This week’s parashah, Vayikra, the first in the Book of Leviticus, introduces our forebears’ manual for creating and sustaining holiness among the Israelites, beginning with a discussion of ritual animal sacrifice. The parashah discusses five different types of offerings including the chatat, often referred to as the sin offering, and the asham, often known as the guilt offering.
Modern translators, however, suggest a more helpful translation of these offerings; calling chatat the purgation offering and asham the reparation offering. In renaming these sacrifices, translators have helped us understand our forebears’ worldview in a much more meaningful way.
For our ancestors, transgressions of civil or ritual law contaminated the public sphere. That contamination had to be removed through a purgation offering. However, some transgressions not only introduced contamination, they also ruptured the very fabric of the public sphere and therefore, required a reparation offering to repair the damage.
We see this in our own lives. For some offenses, a simple apology may suffice. Often, however, we must do more. We must repair the damage we’ve wrought, either within our relationships or within the public sphere, through a genuine act of repair.
When we know we must seek forgiveness, we must consider the damage we have wrought and determine whether our actions require mere purgation, or also reparation.
—Rabbi Josh Knobel