Tzav: Violent Sacrifices - Of Knives, Costumes, and Gun Laws

This Shabbat is Gun Violence Prevention Shabbat across the country. Saturday night happens to also begin our celebration of Purim, which is kind of a weird mix of events and emotions. Purim is about joy, silliness, 

costumes, and hamentaschen. And clearly, there isn't much light-heartedness around the subject of gun violence. And yet, I find it fascinating that the two coincide this weekend. I would like to speak with you for a minute about the connections between these two, and I'll also attempt to link both to Torah portion we read this weekend, which introduces us to the ancient institution of sacrifice.

Rabbis often groan at having to speak about this Torah portion. The ritual of sacrifice is so alien to us. We try to 'clean it up a bit,' but ultimately it's all about knives, slaughter, blood, and guts. It's an uncomfortable reminder of a time when we were much less sophisticated in how we understood our 

relationship to God. Already by the medieval period, the great commentator Maimonides, Rambam, wrote about how we had evolved; prayer was the replacement for sacrifice. But this weekend we also need to examine whether we really have evolved, or at least evolved enough. Why does our society allow needless, senseless violence to persist? We could all name dozens of school shootings, and the statistics on victims of gun violence and accidental homicides are shocking and horrifying. We believe we have evolved - or perhaps we WANT TO believe we've evolved - but in reality violence and violent acts are still very much a part of our society. We can do better. In fact, we must.

Purim is supposed to be a humorous holiday, filled with fun, and yet it primarily tells the story of an evil man who took offense when one Jewish guy wouldn't bow down to him, and as a result, he decided to exterminate every last Jew in the Persian kingdom. Violence is all around us, even when we want to get away from it. And so, all 

throughout Shabbat, we will be talking about gun violence: Jewish sources on the subject, and why we, as Jews, must act to make a difference. Around Ohev Shalom, I've heard people say that not everyone feels the same on this subject, and so perhaps we'd best leave it alone. But I disagree. What makes us strong as a community isn't that we all feel the SAME way on every issue, but that we value one another's opinions and allow for a productive, informative discourse, even (and perhaps especially) on difficult topics like this one. And what I'm talking about here is NOT a political issue; this isn't about Second Amendment rights. I'm saying that we all need to open our eyes and look around at the society of which we are a part. It is filled with sacrifices; not rituals conducted in Temples with goats and lambs, but tragic, purposeless sacrifices of life, simply because we don't enforce the laws we already have. And, quite frankly, we don't care enough to force a change in this devastating pattern.

In Megillat Esther, the story of Purim, our heroine is afraid to confront the king about Haman's genocidal plot. She tries to close her eyes, pretend the threat doesn't concern her. Her uncle, Mordechai, sends her a message: 'Do not keep silent in this crisis! It affects you as well.' 

We cannot keep silent. We are all affected. When we don't act, we are both victims AND perpetrators. Another medieval authority, Rabbi Joseph Karo, once wrote against bringing weapons into synagogue, saying, "Prayer lengthens human life, and a knife shortens it." How crazy, right? Why would someone bring a knife into services? It sounds so barbaric. We've surely evolved beyond that, no? But the question is, have we evolved so that we now understand that weapons only shorten life, they don't protect or extend them? Or have we merely improved our technology, so that now we bring guns instead of knives? Perhaps we have more growing still to do. Let's hope we do it soon, for all our sakes.

Photos in this blog post:

1. CC image courtesy of IZAK on Wikimedia Commons

2. Image courtesy of Francois Polito on Wikimedia Commons

3. Image of 'Samurabbi' Gerber courtesy of Cantor Steven Friedrich, from an Ohev Shalom Purim celebration in 2000.

4. CC image of an 1865 photograph entitled 'Queen Esther before King Ahasuerus by Julia Margaret Cameron on Wikimedia Commons