Parshas Vayikra: Mercy is the Greatest Attribute of Heaven

Our Torah reading this week, Parshas Vayikra: (Leviticus) 1:1 - 5:26, begins the third book of the Torah, Leviticus, known for its enumerated laws of daily living. These opening chapters cover the five types of sacrifices offered to Almighty God in the temple. The rules get complicated quickly, so it's easy to get distracted by the details and forget their meaning.

Human Nature and the Need for Mercy

God creates human beings with a capacity to feel and express gratitude for His gifts and mercies. He also builds into us a tendency for error and ignorance, so providing for atonement and forgiveness before listing all the laws shows our Heavenly Father's merciful nature and deep love for His children.

Our Haftarah portion this week is Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 43:21 - 44:23. During his lifetime, Isaiah witnesses an evolution within Judah, starting as a nation outwardly respectful of God's law but allowing the growth of paganism. Next, a shift to the madness of outright national defiance of God's law. Finally, an attempt to return to a God centered nation to save the country from total collapse and invasion.

In our portion this week, Isaiah remonstrates against King Ahaz, who builds false idols inside the temple and replaces animal sacrifice with child sacrifice. An extremely dire situation, Isaiah pleads with the Jews to recognize their folly and to sincerely seek God's atonement for their wayward choices. In these times, forgiveness is just an animal sacrifice away.

Animal Sacrifice vs Self Sacrifice

Torah imposes guilt when a person or community knows of their offense or, if ignorant of their mistake, upon learning of their offense. In biblical times, after the offense is acknowledged or proven, unblemished food animal sacrifices are offered as a way to atone.

Food animals are essential to sustain life and community, so sacrificing the best of these represents a very significant loss, serving as a disincentive to do wrong. Animal sacrifices represent offerings to God of our 'animal soul,' that part of our instinctive nature that exceeds its intended use and so causes harm to others and ourselves. 

Leviticus 5:1 also assigns guilt upon a person who fails to point out an offense against God or man. This serves as a disincentive to remain silent in the face of evil. "If a person sins by having heard a curse—being a witness by virtue of having seen or having known what happened—if he does not testify, he will bear the consequences of his transgression."

Today, instead of offering animal sacrifices to God, we sacrifice self centered lifestyles and choices. When done sincerely, sacrificing self centeredness challenges and grows our faith just as sacrificing life sustaining animals did in biblical times. 

Atoning for Abortion Regret

Parshas Vayikra Chapter 5:30 says, "if someone touches a corpse (the basic form of ritual defilement imparted by a human) or some other form of ritual defilement that defiles him, through which he becomes ritually defiled, and he did not know this and ate consecrated food or entered the Tabernacle precincts, and he realizes, he incurs guilt.

As we mentioned two weeks ago, the Haftarah portion that week included Numbers 19:13, also alluding to spiritual impurity occurring after close proximity with a human corpse. "Whoever touches the corpse of a human soul which dies, and he does not cleanse himself, he has defiled the Mishkan of the Lord, and that soul shall be cut off from Israel. For the sprinkling water was not sprinkled on him, so he remains unclean, and his uncleanness remains upon him."

The particularly severe case of spiritual contamination explains the deep psychic wounds that occur after abortion. Everyone complicit in abortion suffers this  disconnection of the soul from God and its myriad symptoms. The baby's mother, father, siblings, and extended family, as well as the abortionist, staff, and abortuary owners.

However, healing is proven possible through programs that address the spiritual cause of the disconnection. Our Tikvat Rachel Healing Program works wonders for Jewish women and men who suffer after abortion or after involvement in the abortion industry. The Program begins a Teshuvah transformation that lasts a lifetime.

Moral Education Offers a Path to Forgiveness

Today, we have no central temple in which to offer animal sacrifices  nor do we have consensus for what we should atone. People are confused, defensive, wounded, ideological. They reject moral objectivity or personal and community responsibility when it comes to child sacrifice and other offenses against man and God. 

We who understand the reality and consequences of this madness try to enlighten others through persuasion, education, information, morally centered theology, and examples of God centered living rather than self centered conduct.

This outreach brings much peace to troubled souls. It absolves the educator from a guilt imposed for remaining silent. It provides other people chances for restoring understanding and sanity so they can atone for their guilt and receive forgiveness. 

In these times, forgiveness is just a sincere prayer and act of self sacrifice away.

Please share this post on your social media to amplify our message in this troubled world. Thank you.

Cecily Routman

May there be abundant peace from Heaven, and good life upon us and upon all Israel. Amen.

Cecily Routman is the founder and president of the Jewish Pro-Life Foundation. She opposes abortion homicide in general and among Jews in particular and laments secular policy making in Israel that results in loss of Jewish life and delays the messianic redemption. Cecily envisions a Torah based holy Land of Israel and a world that respects the life of every human being from conception.

Please visit our Hebrew blog on our Israel website.

The Greatest Attribute of Heaven is Mercy. Francis Beaumont