She sat down across from me in my synagogue office and told me what had transpired. Her dog had no previous violent episodes. She was racked with guilt. It was shortly before Rosh Hashanah, and she accepted my invitation to come to tashlich later. As she watched her breadcrumbs float down the Battenkill River behind our shul, she allowed her guilt to float away with the breadcrumbs.
I saw her a few months later. “Rabbi,” she said, “I have meant to tell you that since I did tashlich I have felt so much better.”
It was then that I understood Sefer Vayikra.
Sefer Vayikra, the third book of the Torah, is called Vayikra from its first word in Hebrew. The word Leviticus is derived from Latin, from the levitical, priestly focus, of its pages. That name is echoed in another designation for the book, “Torat Kohanim,” the “Teaching of the Priests.”
Koof-reish-alef, the three-letter root of vayikra, carries a multiplicity of meanings: read, invite, summon, name, call, call out. They are the basis of the words kriat HaTorah, the Torah reading for services, and baal k’ree’a, the one who chants from the Torah during services.
We also find m’kra, another name for Tanakh, the whole Bible. Jeremy Benstein points out that when it comes to the earlier uses of these words, “There is this ambiguity between reading and calling – since reading in ancient times was primarily oral, so reading out loud and calling out were not so different.”
With this particular book of the Bible, its focus on the sacrificial system becomes a stumbling block for many trying to derive meaning from its text. Rabbi Daniel Kamesar sees the sacrifices offered in the Temple as a powerful therapeutic activity and exercise. Watching the smoke rise heavenward, he writes, was cathartic, as the smoke “took” away our sins. The same reaction can be felt from watching breadcrumbs float downstream, away from us: Only after that congregant told me about the effect tashlich had on her did I connect it to Kamesar’s insight about the sacrificial rituals in the Temple in Jerusalem.
“Burn it up and let it go,” Kamesar would point out. “Most therapists are trying desperately to help us achieve that.”
Chet, sin in Hebrew, is the basis of the thrice-daily confessional during the weekday liturgy – S’lach lanu Avinu ki chatanu, “Forgive us, our Father, we have sinned” – as well as the High Holiday liturgy “Al chet” with its long confession of sins. Chet also means to miss the mark, as in archery. This is because the three-letter root of Torah – yud-resh-hey – is also the basis of the word “to shoot an arrow.” That is to say, Torah is our trajectory to live a fulfilled, responsible (to God and others), and meaningful life or, as the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, to leave “a committed life behind.”
AS MENTIONED above, three times a day – evening, morning and afternoon – during the week we ask for forgiveness. In Judaism there is the concept of not saying a bracha levatala, a blessing whose purpose is not going to be fulfilled. This means that when we ask for forgiveness throughout the day there is the implied understanding, since we can’t say the bracha in vain, that we did something wrong in the morning, afternoon, and evening.
For some, this is proof Judaism is a religion of guilt. Rabbi Art Green teaches the opposite when he says that Judaism is actually about guilt relief, with a system providing us precious moments throughout the day to check in with ourselves and recalibrate as needed.
That is an amazing gift and opportunity the tradition affords us. Salvation, the deliverance from our transgressions and shortcomings, is something we all desire.
As Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan insightfully taught, “God is the power that makes for salvation.” In many ways, that path is a deeply private and internal process. That course can be enhanced with an external visual dimension – the sacrifices in the Ancient Temple, tashlich today. I am not advocating the return to animal sacrifice or the building of the Third Temple. However, with so much of a Jewish prayer life being cerebral, other modes are also important. Hence, the body movements of swaying and dancing in hassidic circles.
Perhaps we need to explore other activities, such as: before Kol Nidre, individuals writing their infractions on a piece of paper, then burning the piece of paper in a bowl and watching the smoke rise heavenward. One of the most important aspects of Judaism has been its ability to evolve and develop as needs arise.
Tashlich first appeared some 700 years ago and the Kabbalat Shabbat service some 500 years ago; these are but two of scores of examples. In recent years many have started using bird seed, leaves, or small bark chips for tashlich in place of breadcrumbs as a more attuned environmental response to the ecology of rivers and oceans.
“Vayikra el Moshe,” as the book opens, is usually translated “And God called to Moses.” Perhaps there is another meaning. The m’kra, the Bible which is to be read, is always calling to us, inviting us to respond and become the latest voice, the latest sound in that holy eternal dialogue of salvation, direction, and insight. ■
The writer is rabbi emeritus of the Israel Congregation, Manchester Center, Vermont, and a faculty member of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies and Bennington College.