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The Price of Egg-Hatching Animals Today: Commentary on Parashat Vayyikra 5785
By Rabbi Jonah Rank, Rosh Yeshivah of Hebrew Seminary
Don’t worry about us. We Parcells have eaten our share of rock soup and squirrel tail. But we’ve also known lean times. We’ll get by.
—Kenneth Parcell in 30 Rock, season 3, episode 4, “Gavin Volure”
Living comfortably means far more than just living. Yet, for far too many of us, we may feel overwhelmed if we ask ourselves if we truly have the means not only to afford today but to afford the next month, the next year, and all the years that lie ahead.
By one calculation, we might consider our own net worth as whatever money we might have today—whether it be in cash, bank accounts, or in investments. By another—much harder—calculation, we might consider our financial value to be equal to whatever money we might amass over the course of our whole lives. This math problem would call upon us to tabulate paltry dollars from the tooth fairy, our income from years past, today’s holdings, and money to be collected in an unpredictable future—to be earned at our next job, or to be withdrawn from a (hopefully growing) retirement account.
It may be difficult—if not impossible—to know our own economic fate, but it is easy to feel the tightness of our belts in uncertain times. Our Torah painted sketches of a society that sacrifices its resources to an unknowable cause and urged us to tread with compassion. In Parashat Vayyikra—which opens the Book of Leviticus, with its many laws related to our ancestors’ conduct of animal sacrifices—God has made very clear that certain sacrifices will exceed the budget of many Israelites. After having described the procedure for sacrificing a sheep (1:10–13), which an Israelite is prescribed to bring as an asham (אשם, “guilt-offering”) if the Israelite has performed certain transgressions (5:1–6), God provides a caveat in Leviticus 5:7:
וְאִם־לֹ֨א תַגִּ֣יעַ יָדוֹ֮ דֵּ֣י שֶׂה֒ וְהֵבִ֨יא אֶת־אֲשָׁמ֜וֹ אֲשֶׁ֣ר חָטָ֗א שְׁתֵּ֥י תֹרִ֛ים אֽוֹ־שְׁנֵ֥י בְנֵֽי־יוֹנָ֖ה לַֽיהֹוָ֑ה
If one’s hand is not sufficient for readying a sheep [for sacrifice], that person will bring as an asham (for having transgressed) two doves or two pigeons for Adonai.
In his Anchor Bible commentary for Leviticus 1–16, Rabbi Dr. Jacob Milgrom (1923–2010) pointed to a rabbinic tale where a poor man from around the 1st century C.E. reports successfully hunting four birds every day, two for his own sustenance and two for sacrifice (pp. 166–167, citing Vayyikra Rabbah 3:5). Examining this narrative, Milgrom concluded that Leviticus 1:14–17 describes a ritual for sacrificing birds, specifically “to provide the poor with the means to sacrifice” (p. 167). Rabbi Milgrom, contrasting the laws concerning sacrificing birds against those concerning sacrificing male unblemished sheep and bulls (as found in Leviticus 1:1–13), noted:
There is no requirement that the birds be males and unblemished… [I]t must be assumed that these requirements have been waived—again, for the sake of the poor. Another possible reason is that because the bird is covered with feathers, its sex and minor blemishes would be difficult to determine. (P. 167.)
Empathy for ensuring that the poor be able to participate easily in the full ritual life of ancient Israel was of utmost import to God and to the kohanim (כהנים, “priests”) who oversaw the sacrifices of (first) the Tabernacle in the wilderness and (later) the Temple in Jerusalem.
A sheep or a bull—especially one who may bear offspring—was no small sacrifice in a kosher-keeping carnivorous world without grocery stores. Despite the promise of meals to come with the cost of purchasing each large mammal, the ability to keep track of these ruminants necessitated either owning a lot of land or being a talented nomadic herder. Truly, only a select few would be privileged enough to offer sheep or bulls for the asham sacrifice. Nonetheless, God sensed that even birds—which, according to Rabbi Milgrom, “were relatively inexpensive” (p. 167)—were still too costly for certain Israelites, or may have required a certain knack for hunting that not all Israelites shared. God therefore approved yet another workaround:
וְאִם־לֹא֩ תַשִּׂ֨יג יָד֜וֹ לִשְׁתֵּ֣י תֹרִ֗ים אוֹ֮ לִשְׁנֵ֣י בְנֵי־יוֹנָה֒ וְהֵבִ֨יא אֶת־קׇרְבָּנ֜וֹ אֲשֶׁ֣ר חָטָ֗א עֲשִׂירִ֧ת הָאֵפָ֛ה סֹ֖לֶת
If one’s hand is not sufficient for grasping two doves or two pigeons [for a sacrifice], that person will bring as their sacrifice for having transgressed one tenth of an efah[-measure] of choice flour.
