Beth Hillel Synagogue E-Shul .. Shabbat Vayikra... sent on March 181, 2010 / 3 Nisan 5770

Weekly Torah Commentary...

written by Rabbi Michael Gold of Tamarac, Florida

       Last week I saw Tim Burton's new version of Alice in Wonderland. I even saw it in 3d, which made me somewhat dizzy. It was enjoyable, if not a totally accurate retelling of Lewis Carroll's great book. Unfortunately, my favorite scene from the original was left out.
       In my favorite scene, when Alice meets the Cheshire Cat, she asks him "Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?" The cat replies, "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to." Alice says, "I don't much care where." So the cat famously says,
hen it doesn't matter which way you go."
       If we do not care where we are going, then it does not matter which way we go. But if there is a path we ought to go on, a direction we need to take, then the way we go becomes very important. This little scene from Alice in Wonderful gives us some insight into a central religious idea - sin. What is sin? It is going down the wrong path. Literally in Hebrew, the word chata - "sin" comes from archery; it means to miss the target. There is a way we ought to go, and in some area of our lives we have gone the wrong way.
       Many New Age thinkers deny that sin exists. "Whichever way you are going, that is the way you were meant to go." But from a classical religious view, it is not only possible but likely that we will go down the wrong path. As the Bible teaches, "For there is not a righteous man upon earth who does good and sins not." (Ecclesiastes 7:20)   This week's portion deals with sin offerings. In Biblical times, a person would go to the priest and bring an animal sacrifice, and through following the prescribed rituals that person would find atonement for the sin.
       How do we find atonement for sin today? Here is an area where Christians and Jews have taken different paths. Christians speak about "the fall;" "by Adam's fall, sinners all." We humans are so steeped in sin that there is no way to find our way out of it. Only divine grace can bring atonement. (Amazing Grace is a beautiful Christian hymn built on these theological ideas, but the words are foreign to Judaism.) Just as in the ancient Temple there was a sin offering that removed sin, so Jesus himself was a sin offering who removed sin. Just as the ancient sin offering was without blemish, so Jesus was without blemish. Christians have built an entire theology around original sin, vicarious atonement, and divine grace. It is so compelling that Christianity is the largest faith in the world.
       With all due respect to my Christian neighbors, Judaism took a different path. What happened in the Garden of Eden was not a fall, but a rise. By eating of the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, Adam and Eve rose above the animal and reached the ability to make moral decisions. Humanity learned right from wrong. And with it came the ability to change ways, switch paths, and go from the wrong path to the right path. The reaction to sin was not an offering but rather a commitment to change one's ways.
       My tradition makes the radical claim that people can change. Someone who has gone down the wrong path for most of a lifetime can switch to the right path. A drinker can stop drinking, a philanderer can remain faithful, and a person with a bad temper can learn to control anger. There is a proper path and through an act of will, although often difficult, a person can move down the right path.
       Alice's mistake was that she had no idea where she wanted to go. For us, wisdom is to know where we want to go and then try to get on the right path.