifests himself in the world, is one of Imminence or Transcendence.

Perhaps he's both/and. Perhaps he's sometimes one and sometimes another. Perhaps in each of our lives, we experience him as one or the other, while the truth is somewhere in between.

While it might not be clear how exactly to interpret this aspect of the Priestly system, I think they were most definitely trying to express something as they wrestled with this type of question; This, and many others, in such fascinating ways.

So as one starts to dig, you start to see how the Priestly sacrificial system is as deep as it is incredibly intricate. And in the eyes of the Priestly writers, this system was of the greatest, most utmost importance; So much so that they would imagine that it would be the very first thing YHWH would speak about upon sitting on his earthly Throne!!!

But what's also fascinating is that the storytellers of ancient Israel and Judah preserved a memory far, far older than that of YHWH speaking to Moses of the olah and shelamim offerings.

A memory that goes all the way back to humankind's first sacrifice ever:

I'll tell you why I love this passage;

Neither Cain nor Hevel inherited any kind of system. They didn't have rites or rituals or ceremonies. There was just something about being alive, of having nefesh-chaiim, the breath of life, and being in a world surrounded by life and by nature; A world that their parents told them had been created by a Creator.

Cain, and then his younger brother Hevel after him, were so moved by this so as to respond as we see them doing in the above passage; by bringing a gift.

Unlike the perspective we get from the Israelite Priestly writers, in this story, bringing an offering, or a gift, to the Almighty, was not something that was imposed upon humankind from the top-down. But it originated from deep within the human heart;

Be it out of gratitude, out of love, out of a desire to "give-back" or be in relationship, we can't know what it was exactly.

But whatever it was, it was a a genuine response, a response of authenticity, which expressed something deep and completely sincere.

Personally, I think it's a really important point that the Israelites and Judeans preserved such a model of sacrifice-origin alongside the Priestly system;

For whenever something is systematized, with procedures detailed and clearly laid out, there is always a risk; A risk that our prophets spoke to, time and time again.

Consider the following statement by Malachi, a 5th-century Judean prophet, noteworthy for being the very last prophet of whom we would have oracles preserved in the whole TaNaKh-collection!

YHWH is hurt, angry. And assuming his claims are true, then rightfully so! Could the priests really have been offering the most blemished of animals, alongside defiled foods on the Altar of YHWH???

We'll come back to this.

But first, let's take a moment to rewind to the other side of the "Literary Prophet"-timeline, to the very beginning, about 300 years earlier - the 8th century BCE!

It was in this century where there would be four Giants of ministry in Israel and Judah. One of them, Isaiah, would open up his first chapter with some themes that would intersect in interesting ways with what we just saw from Malachi:

This is quite interesting. What we have here are two bookends, basically, to the Literary Prophets of Israel and Judah of yore. Isaiah at one end, and Malachi at the other. And it seems like Malachi is playing around with the themes and images with which Isaiah began his collection of oracles, between the rebellious son and the criticism of offerings.

But there's a hugely important difference here - and that's the reason that YHWH was unhappy with the offerings that were being brought.

Look what YHWH goes on to say in Isaiah's work:

As you read throughout the whole first chapter and come across verses such as these immediately after the critique of offerings, it seems that the offerings in-and-of-themselves were quite impressive. They were fattened, all the suets would be included, they were accompanied by an abundance of prayer.

The problem was the hypocrisy.

The Israelites and Judeans would feign piety while within the Temple Precinct; But then upon leaving the immediate presence of the El-of-mercy-and-grace, they would do worse than ignore the plight of the poor, the downtrodden, the oppressed; They would participate in the exploitation!

This, the Ever-loving-and-compassionate-One, would find repulsive.

But then by the time we get to Malachi - remember, around 300 years later - and the Judeans have long since ceased even pretending!

They no longer bring the fattened, the healthy, or the clean. Now they are bringing the offerings that are blemished in every way; Animals that they might not even eaten from themselves.

If you can imagine such a thing, the Altar itself had become akin to a garbage pile.

This should be as puzzling as it is tragic; This system of offerings we're talking about was meant to foster a real, a lively, a deep, an intimate connection between Israel and her elohim!

Remember the profound truths that we suggested the original priestly-craftsmen of the system might have been attempting to express, or speak to? Remember the heartfelt authenticity of Cain, who had never been instructed in systems in his life, but just felt moved, or an urge, to take something from his life and offer it up to his Creator?

