Tzav - Leviticus 6:1-8:36 - 4/11/25

“And the study of Torah is equal to them all…” (Shabbat 127a)

For nearly 2000 years, from the Patriarchal period (ca. 1800 BCE) to the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 CE, sacrifice was the principle method by which the Israelites worshiped God. This week’s Torah portion focuses on the specific tasks the priests were to engage in when conducting those sacrifices.

This practice put the ancient Israelites firmly within the norm of all the cultures of antiquity around them, from the Canaanites, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Babylonians and other peoples of Biblical times to the Greeks and later the Romans. What set the Israelites apart from all these other cultures was the genius of the Rabbis of the Talmud.

All these other ancient peoples faded into history as sacrificial cults died out.  With the destruction of the Temple and end of sacrifice, the Israelites should have died out as well. Rabbi Yochanan b. Zakkai is credited with saving Judaism from this fate. When the Temple was destroyed and the Romans exiled the Jews from Jerusalem, ben Zakkai convinced the Roman general Vespasian to allow him to take his students to Yavneh, in the Galilee, and set up an academy of Jewish learning there.  The academy of Yavneh established study and prayer as the center of Jewish life and practice, instead of sacrifice.

The Talmud, commenting on a verse in our Torah portion, makes clear that study is equal to sacrifice: “Reish Lakish said: What is the meaning of that which is written: “This is the law [torah] of the burnt offering, of the meal offering, and of the sin offering, and of the guilt offering, and of the consecration offering, and of the sacrifice of peace offerings,” (Leviticus 7:37)? This teaches that anyone who engages in Torah study is considered as though he sacrificed a burnt offering, a meal offering, a sin offering, and a guilt offering. (Menachot 110a).

Without the rabbis’ reframing of the centrality of prayer and study as the equivalent of sacrifice, we would not be here today.

-Rabbi Bonnie Margulis