EE & R, 3_11: Between the Torah and the Prophets: Sacrifice and Sin
(For the previous installment of "Exodus, Exile and Redemption," click here. For ToC, click here.)
At the heart of the Torah lies the unknowability of Hashem. From this unknowability emerges the meaning of sacrificial worship, reflected in three interconnected ways that are, in essence, one.
Since Hashem is inscrutable, we worship Him through surrender. Unable to fully emulate His ways and carry out His will in its entirety, we offer sacrifices as the highest form of worship, in expression of deference and reverence.
Since we don’t know the essence of Hashem, the ultimate reality, all human understanding is incomplete. The mystery that underpins existence renders even the value of our own being uncertain. Therefore, we offer animal sacrifices to symbolize suicide, the ultimate negation of value.1
Since we are ignorant of Hashem, our actions cannot fully align with His actions. Consequently, the product of our toil remains something distinct, originating in our own limited understanding and existing separately from the divine realm. Sacrifice, then, becomes a way of offering back to God what is inherently ours, bridging the divide between human imperfection and the divine perfection that lies beyond our reach.2
The single root notion of sacrifice is human unknowing, our limitation. And it is this that connects sacrificial worship with sin, atonement for which is achieved through offering a sacrifice. To sin is simply to act with imperfect knowledge of the good;3 and to bring sacrifice is to acknowledge this state of fallibility in which humanity finds itself. In this sense, to bring a sacrifice is to identify as a sinner, for it is sin itself that gives sacrifice its meaning.
The prophets’ opposition to sacrifice aligns with their message that man could and should be kind, just and righteous through perfect knowledge of the good, for the notion represented by sacrifice justifies man’s state of sin – a state the prophets insist could be overcome.
Sin highlights human ignorance, guiding the sinner toward the Mosaic perspective that we cannot truly know God. In recognizing this truth, the sinner adopts Moshe’s defining character trait – humility. As Maimonides writes:
The manner of penitents is to be very humble and modest. (Laws of Repentance, 7:8)
Sin and repentance, which follows on its heels, guide a person toward the ultimate truth – one that stands higher than any other, a truth Moshe alone fully understood. The repentant sinner, having confronted and accepted human limitation, stands closer to this truth than the perfectly righteous person, who has never sinned and still clings to the possibility of human perfection. In this profound way, the repentant sinner surpasses the perfectly righteous, as the Talmud teaches:
In the place where penitents stand, even the perfectly righteous do not stand. (Berachos 34b)
It is the sinner, having confronted his own imperfection, who reaches the loftiest truth of all.