LAND GOD COMMUNITY SACRIFICE
The terms used for the person doing the offering or sacrifice are, in order, “earthling”, (adam) “ensouled person” (nefesh) and “man” (ish). These three terms, I suggest, offer us a vision of human wholeness. This is the wholeness that sacrifice seeks to repair through olah (burnt) or hattat (sin) offerings. This is the wholeness that sacrifice seeks to embody in shlamim (well being) offerings.
“Speak to the children of Israel. And you shall say to them: a human from you who will make an offering to YHVH—you shall make your offering from the domestic animals, from the herd and from the flock.” (1:2). The word for human is adam, from the same root as the word for soil, adamah, and my preferred translation is “earthling”. “And a person (nefesh) who will make an offering” (2:1). Nefesh is a common term for one of the levels of the soul, which is why I have offered the translation of “ensouled person.” “And the priest who brings forward a man’s (ish) burnt offering.” (7:8). Ish is a male human
Friedman points out that that Leviticus offers us the same three words for human in the same order as Genesis does. Here it is adam (1:2), then nefesh (2:1) and ish (7:8). For Genesis, it is adam 1:26, nefesh 2:7 and ish 2:23. I agree it links the two books. What are the implications of that?
Sacrifice, the linkage suggests, is a kind of second creation or recreation of the human being. Further, the linkage suggests a tight connection amongst the earth, the divine through the soul and the human community. Wholeness then is what happens when these three factors are rightly aligned.
Sacrifice is a means to the reestablishment of wholeness, a wholeness that has been broken because of whatever occasions the need for the sacrifice. This right relationship begins with the connection with the earth. Then there’s the connection with the divine and last is the human centric term for a human comes last.
In our world, it’s almost the complete opposite. We mostly think of ourselves as humans only in connection with the human only world. Societally, we give a lot of lip service to our connection with the divine, but it is mostly lip service. And our connection to the earth, to the more than human world is most remote. Further, we have no sense at all that wholeness entails the alignment of these three factors of our connection with the earth, the divine and the human community.
How would you assess the state of your relationships with the earth, with the divine and with a human community? How would you assess the state of your relationship with all three of those in an interconnected whole.
One way to approach the importance of this nexus of land, the divine and community is to examine our personal histories with peak experiences. Sacrifice is presented in prosaic detail in Leviticus (to understate the case), so I invite you to examine how this connection has played out in your life. Here’s a few sentences on how it has played out in mine.
I have had peak experiences connected with the more than human world. Depending on how you define peak experiences (not my focus here), these started perhaps in Israel when I was 18 and I have had multiple others since then where I have had this enormous sense of belonging to the world. Only without being able to connect those experiences to the divine and/or a human community, I haven’t known how to follow through and let that experience change me.
I’ve had peak experiences connected only to the divine when I sat Zen. I found that incredibly frustrating because they weren’t connected to the human realm or to the earth. The very structure of Zen felt to me like it was both stronger in the presence of other people but there was always, by design, an isolation from other people who you were supposed to let have their own experience. Frustration.
I have had peak experiences where I have been connected only to the human world in hotel ballrooms. I love the high of personal growth seminars. Only it is exactly akin to the sugar high of cotton candy. This is a human centric experience, and the peak experiences didn’t wind up being transformative, because they lacked the connection with the divine and the earth.
I completely believe that for we humans, we need all three together—the earth, the divine and the human community.
QUESTIONS
How would you assess the state of your relationships with the earth, with the divine and with a human community? How would you assess the state of your relationship with all three of those in an interconnected whole?
What’s been your history with peak experiences with the earth, with the divine and with the human only world in isolation, if any. Did they stick? Any experience with two of three or with all three?
