Parashat Vayikra

We have reached the book of Leviticus, the third and middle book—the heart— of the Torah. The Tabernacle has been constructed, and now God informs the people how to go about bringing sacrifices, korbanot, within this Tabernacle.

The offerings acceptable to God come in many forms, the Torah assures us. There is not one single type of prescribed korban, but many -- the olah, the minhah,and the shelamim, and there is not one single appropriate ingredient to be brought, but many – cattle, sheep, birds and grain.

Different people bring different gifts with them to the Tabernacle, to the Torah, to Judaism, to the world. God wants them all, and they are all a means of coming close to Him. With one exception. The rabbis emphasize that a gift brought from stolen goods is not acceptable. Rashi, following the midrash, learns this lesson from the word Adam, which literally means “any person,” but which also has the resonance of the First Adam of the world. Just as Adam #1 did not bring a stolen offering to God since everything in the world belonged to him, so too, should we not bring a stolen item as a korban.

So goes the rabbinic logic. Strange, though. Why learn this lesson from the first Adam? What is the midrash really teaching us about the nature of korbanot? When you want to give a gift to God – to make some offering or contribution to the Tabernacle or to the world -- be like the First Adam. Think of yourself as the only one in the world. Feel as if the whole world depends on your particular contribution. If you don’t bring it, no one else will.

Because that is the truth. If you don’t bring yourself – if instead you somehow bring someone else’s offering, try to play someone else’s part, to copy their way of being in the world – then no one else will bring what you have to offer. The world will simply be lacking your special contribution. Maybe you think that doesn’t matter. But no, the midrash says. Imagine that you are the First Adam, alone in the world, and you will know how much your offering matters.

When a student cheats on an exam, copying someone else’s thoughts, what is most sad is not the damage to the one whose work has been copied, but the damage to the cheater himself, the sense he has of himself as someone who has nothing to contribute, nothing of his own to bring as an offering.

The first line of the sacrificial instructions reads: Adam ki yakriv mikem, literally, “A person, when he brings forward an offering from among you.” The word mikem, “from among you,” is strangely placed after the verb “to bring forward” instead of after the noun “a person.” The classic Hasidic reading of this verse sees the word mikem as referring to the type of offering to be brought – bring something mikem, “from you,” from yourselves, from your very essence. Bring your own special type of offering – whether it be bird or song or dance or word – bring it forward to God’s House and to the world to share. Because if you don’t, no one else will.