I'm gratefully resting on a foundation of Jewish wisdom; Rabbi Fuhrman of Alephbeta.com, to be precise: he has such a clear way of speaking about what is, for the Jews since Sinai, an ever-complicating series of laws, labyrinthian commentary and daily rules and rituals; as he says, understanding the wisdom of the Torah "is compounded by the complexity of the laws surrounding" every deep idea. When I listen to the Rabbi speak, I imagine the Jews at the feet of Sinai, in their ant-like smallness at the threshold of Law; I imagine not the human attempts, as noble as they were, to escape simple revenge laws, like Orestes resting at the threshold of the civil court as the Furies unfurled into the Eumenides: rather, I see these were humans waiting upon the Creator to reveal the true, natural law, but somehow...more than that: "I place before you life and death; choose life." I see a kind of wedding moment, a moment just before consummation. Martin Buber, the great Jewish phenomenologist, describes in I and Thou those standing before God's mountain, learning the law, learning the rubrics of sacrifice and temple: "Upright servant[s] of former times, who believed that God yearned for the scent of [their] burnt offering." This is more than just a system of justice: it is a relationship. Of what? Creator and created? Master and servants? Father and children? Husband and wife? Suitor and beloved?
What if this relationship is not just one of these, but all of them? Or perhaps...what if it is, in a sense, a centrifugal progression towards a center, a kind of circling out from a center, through rupture in the Fall, and then back to that center and beyond it, to a marriage feast? God is Creator: He makes foundations ex nihilo and then other things from those elements: Earth from a formless void, Adam from earth, Eve from Adam, their progeny through both. God is also Master: He who governs, He who is Justice, because all order comes from Him. God is also Father, as Creator, but also by desire; He is not a Deist "clockmaker" or Aristotle's Prime Mover, who has no back-and-forth relationship with His creation, especially angels and humans. The Song of Solomon shows us God as a suitor, and God also relates many times in the Torah that He sees His people as a wife; therefore, His desire, analogously human because He is so beyond our true understanding, is ultimately unity in love. Not only does He yearn for us, He gives of Himself, his image, His life, His love, His Son, His Spirit, freely and generously.
God asks us to choose--life or death--love or disconnection--either we choose to be on a road towards marriage, or we are on a road towards self as center; there are no other options; it is a true disjunct. Why? Simply put, God is the source of all life, all that exists. If we choose ourselves, we choose death. Love, even on a purely human level, asks always for unity, a transcendence of selves into something new. God asks no less. Another way to speak about God's generosity is in the language of covenants: this is more fundamentally a gifting of one party to another, an act of giving, sealing oneself to a bond, a relationship of generosity between two unequal parties; it reminds me a little of the Western medieval "oath" relationships between the different classes of society (peasant to noble/landholder especially). The lord owned the land, and was, ultimately the person to protect and govern those "oathed" to him, those who worked the land and benefited from it. It was a personal commitment between parties, not bureaucratic; it depended on virtue and a certain noblesse oblige that meant the lord had to be, certainly, an exceptional human being: generous, just, willing to lay down his or her life in battle to protect and serve his or her dependents; the relationship was more like a metaphorical shepherd-sheep, more like a parent-child covenant.
Covenants, in the ancient Jewish world, were represented by a "cutting" which is part of the Hebrew root word for "covenant"; one thinks of Abraham and the mysterious dance with God between the halves of a sacrificed animal. God Himself passes through the cut pieces to indicate His commitment to the promises He made to Abraham. "I shall be your God." God here takes upon Himself the ancient consequences of breaking this covenant: to be cut apart like the animal. Though this was the norm for the greater party to do as an oath to the lower party, it seems almost silly for the Source of Justice to take justice upon Himself; I always imagine this as God's condescension to Abraham's human understanding, a humble "coming down" to Abraham's level, so that Abraham would be able to respond, to be in the relationship.
