One of the hardest topics for modern readers to understand about the Torah is all the talk of sacrifices. Taking an animal, killing it, and burning it on a pyre is … challenging to understand, to say the least.
I would like to offer a short summary of explanations that I find both plausible and persuasive.
First off, we already know that people need to invest in something in order to value it. Things that come easily are not precious to us (think of lottery winners versus self-made millionaires). The more we invest in a relationship, the more we consider that relationship to be important.
This is well documented in the Torah: We know that from Cain and Abel to Noach to Avraham – everyone feels the need to give up something to show that they are invested into a relationship. Any cursory glance at the modern “hookup culture” versus traditional marriage illustrates this point to a contemporary audience. Even among those inclined toward marriage, those who prioritize finding a spouse who is maximally “compatible,” are looking to avoid having to change themselves. Potential mates who seek to avoid investment are not good long term bets.
So we bring an offering, one we have spent both time and resources on. And we give it to G-d to show our desire to be close. There is a menu of possible offerings, each with their own flavor and permutation, but the overall concept of investment applies to all of them.
There is another facet of sacrifices that is intriguing: that the purpose of the sacrifice is to convert a physical animal into a symbolic meaning.
What do I mean by this? Let’s survey the Passover Offering, the first offering commanded for all the people, and thus the archetype for all offerings going forward. It was also the kickoff for the Exodus and the symbolic birth of the people through the canal of the split sea. So the particulars of this offering are relevant for the rest of the Torah and Jewish history.
In order, here are key symbolic elements:
1: By offering an animal, we put mankind above the animal kingdom. Hindus and other pagans do not do this.
2: By offering a sheep (seh), the offering links to earlier promises to our forefathers – seh is used only for Avraham, Isaac and Jacob. Just as all the sacrifices that come later are meant to connect us with our past as well as help us look to the future.
3: We must be emotionally and spiritually vulnerable and available when we bring an offering. This is one reason the Passover offering is brought at night, and we are specifically commanded not to leave any leftovers into the morning. As described here, the entire essence of remembering and recreating and reliving that uncertain and fearful night requires us to go back in time, to reconnect with what it must have felt like to have those experiences the very first time. In turn, each morning is a revelation, a return of light to the world and the realization that we are always meant to move forward.
4: We take the blood of the sheep, combine it with grass, and paint our doorposts with it – showing that the Jewish people understand we are supposed to combine the natural world (plant and animal) and elevate it.
5: Roasted in fire. As the archetype for all other offerings that are commanded later, the lamb must be roasted so the fire connects earth with heaven. Fire has specific meaning in the Torah, summarized here – all of these meaning apply to every sacrifice commanded in the Torah afterward that involves fire.
6: “Knees” (karaim) are specifically mentioned in this korban, as well as for all other animal sacrifices. They are also mentioned when the Torah tells us that grasshoppers are kosher, those which have knees extending above their legs so that it leave the ground with them. (L. 11:21). The core idea is that the sacrifice is likened to the grasshopper, converting physical mass into lifting energy, leaping from the earth toward the heavens.
Similarly, the sacrifice is connected to kosher animals, because both are to remind us of the purpose of Jews in this world: to always seek to elevate the physical earth toward the spiritual heavens. As such, the foundation of every sacrifice is tied to the conversion of that sacrifice into symbolic meaning.
P.S. The word for “knees”, karaim, are mentioned in the Torah a total of 8 times. 8 is the number representing divine connection (circumcision, consecration, oil – which was also burned to be converted from physical matter into spiritual energy).