Parshat Tzav – April 11, 2025 / 13 Nisan 5785

Before wolves go out hunting for food, they engage in an interesting ritual. The wolves gather together and practice an elaborate session of wagging their tails and howling in a coordinated manner. According to a famed 1979 study called “The Spectrum of Ritual” by Eugene D’Aquili and Charles Laughlin, these wolves took part in the pre-hunting ritual in order to coordinate behavior that would likely make the hunt successful, and also in order to display the proper behavior to the young wolves. Wolves, of course, are not the only animal that goes through fairly baroque practices regarding hunting, mating, or a sundry of other necessary behaviors for sustaining life. The ritual became what is referred to as a “cognitive imperative,” which can roughly be described as an internal command or drive to join a group. A 2008 article by Steven Kotler in Psychology Today compares this “cognitive imperative” of wolves and animals to his own desire to watch, and really care about, professional team sports. Kotler questions: why does he care if his favorite professional team wins a basketball game that he is watching? He does not know any of the players on the team, and has nothing tangible riding on its outcome. He claims that we crave, on some level, shared ecstatic experience as human beings. Put into evolutionary psychology terms, we crave the neurochemical release of being in a group. Perhaps sports fans are like the wolves before a hunt, and the brain releases similar chemicals that cause us to buy in as if the outcome of a knicks-nets game is truly vital. 

Whatever the scientific and evolutionary reason might be, we as human beings crave ritual, and we often rely on them more than we know. I make it no secret that individuals often struggle with the Book of Leviticus, which we have currently entered in our Torah reading cycle. The book deals mostly with the elaborate system of sacrifices that are to be offered in the Mishkan. The Kohanim are held to very specific standards of practice regarding the different types of “korbanot,” or ritual sacrifices. Our traditional prayer services, of Shacharit, Mincha, and Maariv, coincide with the three times of day that sacrifices were made in the ancient Temple. Our upcoming Passover festival is largely based around the Korban HaPesach, the sacrifice of the paschal lamb. The struggle has always been in applying the Torah’s system of Korbanot to the modern world. We do not engage in these sacrifices anymore. As much as they are mentioned in our liturgy, or referenced as aspects of the desire of a return to Jerusalem, we are living on Long Island, New York, and most of us are trying to navigate the day-to-day of what is happening in the here and now. 

While there is much intrigue for many in the scholarship of the ritual sacrifices of Leviticus, what we might miss is the message that can lie dormant underneath its ornate, and sometimes, intimidating language. The people of Israel, like most human beings, are looking for structure. The erev rav, the mixed multitude that has left Egypt needs a group to identify with…and the group needs rituals. Wolves howl and wag, sports fans cheer and chant, and the Israelites had the system of Korbanot set carefully into place. Now we, those who are still longing for a connection with God that goes back to time immemorial, recite hallowed words of prayer together. We sing together, we eat together, we study together. Our method of connection with God has changed, but the desire to ecstatically unify seems to remain the same. 

These days, I spend a lot of time talking about antisemitism, anti-Jewish sentiments, and making sure that any of this type of hatred that crops up is dealt with immediately and appropriately. This environment of increased antisemitism, and also our Passover’s theme of Exodus, has also raised the question of sacrifice. What are we willing to sacrifice for our shared group identity? How strong is the cognitive imperative to be visibly Jewish? Our desire to maintain our Judaism throughout the ages seems to exceed the limits of scientific explanation. If we were simply animals of survival, would we not have abandoned our Jewish identities long ago; whenever the opportunity presented itself? If you scour the literature about the “why,” I can assure you that the opinions vary across one of the broadest spectrums I have encountered. I have read explanations of Jews remaining Jews because: Assimilation is actually impossible, assimilation itself is a form of Jewry, to the necessity to accept one’s past and make it virtuous. American political scholar, Leo Strauss, even referred to Judaism as a “heroic delusion” in his 1962 lecture entitled “Why we Remain Jews.” 

I can only offer my perspective on this. Sacrifice can be seen as an act of love. We make sacrifices when we love someone or something. As Jews, We have consistently longed to be close to God, to offer sweet savour to a God who many from outside and inside the perspective of Judaism could argue has abandoned the Jewish people. The historic destruction of Jerusalem and its temples, exiles from England in 1290, Spain in 1492. The Holocaust, The wars waged on the State of Israel, October 7th 2023, the vitriolic dialogue that exists on academic campuses and in the bodies of paragraphs written on social media and digital spaces. 

We could have turned our backs on God so many times. Yet, in the face of hatred, of hardship, we remain fiercely Jewish. Even when we are scared, even when we feel like hiding our star beneath a shirt, or removing a mezuzah from the door, or a Chanukiah from a window. We do not abandon our Jewish identities, our Jewish neighbors, Our God. We make sacrifices, as we always have. If we want the sports analogy, sometimes being Jewish is proudly wearing your New York Giants jersey at a Philadelphia Eagles home game. Of course, not everyone will be hostile, but we are open to the possibility. We remain loyal anyway. We can view our stakes as the highest possible in existence. A world without Judaism is one without a commitment to righteous justice, to love for one another, and a love for the Oneness that is at the center of our spiritual and ecstatic desire. 

On this holy Shabbat HaGadol, may we all be blessed to lean into the rituals and sacrifices we make in order to remain proudly Jewish. Wolves operate based on survival, some of us might watch sports to feel a chemical release that mimics a group’s unity. But being proudly Jewish is a beautiful sacrifice that we make which exists beyond the limits of the knowable and the observable. Sing out loud, wear your star, your Hebrew necklace. Celebrate with joy beyond reading words during your seders this weekend, and we will reflect on them here next week. When God is at the center, we endure beyond the moment. We always and already have. 

Shabbat Shalom.

Rabbi Josh Gray