God making covenants with human beings is the most clear indication, before Christ, of His desire for deeper relationship, of His love. His picking out of particular people for relationship is mysterious, and His particular calling, after the betrayal of Adam and Eve, of Seth, Noah, Abraham, Moses and the Prophets, and then Christ and His calling of particular disciples, is mysterious. Why not all people? This is another indication of the desire not just for ruling, but for relationship: it must be two-way, and relationship with God, who is so Other, requires cultivation and faith; it is a generous, delicate thing, something built on many instances of trust and goodwill and love, like any deep relationship for a human being. This calling out may indicate God choosing those who were also trying to choose Him, and simultaneously, examples for others. And, in the event of that relationship being broken, it requires mercy and a way back. But how does a human being adequately requite God for a broken relationship? Thus was the system of sacrifice instituted, first, in a sense, at Passover, and then in full force at Mt. Sinai, the great "giving of the law." In a sense, the whole system of laws was a training and a covenant in one.
The Jewish sacrifice-laws, therefore, reflect a proper covenant with God, and covenants require sacrifice as a seal...yet they were much more than simple seals. They were acts with deep meaning for the human soul, fundamentally a visceral expression of "I-Thou" relationship between the human person and God. The "Thou meets me through grace," Buber states, and "it is not found by seeking. But my speaking of the primary word to it is an act of my being, is indeed the act of my being." He goes on: "The Thou meets me. But I step into direct relation . . . the relation means being chosen and choosing, suffering and action in one; just as any action of the whole being, which means the suspension of all partial actions . . . is bound to resemble suffering . . . concentration and fusion into the whole being can never take place through my agency, nor can it ever take place without me. I become [my emphasis] through my relation to the Thou . . . all real living is meeting." A covenant with God can be described this way: it is the stepping into relationship with all of my being: a covenant is not made partially, and the laying down of my whole self between the pieces is a denial of the self as center-point; it is the dependence on another for the lesser party, and so requires the fundamental suffering of self-denial. Yet, so does the covenant for the greater party: it is also an irrevocable gifting of the self: so precious, so deep. God giving Himself and I meeting him, soul to Maker-of-soul. There is something so right about this, leading I think to Moses' desire "to see Your Face." Moses is acknowledging the "I-Thou," which is a relationship of unity and love, an almost-equality that is astounding when one stops and thinks about it, and his shining face requiring veiling is a visceral reflection of his near I-Thou with God. Buber elsewhere talks about Sinai as "the navel of the world" and that the Israelites were experiencing this mountain of God towering over them, almost capturing the people in its I-Thou gaze, a gaze of love, terrifying, life-giving love, ultimate gift and demand all in one.
The Israelites first learned this relationship out in this Sinai silence and nothingness, the place of no hiding, no distractions from without, far from Egypt, symbol of the world. They learned in their very journey through this nothingness—a journey that millennia later the Desert Fathers and St. John of the Cross would take in spirit and would learn the same—that the essence of relation is also sacrifice, that the covenant is consummated in sacrifice. The Blessed Mother exemplifies this in the Annunciation and Magnificat, and lived it out in her journey with her Son. Fundamentally, it is sacrifice of self-independence on the part of both parties, and the sacrifices of the Jewish people reflect the different aspects, or levels, of that spiritual relationship: how to repair a broken relationship (Chatat), how to maintain peace (Shlamin), and the reality of myself in I-Thou with God, a kind of consummation or unity (Olah), mysteriously, a kind of holocaust.
Rabbi Fuhrman more explicitly explains the three basic types of sacrifice in the Torah: "Chatat" is a sin offering, a kind of "tit for tat" or "eye for eye" in another form; it is the re-ordering of the first sin of transgressive consumption, the transgressing of God's domain in the Garden through the eating of the fruit. The sin-offering was, in a sense, a visceral "return"—quite literally of an animal needed for food, a taking of something from our domain and giving it to God in return for what we took from Him. It is a form of returning a tribute due, or what we think of as "retributive justice," the righting of a relationship through payment of some kind. God doesn't need fruit, though, does He? The sin and then retribution of Eden was more about respect of boundaries, actually. It simply was His domain, and we transgressed into it and stole; we violated the trust, the covenant first established in the Garden. Ever after, a return is needed from every one of us. The Chatat for the Israelites, a gift of a precious animal in the shadow of Sinai Law was not wasted; it was given to God's priests, who stood for Him in eating the sacrifice. Rabbi Fuhrman:
If we transgress those commands, so we failed –if you would have to categorize it – in the area of respect. So respect is one of the great things that make the relationship between human beings and God work. But it's not the only thing. Life isn't just about respecting God, there's another thing we can strive for too, and that's where the Shlamim comes in.
