Vayikra: "And He Called" — The Universal Human Drive to Sacrifice

Why Leviticus Begins With a Summons

In Hebrew, this book is not called Leviticus. Its name is Vayikra — "And He Called." The Lord summoned Moses into the Tabernacle. Moses was a Levite, but he was not a priest. Aaron was the chief priest, and the sons of Aaron were priests — they could enter the Tabernacle at will. But Moses could not. And that's why the book of Leviticus starts with God calling Moses: "Come in, talk to me." The books of the Torah were divided essentially by the physical limits of the scrolls — made out of goat skin, heavy, the whole Torah weighing around 15 kilos. Leviticus is a direct continuation of what happened at the end of Exodus. The Tabernacle is finished, the cloud is above it by day and the pillar of fire by night — and now God begins dictating the service that will happen inside.

Sacrificing to God Is a Human Phenomenon

Sacrificing to God is a universal human phenomenon. There is no ancient religion in Asia, in the Middle East, in North America, Central America, South America, Africa, among the Aboriginal in Australia, or the Maoris in New Zealand — all the ancient peoples understood internally, innately, that a relationship with God or even with gods requires sacrifice. Some, like the neighbors on the other side of the Jordan who worshiped Moloch, sacrificed their own children. The Indians in what is today Mexico sacrificed their young maidens to their gods. The desire of the human being dealing with something out of his control was to appease those gods, to please them, to give them gifts — hoping those gods would not show their anger.

The oldest temple discovered in archaeology is found above Ein Gedi in the Judean Desert, next to the Dead Sea. It dates before the 7th millennium before the Messiah — more than 9,000 years ago. It has a broad room with a special bench for the seat of their gods, a bench for offerings, an altar for valuables, a water basin, and an altar for animal sacrifices. In South America, the ancient Maya and Inca temples all had places for sacrifice — and often those sacrifices were human. The same phenomena is in every ancient temple.

Maimonides — Why God Commanded the Sacrifices

Maimonides — Rabbi Moshe Ben Maimon, born in Cordova, Spain on Passover Eve 1135 or 1138, who worked as a rabbi, physician, and philosopher in Morocco and Egypt and died December 12, 1204, his body brought to Tiberias to be buried — asked a profound question in his book "The Guide to the Perplexed": why did God command all these sacrifices? Here is his answer:

Maimonides believed that animal sacrifice is not an ideal form of worship — a remnant from more primitive times and cultures. The sacrificial system could not alter human nature. Only the Torah, with the understanding of the ultimate divine love and grace, can motivate us to change and be transformed into the divine nature. The shadow of the divine sacrifice of Yeshua is the model that mirrors all the sacrifices that were not sufficient to change our nature.

When Sacrifices Went Wrong — and What God Really Wanted

When we read Isaiah and Jeremiah we see that the structuring and regulating of sacrifices did not fully eliminate all elements of idolatry. Isaiah says:

And Jeremiah:

They found an Israelite temple — not a Canaanite temple — in an archaeological dig just a few miles from Jerusalem, under the bridge of a new train line near my house. In that temple, besides the God of Israel, they found statues of Baal and Asherah, all the Canaanite gods forbidden by the Torah. And when they dug in the old city of Jerusalem in the house of the high priest — they found household gods, idols. Syncretism still exists. It exists in Judaism, it exists in Christianity. The environment is a very powerful thing.

Hebrews — What Yeshua's Sacrifice Accomplished That the Sacrificial System Could Not