Sacrifice
Today’s Torah portion was about sacrifice. It was a rather boring portion where God tells the Jews precisely how to offer up animals and other sacrifices in the Temple.
Our rabbi always responds to a question from the Bar/Bat mitzvah student in the sermon. Today the girl’s question to Toby was whether she had personally ever made any sacrifices. Toby responded that she had once said kaddish over a dead goldfish (that she hadn’t killed), but she rather assumed the girl was referring to sacrifices of inconvenience or discomfort.
She said she had thought long and hard about this. She realized she had made choices in life that might favor someone else, but nothing she had ever done had caused her great personal anguish.
I started thinking about this from my own standpoint, and realized my situation was much the same. Whereas immigrant parents might make huge sacrifices so their children can succeed, I never had to do anything comparable to give my children a relatively good life. My life in general has not been terribly demanding.
Even in this time of economic woes, while our net worth has greatly decreased, I’m not being forced to go back to work to pay the bills.
Toby mentioned that when recently asked about the need for specific personal sacrifice, President Obama had said that Americans were already making daily sacrifices. And I suppose we are by choosing not to drive so much, not to take expensive vacations, not to eat out as often.
But so far nothing hurts to the point of feeling like a sacrifice.
What about you? Have you made sacrifices in your life?
posted by Barbara at 3:13 PM
8 Comments:
I have, in terms of things that could have altered my life, like going to a school far away, versus staying to be a caregiver, but I would have to say "no," in what you have described in terms of genuine suffering.
Your opening sentences interested me, as someone who is not Jewish, but who has done some study of the Torah, in terms of the breadth and depth men have studied the Torah through the centuries. Especially where you say "precisely how to..." because this fascinates me.
I know you know this Barbara, and I hope you chuckle, but you are reading a passage in study, and it turns into a footnote where you are redirected back to this issue being studied in the 13th century, then over to some other source, then another, then another, until you are deep in the maze of faith.
I remember once exclaiming to a friend, who is Jewish, my amazement discovering a study by Rabbis over what type of bowl to serve blueberries in, and I'm not making it up. It's out there.
Sacrifice? Today I will think of the sacrifice these men made in studying their faith with such devotion and passion.
I would say that of course I have made sacrifices. I sarifice my time by refusing to take a position at a school for the deaf that is a mere 5 minutes from my home as I continue to commute 4 hours a day into NYC. I have sacrificed having a child to pursue other interests. I suppose these are choices. Choices that I make because they seem 'right'. In this light I can see that sacrifice is a type of choice, isn't it?
Even in the Greek myths where the sacrifice of a child was 'necessary' for good sailing weather or whatever, the king had a choice. And if you know the story of Agamemnon he paid for it with his life, the ultimate sacrifice.
I think I may have veered off course here, I don't know.
Cube -- You have made difficult choices, just as most of us have from time to time. But were they sacrifices?
The Torah portion was from Leviticus 8, which describes in incredible detail how a bull and a ram are to be sacrificed in the consecration ceremony for Aaron and his son as priests. The instructions include putting blood from the ram on their right ear lobes, their right thumbs, and the big toes of their right feet.
I don't think most Talmudic scholars consider their years of study to be a sacrifice, but rather a way of life.
Gary -- You are definitely giving up a lot of things, including sleep, to commute into the city each day. I'm sure there are days when your choice seems like a sacrifice, but then you realize what you get from the job which is so much a part of your life. Instead of having your own child, you are a surrogate father to a degree for a new class of children each year.
As for sacrifice that involves taking life, I have a hard time with understanding killing animals, or even worse killing children, both of which were commonly practiced for many years.
You are definitely right on course with your comments, as always!
Are you asking if we have ever sacrificed (as in killed) something we loved for something else - the way animals' and other humans' lives were sacrificed for an overall gain? Or are you asking if we ever gave up something we cherished (time, material things, etc.) so another could have something, the way some parents sacrifice for their children?
If the former, I can't say I've sacrificed an animal or a child to a god so it would be appeased. As a "good Catholic" child during Lent, I sacrificed having or doing specific things for several weeks so I'd be considered "cleansed." I sometimes gave up a treasured plaything to the local firemen's collection box at Christmas.
As for the latter, I once gave my last bit of money - a $5 dollar bill - to the rural route mailman as a Christmas gift along with a plate of cookies because my dad had been a mailman and had it not been for his customers' seasonal generosity some of our childhood Christmases would have been poor indeed. I was a single mom, I'd managed to squeeze one gift apiece for my four children from the bill money, we were to feast on turkey donated by a local food pantry and the $5 was all I had to give. My kids and I had a conference and decided to give the money to the mailman whose own family was needy. (The very next day the money came back to us fourfold - a distant aunt sent a $20 bill in a Christmas card.)
It's always been that way - I give up something I think I need and it comes back in another form...
Pauline -- Most of us today have never sacrificed an animal or a child, unless we were in some satanic cult!
But I am convinced there are people out there, much like yourself in your time of financial neediness, who make difficult choices each day that could easily be viewed as sacrifices. In most cases, someone else ultimately benefits. And as in your story about the mailman, sometimes the kindness is repaid manyfold from an unexpected source.
I've never known that kind of sacrifice, but I have a warm place in my heart for those who are there, with the hope that their sacrifices will be worthwhile.
For many immigrant families, I think they view their sacrifices as an investment in the future generation. That has been the case since people started arriving on these shores.
In retrospect, I realize that I have made sacrifices but they didn't really feel like sacrifices at the time. I did what I needed to do to help the people I loved or to get to the next stage in life or whatever. I still do.
Hey Barbara!
Your topic has me piqued my interest at the end of my Lenten season.
The Torah scholar Mamonides said of sacrifice "Sacrifice is an act that restores the soul of man." Buddhism defines: "Sacrifice is the giving up of that which is most precious to us. It can be a thing or opinions that we cling too. In the giving up, there is a release and the heart becomes more joyful. Redemption is the release of that which we cling too"
So using those thoughts - Yes, I have sacrificed. I have sacrificed a dying relative. I have released him from the ties to my heart allowing him to more freely release his human contstraints. It caused me great angst at the time and I HATED every minute of it. In the long run, It has brought me great joy as he is no longer suffering and I hope has found his reward.
In many ways, the act of letting go or sacrifice allowed me grow, evolve and more fully experience joy. I have a deeper understanding of how to make each day count with other loved ones ( far from perfect, mind you, but a deeper understanding non the less!) which in the end brings me more joy.
I dont think sacrifice is about the lack of personal reward at the end but rather the growth that ones goes through.
A great Jewish sermon on the exact subject is at http://www.mcjc.org/mjoldart/mjamj001.htm
A friend gave it to me this year as a reflection during lent! :)
Glad to hear you are on the mend!
Great post and topic, Barbara! And I appreciated Gary connecting the dots between sacrifice and choice.
At this very moment, I'm making a choice to forgo some of my needs as part of my "role" in aiding the complex, delicate healing process of someone very close to me. I could walk away from the situation and person, but choose not to. I also choose to not call it "sacrifice," because if I did,
(1) that'd encourage me to feel like a victim and a passive "receiver" of others' energies and actions, rather than remember that I always am choosing how to interpret and integrate my experiences, whether I realize it or not; and (2) it's much harder to learn anything when I feel powerless; and although I often feel bewildered, I'm also learning and growing a great deal by staying open and "in/with" this place I'm in. "Sacrifice" suggests to me that the "doer" is not receiving as well, which is virtually never the case, I think. Thx for the opportunity to look at my situation through this particular lens!
F.
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