Sacrifice

I remember studying an ancient argument about a certain Scriptural discrepancy; two conflicting passages:

To God (belongs) the Earth and all that fills it. *

The Heavens? 

The Heavens are for God and 

the Earth (God) gave to the Children of Adam. (Ps 115)

The Sages slithered through this discrepancy with some ease:

The first? refers to the time before one offers (God) a blessing.

The Second? after a blessing is offered.** 

Holidays about sacrifice are upon us in the Judaeo-Christian sector of the monotheistic world ... Easter and its complete sacrifice of the young Rabbi from Nazareth and the the Paschal Lamb that indicates God's willingness to let slaves out of the House of Bondage ... with the Grim Reaper passing over their dwellings in Goshen ... leaving their firstborn ... alone and alive.

The House I live in? Borrowed!

My Children? Borrowed?

All my stuff? On loan.

GuntherDog? Short-term loan.

Even M? On very long-term loan! ***

However, indeed, one feels about the presence or absence of an interested deity, "someone to watch over me" ... the Mother that we all crave or the Father that keeps us in line ... the temporality of life gives it a powerful meaning (I seem to recall the Physician-Philosopher Leon Kass speaking about this matter on a speaking tour some years ago.) 

My Dad after he turned 70 or so was prone to becoming tearful at family celebrations; the recognition of this temporality, perhaps, is not only meaning-giving but loaded with sadness. Oh! I know there are those who preach that "death is just another part of life," but I have my suspicions that "on the pillow of night" thoughts may be more complex than that.

So Sacrifice? This morning, I have no facile answers. Maybe it's an attempt to work through the feelings of our mortality ... of the borrowed nature of those things we love and tend to .... by offering on the altar or the Cross some animal or some one who is felt as a source of love and comfort.

Just as a By the Way: I was rather amused, long ago, in seeing that some modern liturgists had removed from their prayer books a rather innocuous line originally from the prophecies of the visionary poet, Malachi:

And (someday) the Grain Offering of Judah and Jerusalem 

will be pleasing to God just like in the Days of Old.

The meaning, apparently, that sacrifices hold for us is quite complicated. Happy Holidays.

* I forget where that one's cited from but the arguing Sages cite it and when I was young it was popular to put before one's name when claiming it on your own inside the front cover ... as if to remind: things here in this life are, so to speak, "on loan."

** I'm afraid the record for this resolution has been lost to the Fog of the Last Quarter, as well, but I suspect may be found somewhere around p 30-40 of Tr. Brachoth.

*** After 36 years in my home and 50 years with M, y'might think ... but no-o-o-o! not even M.