The brother of a friend from high school wanted to go into the film business. He was especially fond of horror movies, showing off simple tricks to make special effects like they did in Hollywood. Spaghetti, for example, when broken, sounded exactly like the sound of cracking knuckles. Ketchup, of course, and lots of it, worked well to simulate blood. His student movies were filled with decapitated heads and severed limbs. A love of the macabre, along with a strong stomach were necessary for any aspiring horror film director.
These qualities are also prerequisites to the study of the book of Leviticus that we begin this week. This is a book that focuses on sacrifices. Far from pristine, the ancient Tabernacle was filled with garish displays of blood and guts of the animal variety, but still gross nonetheless. The priests would splatter blood on the walls of the sanctuary along with the entrails of cattle and birds. As a professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary once taught me, if you are going to understand the Book of Leviticus, you must embrace the more disgusting elements. Blood for our ancestors, represented life. We, in our sanitized world where meat is prepared for us by Wegmans and other supermarket chains, do not fully appreciate the fullness of what happens behind the scenes of meat preparation facilities.
Leviticus is a wakeup call to wake up. Life is beautiful and horrible. We are made up of sinew, blood and bone, infused with a soul that animates our lives. This is what it means to be human. This is what it means to be alive. And that is the essence of the book of Leviticus. Like after a good horror film, there is a certain thrill in just surviving. L’Chayim, To Life!
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Alex