The Smallest Offering

On Wednesday afternoon I went to the grocery store for a few things — Pesach is two weeks away and the list is already longer than the day — and walked into a wall of ham. Spiral-cut, honey-glazed, brown-sugar-crusted, shrink-wrapped and stacked like munitions. Refrigerated munitions. Easter is coming, and the grocery stores of the American South want you to know about it.

I understand that Christians do not consider themselves bound by the dietary laws. That's their call, and I mean that sincerely — two thousand years of theology went into that decision, and it's not mine to relitigate in the deli aisle. But there is something quietly absurd about standing in a grocery store holding your Kedem kosher grape juice while the store celebrates a holiday rooted in your scriptures by promoting the one animal Leviticus specifically, repeatedly, by name, disqualifies. The book that begins this Shabbat. The one that lays out in painstaking detail what it means to draw near to God. I'm not angry. I'm just a guy in the grocery store, noticing.

This week we begin Vayikra — Leviticus — the third book of the Torah and, for many readers, the most intimidating. It opens mid-sentence, mid-action, mid-relationship:

וַיִּקְרָ֖א אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֑ה וַיְדַבֵּ֤ר יְהֹוָה֙ אֵלָ֔יו מֵאֹ֥הֶל מוֹעֵ֖ד לֵאמֹֽר׃

[GOD] called to Moses and spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting, saying:

— Vayikra 1:1

Vayikra. And He called. Not "He spoke" or "He commanded" — He called. The Torah uses that word deliberately. A call implies someone listening. Someone present. Someone who showed up before the conversation started.

What follows is a book of korbanot — offerings. The word is usually translated as "sacrifice," which is unfortunate, because it pushes the English reader toward loss and deprivation. The Hebrew root is k-r-b: to draw near.

A korban is not something you give up. It is something you bring forward in order to close the distance between yourself and God. The whole book is a manual for approach.

And buried in the second chapter, one verse does something remarkable:

וְנֶ֗פֶשׁ כִּֽי־תַקְרִ֞יב קׇרְבַּ֤ן מִנְחָה֙ לַֽיהֹוָ֔ה סֹ֖לֶת יִהְיֶ֣ה קׇרְבָּנ֑וֹ וְיָצַ֤ק עָלֶ֙יהָ֙ שֶׁ֔מֶן וְנָתַ֥ן עָלֶ֖יהָ לְבֹנָֽה׃

When a person presents an offering of grain to GOD: The offering shall be of choice flour; [the offerer] shall pour oil upon it, lay frankincense on it,

— Vayikra 2:1

The Hebrew for "a person" here is nefesh — soul. Not adam, not ish, not the usual words for a person. Nefesh. Rashi catches it: nowhere else in the Torah does the word nefesh appear in connection with a voluntary offering.

Why here? Because the mincha — the grain offering — is what a poor person brings. They cannot afford a bull. They cannot afford a sheep. They bring flour, oil, and frankincense. And God says: I regard it as if they have offered their very soul.

The smallest offering. The most personal.

My Hebrew birthday was earlier this week. The day after was my mother's yahrzeit.

Those two things landing back to back is a particular kind of weight I am still don't really know how to carry — a day that says you are here, followed by a day that says she is not. I lit the candle. I said prayers. I gave tzedakah. I did not eat.

There is not enough time. Pesach is close. Too close. And I haven't started cleaning. Of course, the war continues — Israelis celebrated Purim in bomb shelters two weeks ago, dressed in costumes while sirens sounded, because that is what Jews do. We keep the calendar even when the world is on fire. I am trying to keep up. I am bringing what I have. And, to be frank, it's not a small amount of effort to keep my head above water. That said, there is still joy.

Last week, a story came out of Berlin that stopped me. Rabbi Gesa Ederberg was installed as the new president of the Rabbinical Assembly — the international body of Conservative and Masorti rabbis, more than sixteen hundred of them worldwide. She is the first European to hold the position. She is also, as far as the organization is aware, the first Jew by choice.

Ederberg grew up Lutheran in a German university town. She came to Judaism through the texts — fell in love with them, couldn't stop reading, realized the tradition she'd inherited had an anti-Jewish core she could no longer accept. She converted. She was ordained. She became the first woman to lead a Jewish congregation in Berlin since Regina Jonas, a rabbi ordained in 1935 and murdered by the Nazis. Now she leads the rabbis.

She did not start by leading. She started by showing up — leading a seder before she was a rabbi, teaching Hebrew because someone needed to, organizing a minyan in her living room.

One thing, then the next, then the next.

Flour, oil, frankincense.

The offering of a person who brings what she has.

I think about that when I look at the list on my phone. Pesach shopping. Pesach cleaning. The haggadot need checking. Do we have enough matzah. The war. The yahrzeit candle seemingly still warm on the shelf. The ham in the grocery store. The book of Leviticus, which the world has mostly decided to skip, opening this Shabbat with a call.

Vayikra. And He called.

The call doesn't come to people who have everything in order.

It comes to people who showed up.

Shabbat shalom.

— Uriel ben Avraham