All of that is long since gone, and everything has since become rote.

Even after exile and redemption, the action of throwing something onto a fire-pit had usurped, completely, that which bringing an offering, once upon a time, had been meant to accomplish. YHWH had been all but banished, to be replaced with a stack of stones, some bloods, and greasy fats.

And the system which had been intended to be the means by which the El Elyon would be worshipped and celebrated and adored, had degenerated into idolatry, with these rote motions being the very deity that the Judeans were now serving.

I want to revisit a line from the Herald of Zion - one that we looked at together a few weeks ago:

(It was in our limmud called To All who Thirst! and can be found here: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/272015?lang=bi

It is one of those passages from the collection in the TaNaKh which never fails to inspire me:

The Herald informs us that there are wellsprings of ever-flowing water, not to mention wine and milk and the richest foods - all of this readily available, at no cost, to anyone and everyone who just... Thirsts.

That's it!

Thirst, the Herald says, and come on over, and this will all be waiting for you!

What I see from the condemnations of Isaiah and Malachi is that nothing kills this thirst more quickly than complacency in systems.

In truth, the Priestly system can probably work wonders when it is at its best, when it is accompanied by thoughtfulness, by mindful intention.

But with complacency, the initial purpose behind a given system can slowly fade into the background, until being forgotten entirely.

The Israelites and Judeans once had a real thirst, a thirst with roots going all the way back to the first human beings ever born. No one told Cain or Hevel what to do or how to do it; They felt inspired, and so acted accordingly. They had thirst.

The Priestly writers, utter geniuses and perhaps some of the deepest thinkers humankind has ever produced - they, too had a thirst, a thirst so powerful they would dedicate themselves to crafting a system which would speak to the minds and hearts of an entire people!

But possibly because of how successful the Priestly writers were, this system went unquestioned and unchallenged for far too long. And people became complacent in the system itself, eventually performing the motions because of the system, rather then out of the relentless pursuit of being in constant communion with YHWH.

Reading these prophets' critique of the lives of my own ancestors, for me, was akin to seeing a window into my own soul.

I started catching myself dutifully going through the motions of systems everywhere I looked. Motions yes - thought and intention, unfortunately no. I was just chucking my offerings onto a bonfire and moving right along. It's not even that I felt that my thirst was being quenched. I had long since noticed whether I even had a thirst to begin with!

And so, a re-evaluation was in order. In doing so, I came up with a few questions that I have found personally very helpful. 'll share them with you here, in case any of them speak to you as well.

• What is the physical sensation of thirst? And what is it like to experience the sweetness of fresh, chilled water running down the throat on a hot and humid day? Am I able to yearn for YHWH in my life the same way I would yearn for that water? If I truly did - how would I act on that yearning?

• How alive is my prayer life? Do I ever pray something I don't fully understand, or that I do not fully agree with? Do I ever utter something only because it is included in liturgy - and not because it is something that I want to express, or ask for, or share with YHWH from the depth of my own heart?

• What rituals do I do? Why do I do them? Am I doing them because they are ritual? Or, because they help to express something, or maybe instill something within me that I find valuable in it's own right?

• When was the last time I have evaluated the ways with which I try to connect with YHWH? When was the last time I decided to no longer do something that was once habit? When was the last time I tried something new?

With that, I'm going to leave you with just a couple of brief passages from our predecessors that have inspired me.

First, an ancient Israelite proverb:

What a proverb! More then anything, protect your heart.

To do anything at all by rote, with no other reason other than that it is tradition, is to conduct ourselves without heart. And without heart, according to this proverb, there is no life.

And now the prayer-poem:

What I get out of this is that YHWH wants authenticity. If someone cannot even speak truth in their own heart, then they are unable, or unwelcome, to dwell on the holy mountain, to sojourn with YHWH in his tent.

And by the the way, I can't not mention that this has echoes of what YHWH said to our dear great-grandfather Abraham!

Remember what YHWH asked of him?

Wholesomeness; That's what YHWH wanted then, and I think that that's what he wants from us now as well, as much as is possible, at every given moment. Wholesomeness, authenticity, devotion, love; Systems can certainly help us in this pursuit, and in as much as they do, we should embrace them.

But may we never lose sight of the fact that ultimately, the idea is not adherence to systems, but to continuously and unceasingly come ever closer to YHWH, our thirst being quenched with the sweetest, most refreshing and rejuvenating waters; And may all things in our lives aid us in this endeavor!