A Primer Video on Understanding Blood Sacrifices (Leviticus)

I came across this video today and found it worth passing on even if only one would find it helpful as many Christians struggle to understand Levitical sacrifices. This Messianic Jewish Rabbi takes about 20 minutes to explain the different sacrifices and the significance of the blood.

vesper said:

I came across this video today and found it worth passing on even if only one would find it helpful as many Christians struggle to understand Levitical sacrifices. This Messianic Jewish Rabbi takes about 20 minutes to explain the different sacrifices and the significance of the blood.

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I'm not sure that explanation, at least as I understood it, would be accepted in most rabbinic circles.

While there is an enormous amount of discourse on the subject of biblical sacrifice one area of discussion that is worth mentioning is an area that is broadly applicable to all of the mitzvot. Moses and the sages are understood to have divided the mitzvot into two categories: logical mishpatim ("laws" or "judgements") and supra-rational chukkim ("decrees"). The former are laws which you can find rational reasons, or whose purpose you can divine by study, the latter are above rational pursuit and only appear reasonable to the divine mind. There are theories, proposals, explanations that have been advanced for many of them but generally they remain unresolved.

Two classic examples of this are the requirements for the sacrifice of the 'Red Heiffer' and the prohibitions of kashrut ("kosher"). Do they make sense from a logical, rational basis in the same way that the prohibition against adultery or idol worship might? Not really. Why do we obey? Because we are commanded to do so and because these commands are decipherable by the divine mind.

Animal sacrifice generally falls under the category of chukkim however there are a wealth of explanations that have been advanced. The classic explanation of the Sages and of rabbis down the millennia has been that the sacrifice of animals, vegetables, etc, according to divine dictate is a way of experiencing creation. The fire of the altar was a divine flame in which God entered to consume the sacrifice. This act allowed the people to 'see' God and the divine aspects of creation and destruction, to reach the other spiritual dimensions of existence. Sacrifices before the altar have always been cloaked the metaphysical and the transcendental. A frequent refrain in the Zohar is that the 'secret of the sacrifices reaches to the secret of the infinite'.