In the fourth chapter of Vayikra we read:
Hashem spoke to Moshe, saying: Speak to the Israelites, saying, ‘When a person unintentionally [ViShgaga] fails in any of the prohibitions of Hashem which they must not do, and does any one of them… [4.2]
Assuming that most of you, like me, are what we might call hoi polloi – just average Joe Yisrael – we shuffle to the edge of our seats at this point. Ah yes, we think, I know that feeling – when I’ve screwed up, I’ve made a mistake, and I want to make it right – not that I was evil necessarily, but here’s a problem that’s my fault and I want to fix. But Moshe’s speech, strangely, takes a dog’s leg approach and isn’t going to finish this thought for a while.
For before we learn anything about the sins of a regular Jew, we are told (1) that if the anointed priest sins he should bring a bull for sacrifice and sprinkle the blood; (2) that if the whole congregation is led astray, it is the elders who bring a bull to sacrifice and sprinkle the blood; (3) that if the secular ruler of the community sins then they bring a male goat (no bull!) to sacrifice and sprinkle the blood; and it is only now, 27 verses later, that Moses gets back (4) to you – to average Joe Yisrael – and how if you go wrong you should bring a female goat to sacrifice, sprinkle the blood, and that will make everything alright.
You might hear that curious structure and perceive something like an order of descending importance: the most grievous sins are those of the anointed priest, who really should know better; closely followed by the unfortunate scenario in which the whole community is led astray. Next, we consider the sins of a secular leader, and finally the sins of your average Joe Am Ha’Aretz. The first two need to offer bulls, the prince a male goat, and the Am Ha’Aretz a measly female goat. I think we are meant to hear the diminishing step from Bull to Goat and be reassured: ah yes, we think, all those peoples’ sins weigh so much heavier than my own.
And yet, to upset that order a little, isn’t a female goat actually worth a little bit more than a male goat? After all, as well as meat, a female goat is good for milk. So that’s one thing. But another problem which our commentators really go to town with is how the conjunction introducing the sinning agent for three in our set of four is Im – meaning ‘if’. Im HaKohen HaMashiach YeHeta – If the anointed priest sins; V’Im Kol Adat Yisrael Yishgu – And If the whole community is led astray; v’Im Nefesh Achat Techeta – and If an average Joe Yisrael sins. But with the secular leader we find a different pattern: Asher Nasi Yecheta, not, If, but When your prince sins; not if, but when they mess up.
Seforno explains that it is just that much more common for a ruler to be led astray – or, as Nechama Leibowitz gorgeously paraphrases: ‘Authority and the pitfalls of power render the ruler prone to vice and he is most likely to commit such transgressions, whereupon he must bring a sin offering.’ So our individual sins do not weigh heavier than those of the High Priest, nor than those of the nation as a whole, but they do perhaps weigh a little more heavily than the sins of those with power. And I think that that’s both a little counterintuitive and potentially significant – in so much as we live in a world which tends to subsume individual responsibility within corporate or national responsibility, which is disproportionately handed over to quangos, bureaucrats and politicians.
Our Shgagot – our mistakes, our screw ups, whatsoever our status – need to be made right, they are significant. This feels very basic both to Leviticus and to Judaism. As Stanley Milgrom reads it, the sacrificial system of Leviticus is not about righting wrongs in a purely ontological sense, but also about fixing our subjective sense of guilt. We sacrifice not so much to fix the world as to fix ourselves, for we would not want to get into the habit of guilt – we want to live in a world in which we can right our wrongs, fix the world that we break – sacrifice, and experience the pain which makes whole.
When our religious leaders – those whom we imbue with moral authority, those who should know better – go astray, it is only right that they are held to a high standard – their sacrifice is weighty, it is a bull. Similarly – when we as a whole community go astray, when we realize that we have been hard hearted, have been wilfully blind or deaf to suffering and injustice – our reckoning is equally huge, since the damage we can wreak in concert is so immense. Anything should be better than growing accustomed to, or simply accepting, that gnawing feeling of guilt. (And without a Temple – what is the means of accepting a society’s collective guilt? The accepted wisdom seems to be swinging in favour of hostile repression). We might assume that our individual misdeeds weigh least of all; but in fact the slightest sin offering – the most trivial or inevitable sin, is not that of the individual, but rather that of the government minister. It turns out that we, as individuals, carry the heavier weight. We might trust those with political power for their administrative capability – but if we rely on them for moral guidance without healthy skepticism we are all too likely to be misled, and this – this political skepticism – is built into the sacrificial system. Of course politicians screw up – that’s why they only bring the cheapest sacrifices.
Our shgagot – those sins we commit because we lacked intention, because we were quite literally thought-less – begin to stack up the moment we take a reckoning. And our parasha gives us some guidance as to how we tot up our mistakes, how we weigh them and how we fix them within systems of a communal, religious and political action. We move in communities and we move as individuals – but we are always, inevitably culpable; and always challenged to do better.
Rabbi Anthony Lazarus Magrill
The views expressed in this D’var Torah do not necessarily reflect the position of Leo Baeck College.