Israelites who were too slow to chase after birds and catch them could still acquire food in a less active lifestyle. One could get ahold of flour by milling whatever unclaimed grain crops had been growing in wild fields. Unlike manna falling from heaven (back in Exodus 16), flour did require just a little bit of effort—but it was within reach for nearly every Israelite.
God was addressing a people a people of such limited wealth that God had to to assure them that they could still be acquitted of their sins by sacrificing bits of flour from natural outgrowths of the fields. The meat-heavy barbecue-like sacrifices of our ancestors may have required elaborate rituals for preparation, but they may have also happened infrequently. The earliest rabbis expressed their deep concern over who was truly, as Leviticus 5:7’ put it, dey seh (דֵּ֣י שֶׂה֒, “sufficient for [readying] a sheep [for sacrifice]” (dey seh):
אין אומרים לו ללוות ולא לעסוק באומנותו. יש לו שה ואין לו צרכיו מנין שיביא קרבן עני? תלמוד לומר “די שה”.
We do not tell such a person to borrow [resources] and not to preoccupy one’s self with a [new] job [to be able to afford the sheep]. Regarding the case of one who has a sheep but does not have whatever [else] they need—from where do we learn that such an individual should bring the sacrifice of a poor person? The Torah said [the very words] dey seh. (Sifra, Dibbura DeChovah 18:1.)
In the rabbinic reading of Leviticus, God did not just care about whether Israelites physically could spare a sheep; God actually worried about whether Israelites could spare a sheep and still afford the rest of their lives.
The holiest enterprise would never demand of us to go broke. Our Torah, elsewhere, insists that our people would not be impoverished (Deuteronomy 15:4)—which may be an aspiration rather than a description. When economic hardships were pressed upon our people, our religion developed mechanisms to lighten the severity of our challenges. We have inherited a vast culture of giving tzedakah (צדקה, charity). We are commanded to tithe not only for God but for the lesser resourced among us (Deuteronomy 14:28 and 26:12); to leave the corners of our fields untouched so the poor may partake from what we have grown (Leviticus 19:9–11); and to adjust sacrificial standards on an as-needed basis, as we read this week.
In this very week, the Torah’s compassion for those who do not know if they have the resources they need may feel a world away from our own. In an e-mail to customers yesterday, the investment adviser Vanguard Group presented a portrait of our new relationship to the global economy: “With the White House announcing new tariffs, the markets have become volatile, testing the resolve of even the most disciplined investor.” After the President of the United States signed his lengthily titled executive order “Regulating Imports with a Reciprocal Tariff to Rectify Trade Practices that Contribute to Large and Persistent Annual United States Goods Trade Deficits” on Wednesday—anxiety grew fast. RFD-TV (“Rural American’s Most Important Network”) reported yesterday that Senator Steve Daines of Montana warned the President that the “farmers and ranchers [who] voted for you last November… are concerned right now about the impact of possibly reducing the ability to supply a very important market.” Although Senator Daines shared that “the President understood my concerns; he heard it”—we have yet to witness a response beyond just listening. On March 4, 2025, President Trump did proclaim in the United States Capitol, “I love the farmer” but added that the farmer would “probably have to bear with me.”
Upsetting stability through unexplained tariffs—as recorded in the ominous beginning of Lamentations (1:1) and the foreboding ending of Esther (10:1)—has never improved the spirit of the land. The Book of Leviticus, despite its obsession with enigmatic rituals we can no longer practice, is decorated with seeds of God’s compassion, a mercy that extends to the very economies in our lifetimes. The basis of a society cannot be a bottom line of product or financial gain alone; a civilization must build itself upon empathy and the understanding that we cannot all give the same way as each other. The diverse paths of our lives—the fortunes and misfortunes of our biographies—prevent us from choosing how wealthy we may be and how prepared we may be to respond to new monetary demands. While we may control little of how much income may come our way, we are in full control of shaping how we model empathy and a sense of responsibility for one another. God might love the rituals detailed in Leviticus, but, even more so, God loves when we design a society that demonstrates its concern for those who have less than those who make the laws.
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