For the second week in a row, our Torah presents a detailed account of the sacrifices offered first in the Mishkan in the wilderness and later in the Temple of Jerusalem. Sin offerings, guilt offerings, burnt offerings, and thanksgiving offerings, each with their own regulations and procedures, claim Jewish attention as the central means for Biblical Jews to atone for wrong-doing and to renew themselves as children of God.
Three out of the four sacrifices mentioned are the response of a fallible human being to yet more evidence of human fallibility. After realizing that they had committed a sin, Jews in the biblical period would offer a sacrifice as a way to acknowledge their own imperfection and their resolution to do better in the future. With one exception, the sacrifices we read about this week respond to human violations of the covenant with God.
But the Korban Todah, the thanksgiving offering was different at its core. Rather than emerging from the shortcomings of people, this offering responded to the abundant goodness of God. Whereas the other sacrifices attempt to make up for human imperfection or even evil, the Korban Todah is a celebration of life and its wonder.
The rabbis of antiquity were so enamored of this idea that they declared "in the coming time, all sacrifices will be annulled except for the thanksgiving sacrifice. And all prayers will be annulled except for prayers of thanksgiving."
In the language of a messianic future, this passage from Midrash Va-Yikra Rabbah asserts that suffering and failure to live up to our own highest potential is not an inevitable part of human identity. Instead, our shortcomings are products of this disappointments and pain that life entails. Human evil and violence is circumstantial--the harvest of pre-existent suffering. But goodness and gratitude are everlasting, at the very center of what it means to be a human being.
According to this talmudic view, long after human suffering has ended, long after the world has attained its full messianic promise, people will still feel a need to sing, to celebrate, and to thank. The task of the Jew is to start the singing early. In the midst of a world at war, a world of illness and poverty and ignorance and bigotry, we can light up the world with the fires of our thanksgiving.
Too often, we let the sufferings of life overwhelm our appreciation for its beauty. Sorrow may be the inevitable price we pay for love, but who would abandon love simply to lessen pain? Life summons us to rejoice at the bonds we can form, the majesty of a mountain range, or the tangy smell of the rushing waves.
The Midrash tells a story of a king who received callers. As each person offered the king a gift, the king would inquire who that person was. When informed that the person was a tenant of his, or a member of the court, the king would instruct his servants to take the offering and that would be the end of it. After all, seeking personal gain is not an especially meritorious or exceptional exercise. But when someone appeared before the king who was neither a member of his entourage nor a tenant on the kings' land, the king would be so moved by this spontaneous gift that he would have a special chair brought for this thoughtful citizen.
"Likewise [with sacrifices]: a sin-offering is brought for a sin, a guilt-offering is brought for a sin; but a thanksgiving-offering is not brought for a sin [and therefore the Torah records]: 'If it be for a thanksgiving, God will bring him near." Anyone can sincerely regret their own failures. Generally the time we do so is when the price for our selfishness or insensitivity is more than we are willing to pay.
In those moments, professions of concern or of regret stink too much of self-interest. Only gratitude and celebration can elevate beyond personal gain or profit. We lift ourselves upward only with eyes open to the beauty of the world, ears willing to hear the symphony of life around us and within us, and a nose able to sense the pleasing odors of flowers, loved ones, and familiar surroundings.
Judaism bids us retain hope that we can make a difference in the world through performing deeds of holiness and through reaching out to our fellow human beings to lighten their load. In the meantime, in a world awash with self-interet, rage, violence, and disappointment, it is not too soon to remind everybody to remember to rejoice. And to thank.
Shabbat Shalom.