The Shlamin is much more than an agreement to play by the rules. It is a revelation of what it means to be in relationship with God, a tutelage in justice, a justice reaching far back into the creation, a reflection in human life of proper order. To agree to live this order, this justice, is to abide in a relationship of love with God. "Shlamin" then, is a kind of "peace" or "wholeness" sacrifice, and this is reflected by which parties consumed the Shlamin: first, the Kohenim (priests), second, those who gave the sacrifice; the third part of it was consumed on the altar as God's portion; in other words, the animal became a means by which all parties, including God, shared: boundaries became open borders; strangers became siblings; estrangement became eudaemonia. This type of covenant ratified by shared sacrifice still filters through human life: the basic transactions of business contracts (I give you this, you give me that, and we're in business!) to the deeper contracts of marriage. Of course some are more religious; as one ascends the ladder of covenants, they are more and more about the heart and soul. Marriage is more about love, though natural; holy orders are also about love, but of a more purely supernatural essence; finally, the covenant between God and soul results in a spiritual unity of peace, a peace possible once the demands of justice in the Chatat are satisfied. These are all in the realm of the Shlamin, and it is, in a sense, the "bridge-sacrifice" between the Chatat and the Olah; it includes elements of both. But there are higher forms of relating to God, even beyond a shared covenant; this is echoed in the last, highest form of Israelite sacrifice: the Olah.
The Olah, or burnt offering, was the symbolic, sacramental "I-Thou" with God; it was a kind of face-to-face, or "eye-to-eye" instead of "eye-for-an-eye." It was beyond retributive, and even beyond the peaceful sharing of boundaries. Rabbi Fuhrman explains:
Olah is about giving everything back. The Olah is entirely consumed on the altar. The very first Olah of the Torah is when God said to Abraham, give me your son, your only son, the one that you love. The one special thing that you have. You see how it's the inverse of the tree of knowledge? If the tree of knowledge is us sort of illegally and inappropriately taking God's one special thing from His domain, the Olah is when we voluntarily offer our one special thing, the thing that really by rights ought to be most mine, and I offer that back to God. The Akeidah, the binding of Isaac, becomes the paradigm for Olah.The Olah, in a sense, allowed Abraham to see God, to know Him as He is, almost, perhaps, a going beyond human limits; to experience God directly is to know that we, and all we claim to have, are either dust apart from Him or that which is His. It is a moment in the fire of pure love, pure justice, pure mercy, pure power. Rabbi Fuhrman tells a mysterious story about the kinds of sacrifice in practice, and more deeply, how the Chatat and the Olah are actually in a kind of inverse relationship. Aaron, as the first High Priest of the Law, had sons, and they were like assistant-priests, the Kohanim. They, in place of God, who did not eat physical animals, ate God's portion; they received the atonement for God. Two of Aaron's sons, though, during the Chatat ceremony, had brought "foreign fire" before the Lord, asserted themselves as knowing what was good and evil in the realm of Chatat, and they themselves were consumed by fire. The Chatat is about restoring, atoning, giving God back symbolically what is His, restoring justice. Somehow, the "foreign fire" seems to be another infraction in the act of healing an infraction, and they themselves in consequence were consumed. This is a great mystery: is it a visceral reminder of the seriousness around the atonement, that it required the deepest respect for each detail? The animal must be perfect; the ritual must also be perfect, because God Himself is perfect? The most profound part of this story, though, is Aaron's response: He is silent, almost in complete, profound grief and awe at the same moment. And then, instead of re-offering the Chatat, he offers an Olah, an offering completely burnt, completely given to God, as his sons were consumed. It is as if there was a symbolic conversation between God and Aaron after this indescribable loss, a conversation about boundaries, about the reality of covenant. God's deep humility and condescension to even accept a Chatat or Shlamin requires the deepest respect; an assertion of self ("foreign fire") in the face of this humility is deeply inappropriate, deeply disrespectful; in effect, it nullifies the Chatat at the very core and they suddenly faced God as if they had somehow placed themselves as equals. Aaron's response to the immolation of his sons is to offer an Olah instead of trying again to offer the Chatat, and Moses does not understand; there is an argument. Rabbi Fuhrman describes Aaron's heartbreaking response:
Today the Chatat was brought, he said; Vatikrenah oti ka'eileh – but look what has befallen me, the loss of my children. V'achalti chatat hayom – and on that day would I eat a Chatat on behalf of God? Hayitav b'einei Hashem – do you think God would find that pleasing? How could I take even on behalf of God – how could I assert boundaries even on behalf of God, when I have nothing left to give, when everything has been taken from me? When I feel that there's just no boundaries left, there's no boundary that I can assert.
