If the observation of the French philosopher Voltaire that “the Bible is more famous than known” is true, then anthropologist Mary Douglas’ comment regarding the third book of the TaNaKh is its confirmation. Leviticus, she says,
- “Is usually put into a kind of glass cabinet: it can be looked at, respected, and wondered at, but the real heart of religion is presumed to be found in other parts of the Bible, especially Genesis, Exodus, and Deuteronomy, and the writings of the psalmists and prophets.“
Though “Leviticus” may probably seem the less relevant of the foundational texts for the people of Israel today, the subject of the Temple in Jerusalem and the sacrifices offered there is much a part of the discussion that needs to be carried about Israel’s religion.
One reason why the themes of the Book of Leviticus cannot be sidestepped in a serious conversation about Jewish religion is because the Temple and the performance of sacrifices are intrinsically embedded in Jewish liturgy.
Another, not less important, reason is that now that there is a sovereign state of Israel there are several groups committed to the rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple and re-instituting animal sacrifices.
However, and this is probably the most fundamental reason, no grasp of the Jewish understanding of God is possible without considering the message that Jewish ritual intends to convey.
Again, in the words of Mary Douglas:
“Leviticus reveals itself as a theological treatise in the full sense of the word and fully in the biblical tradition.”
The difficulty of theological thought, which may account for why it is not ubiquitous among Jews, is that there is always more than one way of understanding God. This, of course, does not sit well with those for whom their thinking is “my way or the highway,” particularly when more than one way of understanding God also means more than one way of understanding His will.
Though the Book of Leviticus almost consistently exposes only one theological understanding, it is, to use a term of modern parlance, in “tension” with other understandings in the Foundational Literature itself.
To begin, pre-exilic prophets seem to have questioned the accuracy of the Leviticus report stating that the Israelites used to sacrifice in the desert. In fact, the prophet Jeremiah is unequivocal:
For in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices.
Modern criticism—as Robert P. Carroll notes in his commentary to the above paragraph of Jeremiah—“regards the massively detailed instructions on sacrifice in the primary narrative as being much later than the period into which they are set. In many cases the regulations on sacrifice and its preeminence in the life of the community may reflect the cultic arrangements of post-exilic Jerusalem. […] A similar denial of the institution of sacrifice in the wilderness period appears in Amos 5:25. […] These criticisms of the Jerusalem sacrificial cult […] accurately point out that originally such a system was not part of the nation’s past. “
Even if some scholars, like Roland de Vaux, argue that “the words of Amos and Jeremiah […] must not be torn out of their immediate context: they form part of oracles directed, not against the cult itself, but against the external and material cult that was practiced by their contemporaries. […] in the desert, they claim, men did not act as they do nowadays, […] They ought to have added ‘sacrifices like ones you offer,’” it is still impossible to ignore that there is a prophetic criticism to the practice of sacrifices.
Rabbi Jacob B. Agus makes it clear that
“The prophets did not argue for the abolition of all rites and ceremonies, as sometimes supposed. Isaiah received his first vision in the Temple, Ezekiel outlined the shape of the restored Temple, and Haggai and Malachi participated in the dedication of the second Temple. But the prophets taught that rites were instruments of piety, not substitutes for genuine devotion and worship.”
So, even if clearly the prophetic mind is not played against the priestly mind, the criticism stands; it is based on the premise as Richard Rubenstein expresses it that
“If men had more insight, they by no means need the gratuitous ritual of harming even an animal. On this fact rests the strongest argument in favor of the abolition of the sacrificial mode. The argument, however, cannot stand because it is based upon a very questionable premise, “if men had more insight…” […]. ”
The sacrifices, an imperfect practice, were eventually replaced prominently by study:
“R. Aha said in the name of R. Hanina b. Papa: In order that Israel might not say, ‘In the past we used to offer up sacrifices and engage in the study of them; now there are no sacrifices; is it necessary to engage in the study of them?’ The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Israel, ‘If you engage in the study of them, I account it unto you as if you had offered them up.’ […] The Holy One, blessed be He, said, “Seeing that you are engaged in the study of Mishnah, it is as if you were offering up sacrifices.”
The Book of Leviticus, which is studied for the next few weeks, not only gives the opportunity for some theological and ethical discussion, but it also invites delving into issues such as order and chaos, disgust, disdain, contempt, fear, awe, affliction, pain, and sadness. This is because, as Dario Galati, Renato Miceli, and Marco Tamietto in their “Emotions and feelings in the Bible: analysis of the Pentateuch’s affective lexicon” tell us, “Leviticus deals with the rules of purity that distinguish what is good and healthy from what is unhealthy and unclean, and thus a source of sensory and moral disgust.”