Last night, in part one of a meditation, "On Re-reading Leviticus," we spoke of Leviticus as a stumbling block for would-be Bible readers. Its unsavory details of animal blood, fat, entrails, salt, flour, fire and smoke, not to mention the frequent preoccupation with scaley skin and leprosy, serve to be off-putting to contemporary students. Even the most earnest and conscientious among us, has to wonder, as to the relevance of Leviticus, two thousand years after Temple sacrifices were abolished.

Last night we made a case for Leviticus by examining some of the deeper rationale undergirding the various kinds of sacrifices which our ancestors offered. There was the Olah in which the entire animal was burned on the alter. There was the Mincha, a meal offering of unleavened flour, oil and salt.

There was a Zevach shelamim, the sacrifice of an unblemished cow, sheep or goat - of which the fat and blood were forbidden to be eaten. These were all voluntary offerings.

There were obligatory ones, as well, for those who had incurred guilt due to wrong doing.

The Chatat, sin offering of individual or community

The Asham - guilt offering of a thief or fraud or one who insulted God.

But now, shouldn't we pose a logical question? If God is not a person and has no body or physical appetites, why would God want the Israelites to bring sacrifices of food? Well, you can bet, it wasn't because of God's hunger. It was for human benefit that these sacrifices were ordained!

Leviticus instructs us that closeness to God is not only predicated on our best and most generous impulses, but as well, out of our confrontation with the darker side of our nature.

Hence, within our Judaism there arose the notion of our dual inclinations: the Yetzer ha Tov (good) and the Yetzer ha Rah (evil), both of which make their home within each of us and continually battle for supremacy over each other.

While the Yetzer Ha Rah was seen by many as something we must repress and avoid, as a sworn enemy against whom to wage unceasing battle, not all Jewish teachers saw it that way.

One rabbi taught that we are commanded to love God with both our good and evil inclinations. Another taught that the greater the person, the greater his evil inclination.

Most of the Levitical sacrifices were designed to make expiation for sins. So when we consider that the Hebrew word for sacrifice, KORBAN, literally means "drawing close," we see that it was through our failings and weaknesses that we were provided the opportunity to draw close to God.

Those who offered these sacrifices saw in themselves something they desired to change. They approached God in the fullness of their being, and, with realism and honesty about both their flaws and shortcomings, seeking through their offering of sacrifices to transform sin into merit.

Note what precedes the Book of Leviticus in the Torah: the fiasco of the golden calf incident. Afterward, God provides the people with a mechanism to use their desire for offerings in a correct and appropriate manner.

It wasn't God who needed or wanted the sacrifices, they were ordained for the people! Their desires were redirected toward higher purposes.

Hence, the Rabbis came to believe that the entire sacrificial system was instituted as a response to the evil inclination whin us. We were given by God a means by which to rechannel wrong into a mitzvah. And we are able to bring our entire selves, both our good and evil predilections, to God's service.

So here is a brief refresher course in "sacrifice-ology": the basic meaning of the Hebrew word Olah is "that which goes up," and the basic meaning of the Hebrew word Korban is "that which draws near." Sacrifice, by its very definition in Judaism, is not some bizarre manifestation of primitive society nor is it an outmoded form of social behavior - sacrifice is the primary mode of worship. It is our Jewish way of drawing close and going up to God.

In our earliest history we were taught by Abraham that sacrifice of animals was sufficient, as opposed to the human sacrifice that was prominent in other ancient Middle Eastern cultures. In our later history that notion of animal sacrifice was spiritualized by the strictures of Leviticus and the warnings of the prophets that slaughter of animals was not an end in itself. And with the destruction of the great Temple in Jerusalem two thousand years ago, the process of sacrifice was sublimated entirely. Prayer took the place of flesh and blood sacrifice, prayer that represented the sacrifice of the soul. In the words of the Psalmist, "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; those who offer up their souls does He deliver."

The story is told of a session in an ancient Jewish academy, the rabbis and their disciples gathered to discuss the true meaning of the phrase from Leviticus, V'nahfash Kee Tak-reev, "when a person offers a sacrifice." Rabbi Yohanan, one of the senior members of the academy, jumps to this feet excitedly to recite a story that he heard from his rabbi, who heard it from his rabbi, who heard it from his rabbi, who heard it from his rabbi, all the way back to the days when the Temple still stood in Jerusalem. Yohanan explains that once a woman brought a handful of very soft, fine flour to the priests in the Temple for a meal offering, the kind of offering by which the priests themselves were to be sustained. But the High Priest despised the poor woman's offering: "See what she offers," he cried out. "What is there in this for me to eat? What is there in this to dedicate to the Lord?"

But then the priest was brought short by a powerful voice that came to him as if out of the heavens: "Do not despise her!" the voice intoned. "It is to be regarded as if she offered up her very soul, for though she is a poor woman, unable to afford the fancies that you crave, still she came to the Lord with a pure and beautiful offering." The priest was stunned, but what could he say? He accepted the offering with newly-learned humility, and the woman went on her way. Yohanan concluded his story with a flourish, and wit a lesson based on the double meaning of the Hebrew word, Nefesh, which can mean "person" or "soul." The verse v'nah-fash kee Tak-reev does not truly mean "when a person offers a sacrifice," Yohanan explained. The true meaning of the verse is this: "When a soul is offered as a sacrifice: - and a the verse goes on, "that is the sacrifice which is most precious."