Sacrifice, burn and obey
Holy smoke, bloody entrails
Faith from destruction?

G-d is famous for running short meetings; it's the dictation sessions that drag on. So maybe it went something like this:

Always tell them, "No".
When they ask why, tell them to
read Leviticus.

Of course, Christ's dIsciples were only human. So in Acts of the Apostles, Peter and the rest of the Twelve were true politicians:

Six hundred laws? Feh!
Tell the Gentiles, "Only four!"
We'll add more later.

Thanks for sharing this; what a great web site!

David Ash
www.BashoPress.com

This Torah portion (Leviticus 1.1-5.26) is very important for all those who regularly sacrifice animals or make meal offerings. Anyone? Anyone? There are detailed instructions on arranging the fat and the entrails, the skin and the waste matter, the legs and the liver and of course, the sprinkling of the blood on the horns of the alter or at the base of the alter. There is the reminder to use salt, but never leavening or honey. And who can say they never got confused on when to offer a male goat and when to use an unblemished female goat, a sheep, or turtle doves? Anyone? Anyone?

If you are Orthodox, you have to spend time on these Old Testament passages because it's traditional. Some of us who are not tied to the same study syllabus used in the middle ages, might want to take our Bible study time this week to perhaps look at other questions. Let's consider one alternative topic.

In the middle of a financial meltdown triggered by the issuance and sale around the world of trillions of dollars in derivatives, much of which were never capable of being valued by the buyers, the question arises as to whether adhering to Bible based Reform Jewish ethics (at least by the Jews involved in the financial industry) could have averted the crisis we are in. Did the Jews have a religious, ethical obligation to not sell something they knew was vastly overpriced, or something with a bond rating that they recognized as unjustifiable? Was it the ethical obligation of those who could foresee the unfairness of the transactions to not only refuse to participate in them and decline opportunity to enrich themselves, but also to demand that their companies cease and desist from such activities and attempt to warn the public and the government of the danger? Did executives who authorized or took enormous salaries and bonuses selling these derivatives have some obligation to refuse the millions in compensation because of the likelihood that the sales would eventually result in huge, maybe ruinous liability to their companies? In other words, was their work actually creating a huge benefit for their companies as suggested by the short term cash flow, or was all this an illusion which they knew, or should have known, would wreak havoc when the chickens (inevitably) came home to roost. Was there an element of greed that should have been recognized by anyone who attended Sunday School? Of course, most of the people in the financial industry were not Reform Jews, but they were not entirely absent either. Were there enough that if they had been true to the teachings of the prophets, they would have been able to avert the crisis or lessen its severity? Would their example have been sufficient to influence the conduct of Protestant and Catholic co-workers who have the same prophetic passages in their Old Testaments as we do? Where were the rabbis, theologians and lay leaders? Did they cry out against the misconduct, or is that not their responsibility? If this is, in fact, a crisis brought on by ethical failures, rather than by mere errors of economists, why is that not being discussed in a Reform blog?

If we Reform Jews want to allocate some of our Bible study to animal sacrifice in ancient times, I would urge that it given a much lower priority. Let us first address the issues which materially impact our lives and the lives of people throughout the world -- life or death issues, quality of life issues, bread and butter issues, issues which hit home.

M.B. says:
If you are Orthodox, you have to spend time on these Old Testament passages because it's traditional. Some of us who are not tied to the same study syllabus used in the middle ages, might want to take our Bible study time this week to perhaps look at other questions.

Actually, if you are Orthodox, or for that matter Reform or Conservative, you don't acknowledge an Old Testament, because that gives credence to a New. These passages are from the Hebrew Scriptures, and they are part of our legacy regardless of our denominational identification. We spend time on them not because it's traditional, but because it's parashat hashavua, the portion of the week, read by all Jews, worldwide, even if boycotted by those who have made up their own form of Reformed Judaism, based on their thorough misreading of modern Jewish history.

If I might say it in haiku:
Orthodox. Reform.
We have the same covenant,
Despite fool's prattle.

Ed, please remember

M B dislikes haiku too,

Not just Leviticus.