Miriam Itzkowitz – Year 9

Parashah VaYikra

This week’s parashah is called VaYikra and begins the third book of the Torah, of the same name. In it, God lists potential offerings and sacrifices that the Israelites can bring before Him. A lot of the items that God requests are ‘burnt offerings’ such as bulls or goats or turtledoves or pigeons, which the offerer would sacrifice before Him. Most people these days would be extremely against these rituals because of the method in which animals are treated, so I will now present some issues that I believe this parashah raises: animal cruelty and how it’s still found today, ancient rituals and sacrifices of humans of a similar nature and what the people in VaYikra got out of doing it.

So, onto the first point, animal cruelty and how it’s still prevalent today. In VaYikra, the Israelites were expected to kill the animals in the Tabernacle and burn them. So how is it still prevalent? Well, most people wouldn’t go to that extreme, but there are small things we do that could potentially be considered indirect animal cruelty. Things like littering and polluting. While we’ve probably heard 50 million times that this causes global warming, it also causes a lot of other damage. Due to global warming caused by us, Antarctic animals are dying out from the melting ice and warmer temperatures in and out of the water. Garbage that we drop on the ground is making its way into oceans, suffocating the animals which swallow them.

Another way that animals are being cruelly treated is by farmers. Farmers farm (obviously) in mass. The amount of animals that are killed at once is so great that it’s almost impossible to reproduce quickly enough. Slaughterhouses are built and masses of animals are dead within minutes. In Science last year, we watched a documentary on how the meat for your burger and chicken nuggets are made. They basically kill the animal by knocking it out and then grinding it up. The worst part is that for the nuggets they were using newly born chicks.

A way to help stop this cruelty is to eat kosher meat, if you do eat meat. No, I’m not saying to become kosher, but the way the animals are farmed and slaughtered is much better than the farms I just spoke about. If you don’t want to buy kosher meat, there is a lady named Temple Grandin who found a way to slaughter cows, so the cow isn’t apprehensive and doesn’t feel pain, just like the kosher way.

One other problem with some farms is that the animals are kept in cages, so then they start losing body parts and there is a lack of growth. So when you next need to buy eggs from Coles, buy free range. And when it comes to meat, if you don’t follow the kosher meat thing I spoke about earlier, try to make sure the meat you buy is grass fed, not corn fed, because cows are causing climate change since corn makes them gassy.

While I’m assuming most of you think that the sacrifices of animals in VaYikra are horrible, considering today’s perspective, in some cultures sacrifices were an honour. In many Central American cultures, such as the Mayans, the Incas and the Aztecs, human sacrifice was very common. These people were burnt alive: young children, albinos, old people. Practically any “special” kind of person was burnt with “great honour”. So is it wrong if their mindframe is fine, and it’s for good intentions? Also, if you take Elective History (which you all should by the way), we learn about this man called the Tolland Man. He was a religious sacrifice. All of these people were living and breathing, but they sacrificed themselves for a god of some kind. So is there anything wrong with sacrifices if they are for good intentions?

I believe a sacrifice is something that has to mean a lot to you. Biblical people were doing it to ‘please’ God. Is there a reason to engage today in practices that has similar outcomes for that which is being sacrificed?