I broke my own rule here by not reading the portion all the way through in advance. I missed Torah study this week but read some commentaries from which I I thought I could draw a useful teaching. And promptly feel flat on my face.

My initial attempt focused on the mechanics and therefore the superficial aspects of the offering which dominate this portion. This is a difficult reading for most modern readers. We don't have much experience with sacrifice and in fact most of us are divorced enough from animal slaughter that the whole thing feels barbaric if not just foreign. I know quiite a few Jews who, reading this sections, find themselves thinking they would gladly forego the restoration of the Temple in Jerusalem just to not be able to reinstitute the practice.

I join those who are glad that prayer was substituted for the ritual of sacrifice. As a bit of an aside, I attended a series of classes given by rabbis, mostly, discussing the different branches of Judaism. In the talk by an Orthodox rabbi, he insisted, vehemently, that restoration of the Temple and the resumption of the offerings was a core tenet. When the class put the same issue before a Chabad rabbi, he responded that the restoration of the Temple awaited the Mashiach. The Mashiach would bring total understanding of G-d's will and therefore we would know whether G-d required sacrifices or not. Until then, he said, what's the point in worrying about it. I can live with that reading.

I also feel that part of the prayer ritual and other ceremonies should continue to include the description of the sacrifices on principle. One of the things I appreciate about Jewish practice is that we haven't edited out the difficult parts or even those items that have become obsolete or obscure. We leave them there and read them and, when we choose, we struggle with understanding what they mean to us, what we may be missing as a consequence, and how we can regain that in a modern context. Look at those people who took a bull or sheep or goat, or even the poor who brought birds or flour, which would otherwise help feed their families and sacrificed it to G-d, acknowledging the place a higher power held in their world. What do we do that fills a similar role in our lives?

I also want to address is the term "sacrifice," the general rendering of the Hebrew "korban" we find in this portion. The English "sacrifice" means "to make sacred," as in killing some animal or burning an object imparts some special quality upon it. But "korban" comes from the same root as "approach" and thus the whole realm of korbanot are believed to be rituals whereby we approach G-d. This link is far more apparent in the Hebrew where it describes a member of the community approaching with an offering and both terms clearly belong to the same root. (Again, translation does betray understanding.)

The above is what I wrote, with a lot of editing, that I still feel ok about. Where I started to go off track at this point is in some random speculation about why G-d commanded us to make these offerings. Or in other words, what are the offerings for?

Being so completely divorced from the practice and even the idea of performing such offerings, as I am, is a significant hurdle to reaching a higher understanding. If you can't imagine the act it is hard to see into its deeper or higher meaning. Try as I might to see beyond my own gag reflex when confronting the image of the act, anything significant eludes me. That was my mistake, approaching the question through the physical act.

For one thing, the people of the time, most of them shepherds or herdsmen, would have been quite familiar with animal slaughter in their daily lives. All the meat they ate would have been killed, butchered and prepared by their own hands. The act of ritual slaughter would be no great hurdle for them. Second, someone reminded me that Judaism at the time these practices were first instituted was only a step or two away from the neighboring religions. These religions most likely made offerings by way of sustaining their deities. In other words, they fed their gods. Judaism removed itself only a little, initially, from this approach, still saying that the smoke from the altar was a "pleasing odor to HaShem" but not suggesting that the act sustained G-d.

However, real insight came from a teaching during morning services this Shabbat. The rabbi directed us to the last verses - the maftir - of this portion, which describe the guilt offering. Her point of departure was her recent involvement in a case in juvenile court where the defendent chose to admit his guilt. The judge made a special point of asking the defendent whether he knew what he was doing was wrong at the time he did it. The defendent said that he did and the judge had the exchange noted in the record.

The rabbi drew parallels to aspects of the guilt ritual described in these verses. The ritual applies to those who knowingly commit a crime -- generally some form of theft or otherwise depriving someone of their property -- but, when confronted, initially deny it. The culprit is required to restore the value of what they took plus 1/5 and to perform the guilt offering, acknowledging their guilt and their sin. The knowledge and the denial are key to the situation. In every case where the conditions are laid out, the common element is the denial in face of knowing that it is wrong. It is also important to note that, unlike the court case described, there is no mention of the culprit being caught. The sole impetus for reaching this point is the perpetrator's need or decision to come forward eventually to set things right.

Starting with the question of why someone does something they know to be wrong at the time, someone asked about what happens to those who never don't feel guilt or never manage to arrive at the place where they can admit their guilt. That's when it occurred to me that these offering rituals are there for those who do arrive at such a realization and therefore need a way back to the right path or a better place or whatever you want to call it. For those who simply do something wrong but never cop to their crime, there is plenty of civil law in the Torah that deals with punishing the guilty and recompensing the victims without any religious rituals involved. The guilt offering is for those who need to feel closer to G-d again after acknowledging their crime.

This is where the phrase "guilt and sin" comes in. The thief must make restitution of what they took, plus some punative amount, in recompensation to the victim -- dealing with the issue of guilt -- and also deal with the sin, which I believe refers to the crucial point of denial. The fact that these passages require both the crime and its denial in the face of knowing what was done was wrong and that the restoration and ritual are said to answer guilt and sin seems like a likely relationship. Given that the restoration of the value to the victim corresponds to the other civil code requirements where an offering is not required, it would seem that the gullt offering addresses how the denial or lie affects the perpetrator's relationship to G-d.

This is a very elliptical way of arriving at the realization that G-d doesn't command the offerings because G-d needs the sacrifices. The rituals are there because we need them.