The Rationale Behind the Sacrifice

This week brings us back to Leviticus, with its laws on sacrificial worship – burnt offerings, sin offerings, and guilt offerings. Again, as we read the weekly portion, we try to experience something of the wondrous spiritual elation felt by the Israelites when the Temple still stood and the entire people – priests, levites and Israelites – took part in sacrificial worship as set forth in the Torah. Time and again we attempt to hear an echo of the great symphony of divine worship that has long since fallen silent yet waits to be conducted and performed anew.