It is, of course reminiscent of one of the first Olahs recorded in the Torah, the request of God for Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. When Abraham goes silent, refusing even to explain to his son, like Aaron has gone silent, Rabbi Fuhrman phrases it so well: They had "touched the energy of the Olah," the deepest reality of all creatures before the Creator: in reality, there are no boundaries: everything IS God's. Thus, the Chatat and the Olah seem to be in contradiction, unless one takes God's love into account: like His willingness to create others in His own image, to share relationship with them, God condescends to give part of His creation, part of His life to each of us; however, in the deepest reality, our lives were never our own except by His first allowing it to be so. Like a good father sharing His wealth, this is an ineffable gift that should never be forgotten, and all other sacrifices, all covenants are acts of God desiring relationship; they are love, pure love...and though we can disregard them through free will, God asks through these sacrifices, through the covenants they represent, for all of our being; we cannot enter into relationship with Him half-heartedly, or respond like the prideful princess to her suitors; God, in His mercy, chooses to discipline us, to teach us, to allow us to make Chatat, to live within a Shlamin, but all of it depends on that primary inclination and understanding of the reality of the Olah.
This discipline, these boundary-relationships allowed by God, are reflected from the very first, when Adam and Eve are given the Garden and stewardship over creation, except for certain bounded areas that are God's: the right to judge between good and evil. It is His right. Always. They did not respect this; they did not understand the awe of the Olah; they began to assert their own right to judge apart from God, and this meant, in effect, that they were rival kingdoms to God, that they joined a kingdom of rebellion and unreality, Satan's kingdom, cut off from the source of life; God uses the metaphor in Ezekiel of trees as kingdoms, which gives a certain interesting view of "the tree of knowledge of good and evil"--in effect, a political reality, a kingdom of which God is the unalterable ruler, the only true judge of what is right and wrong. In Ezekiel, God uses metaphors, including trees in Eden, to describe the falling of those rulers and kingdoms who raise themselves up beyond what they really are, who try to rival God especially in terms of judgment of good and evil: "You were in Eden, the garden of God . . . Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor . . . So I made a fire come out from you, and it consumed you" (28:13--19). Over and over we see the monstrosity of creaturely pride resulting in death, twice here a consumption by fire.
Is God cruel? Why can't He just set aside His justice for creatures who cannot seem to handle themselves properly? I cannot presume to answer for God; this journey through the sacrifices has taught me something of the mystery of God. I can simply wonder, and do so only from a human point of view, based on human experience. It seems to me that love can only be built on truth; we cannot love what or whom we do not truly know; if there is no reality, and all is relative, then we are all in our own "kingdoms" and love is not possible, for no unity is possible without connection to a common reality, to what is, to truth. And the Kingdom of Truth is inherently God's because He is the source of everything. Therefore, to have a love relationship with God one must be in reality, which is His, and living according to reality is also just. God would not be loving if He did not also desire that we know justice and become just.
