NOTES for Lev 2:1-16

The usual and basic sacrifice of a Yahwist was the sacrifice of an animal. There was also an offering of bread, more precisely, specially baked flat cakes, which, however, never became the main one. Much here is, of course, explained purely historically: the Jews were originally a nomadic people, unfamiliar with agriculture and therefore without surplus bread. Besides, as a rule, it is farmers who offer the fruits of the earth in sacrifice to God or to the gods; people usually share with God or with higher powers what they themselves mainly eat.

To us today it sometimes seems that God must certainly be offered something special and unheard-of, something strange even to us, but in antiquity people looked at the matter more simply: they shared what they themselves had, but they shared the best of what they had. The way one shares with a best friend invited into the house. There was, however, something else that gave priority to animal offerings. This something is connected with the closeness of human beings to the animal world.

It is no accident that during God's creation of the world it was precisely the animals, the livestock, or more exactly domestic livestock if the corresponding Hebrew word is translated literally, that were created on the same day as the human being. After all, we are speaking of the sanctification of the person in the process of the sacrificial meal, and the sacrificial meat is first sanctified by God. That by means of which a person is sanctified must be something close to the person even physically; meanwhile, by nature a human being is still an animal, not a plant.

The life, or in biblical language the "soul," of the animal is in the blood, as is the "soul" of fallen humanity: after the fall it too goes into the blood, becoming like the "soul" of an animal. The animal and the fallen human being share a common life; it is similar in many ways for both. And the fallen human being also received from God the right and authority to eat these very animals. That is why sanctified meat is the simplest way to sanctify human nature.

A person only has to eat the sanctified meat, and the matter is done. That is, of course, if the person turns to God with prayer; it is not accidental that before slaughtering the sacrificial animal, the one bringing the sacrifice lays his hand on its head. Laying on his hand, the person prays, either a prayer of thanksgiving or a prayer of repentance, depending on what sacrifice is involved: a peace offering or a sin offering. With a bread cake, or with any other fruits of the earth, this will not work. Therefore the cakes were offered in sacrifice, but as if in addition to the main thing: to what sanctifies the person, giving him the possibility of full communion with God.