In the beginning of creation, G-d separated the waters — יהִ֣י מַבְדִּ֔יל בֵּ֥ין מַ֖יִם לָמָֽיִם, let there be separations between water and water. Water and water meaning the lower waters of the earth from the higher waters of the heavens. In the foundational text of Kabbalah (mystical Judaism) called the Zohar, we get a story which details the lower waters’ devastation at what they perceived as rejection from G-d.

The lower waters knew that the lower, earthly realm was a place of impurity and the mundane, and that being distant from their Divine Source wasn’t good. The mystics teach that G-d comforted the waters, explaining that they would be separated, but that they would once again get to connect with G-d as an integral part of the korbanot, sacrifices, that B’nei Yisrael would bring to the Mishkan (the Tabernacle).

We are entering the third book of the Torah — Vayikra or Leviticus! And as we read in this week’s parsha, sacrifices are a large part of the spiritual life of B’nei Yisrael in the desert. We learn that salt is to be added to every single sacrifice  . This salt is said to represent the sea salt of the lower waters. This is what G-d was referring to when comforting the lower waters, in the act of sacrifices, we unite the physical (salt, lower waters) with the Divine (G-d).

We no longer can offer sacrifices. We don’t have the Beit HaMikdash, the Temple in Jerusalem. But we still can sacrifice the figurative “animal” within ourselves. Every time we elevate ourselves with prayer, with mitzvot (commandments), with acts of kindness, we are bringing ourselves closer to the Divine “sacrificing” our animal-ness. But this elevation, like actual sacrifices, has to have a little “salt” sprinkled on. What is the salt for us? The salt represents the salt water like mentioned, but it’s also the tears of the lower waters that, like us, yearn to be close to the Divine.

All of our “offerings,” which are the expressions of wanting a relationship with G-d (prayer, good deeds, mitzvot, kindness, etc) must be “sprinkled” with a little salt — representing the Divine spark in all of us and in all of Creation that longs to be close to our Divine Source, G-d.

I’m good at keeping secrets, but I am not good at wondering if I’m being KEPT from a secret. I don’t mean secret birthday presents, I mean secrets such as what the heck goes on in Area 51 (a US Air Force facility that, though it’s probably just a normal compound where people are always writing on translucent dry erase boards, has become the center of lots of conspiracy theories about aliens.) I gotta know — are there aliens? I’m not alone in this — when we’re told we can’t know something, it only makes us want to know it more.

Enter sacrifices. Sacrifices don’t sit well with the modern mind. Lots of things, really, about Judaism cannot be fully explained, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t an explanation, and it definitely doesn’t mean we can’t try to understand!

20th century Torah scholar Nechama Lebowitz wrote a piece that compares the famously opposite views of Maimonides, Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, the Rambam, and Nachmanides, Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman, the Ramban. The Rambam viewed sacrifices as G-d’s way of replacing the idolatrous sacrifices we made in Egypt and in the years before. He explains that human nature doesn’t change instantly, and that the perfectly reasonable explanation is that sacrifices are an idolatry deterrent.

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