Why fire? Natural light is sourced in burning, immolation, combustion, and by light we can live and see; in the spiritual world, what is burning? In a deep sense, God Himself; He is the source of reason and also all life. How do we approach this burning, this life-giving fire? As Moses did, with our shoes off, with an awareness that this is Holy Ground. If we think of this fire as love, a creative force, we see that it does not consume in a destructive, wanton way. This love gives life when we are in a right relationship with it; it consummates, but does not consume; yet, if we are not worthy, or in a right relationship, it burns us because we are, in a very real sense, "playing with fire."
In a sense, then, the mystery of the Olah is a mystery of consummation because God loves me, the realization that all I am is God's; in that complete offering of myself, or all that is precious to me, I am acknowledging that all I have is God's to do with as He pleases. This is justice, and in free will, it is also love.
The history of Israel is a history of this relationship, attempts and failures on the part of humans to become "I-Thou" with God; it is the love story of God, who wants a love-relationship. It is the impossible dream, on a human level. And then, God does something even more impossible. He steps into His own creation, which makes no sense to one who is expedient and only focuses on justice; however, it makes total sense when one looks through a lens of love. God becomes the Lover in the Song of Solomon, "emptying Himself."
Suddenly, God is a baby, Jesus Christ, "God with us" and "Savior." It should astound us, because it is not the logic of justice and power alone, of the Judge; it should not astound us, if we read the story of Adam and Eve, as God walked in the Garden and called out to them; if we read the story of Noah, arc, and rainbow; if we read the story of Abraham and see God gushing in generosity and then in ultimate test of Abraham's love for Him; if we read the story of Moses, and the complex language of signs to the oppressed, grieving Hebrews, signs that said, "I have seen your grief and will heal it"; if we read the story of Isaiah and the still, quiet breeze; if we read the story of Jonah and the little tree God made to shade him in his anger and distress. It is a language of love, a love built not on sentimentality but on the reality of God Himself; it is the self-giving of God and His desire for response in kind: the desire common to all true lovers.
What is Christ, then, in the language of sacrifice?
Is He most like a Chatat? He is indeed a Chatat; He offers Himself as atonement, for us, a perpetual sin-offering; this was done once on the Cross, and is perpetuated in the Eucharistic consecration; He is also a Shlamin, because we share the Sacrifice in the taking of the Eucharist, both priest and people, a bond of peace between us and God, and God Himself is there, accepting Himself as Peace Offering; He is also an Olah and this is the most fundamental and profound, because without this element, I do not think the others would be possible. The Olah is the foundational sacrifice, the one most given to God, the one that reflects the reality of God's being "I-Thou" to us; it alone allows the other forms of sacrifice to be perpetual, because it is the truth of justice and love; it is the place of the most real relationship with God, the most truthful one, and so it is the consummation, the wedding feast; the Olah of Christ is the only perfect human response of Olah: "I do all that my Father tells me"; "That they may be one as we are one"; perhaps the apex of immolation, "Father, why have you forsaken me?" and finally, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit."
In short, Christ fulfills all types of sacrifice that came before in His own person. St. John says, "God so loved the world that He gave His only Son." This is of course analogous to the Olah of Abraham, the highest demand of love. Christ is, though, God creating an Olah for Himself; He is completing the circle of the highest love for us. He asks us simply to believe Him and to respond, through His grace given in the Shlamin and Chatat of Christ, the Eucharist, by doing the same. "Give your all, because I have."
I have no words for this, no adequate words. God desires so much to draw each of us back into the center, and beyond, the center of love and unity; He desires you as the most ardent of lovers to be with Him in love, and He made the highest sacrifice to assuage justice, to reveal reality, to make possible a real love, and offers us, in our walk through this life, to, in turn, become an Olah by becoming Christ through the ultimate sacrifice, the one that encompasses all others, the Eucharist. Only through an Olah can we be consumed in God's love, be truly remade in the fire of love through Christ, the only perfect human Olah-response possible, an Olah of perpetual love through the Resurrection:
Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing at the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders.
--St. John, Revelations 5:6
Martin Buber, I and Thou: http://www.maximusveritas.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/iandthou.pdf
