In the past few weeks, I taught two classes on Jewish liturgy. We spoke about prayer, how it has evolved over time, how it has shaped our Jewish experience. A question guiding our discussions was “Why do we pray the way we do? Who decided this order of words, these blessings, these silent moments?”
This unspoken question reminded me that Jewish prayer, as we know it today, has its roots not in poetry, nor in music, but in something far messier, louder, and more visceral: animal sacrifice.
Parashat Vayikrah begins the book of Leviticus, a text devoted almost entirely to the laws of korbanot, or “offerings”. Some were brought to express gratitude, others to ask for forgiveness. Some were voluntary, others mandatory. But all of them had one purpose: to bring the person closer to the Divine. The word korban shares a root with karov—to draw near. That was the foundation of spiritual life in the Torah’s time.
But that entire system no longer exists. Since the destruction of the Second Temple in the year 70 CE, we have not offered sacrifices. The physical altar is gone—but Judaism didn’t disappear. It transformed.
The early rabbis turned sacrifice into prayer, and they called this new form of spiritual life “Avodah shebalev”, the service of the heart. That term became central to Jewish prayer—and its meaning still resonates deeply: the idea that what matters in our worship is not the action alone, but the intention behind it.
Even the Talmud teaches that “a sacrifice brought without proper intent is invalid”.[1] It’s not enough to perform the right ritual, at the right time, in the right way. The ritual is meaningless if it lacks kavanah—consciousness, direction, soul.
This idea is at the heart of a contemporary Progressive reading of Vayikrah. While the descriptions of animal offerings might feel distant from us today, their spiritual message remains urgent: What matters is not just what you do, but the presence you bring to it.
In this sense, a central component of prayer in a Jewish context has to do with what is happening inside of each one of us. Rabbi Arthur Green writes about this with clarity and depth in Seek my Face, Speak My Name:
Let us think of the journey to God as a journey inward, where the goal is an ultimately deep level within the self rather than the top of the mountain or a ride in the clouds…. Prayer, our sages surely knew, is an inward act. ‘The Compassionate One wants the heart,’ the Talmud teaches. The locus of activity in human reaching for God is primarily inward, a turning of mind and heart that is attested by, but never fully subsumed within, outward deeds…. This inwardness is not only that of the person, but the shared inner self of the human heart, the human community, and the world around us.
Inwardness means the One is to be found within all beings. We find God by turning into ourselves, to be sure, but also in the inward experiences we share with others. The inner sight that we develop in such moments then leads us to see the inwardness of all creatures, to come to know them as the many faces of the One.[2]
Prayer, for Green, is not merely a recitation of words, and ritual is not merely a repetition of forms. These are gateways. But the real work, the true offering, is the inward journey they are meant to spark.
In a seminal paper, rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel also reflects on the nature of Jewish spiritual practice, recognizing the importance of its relationship to our internal spiritual life, but also highlighting that it should not be limited to the synagogue space, to the designated times or even to the prescribed words of the liturgy:
Prayer must pervade as a climate of living, and all our acts must be carried out as variations on the theme of prayer. A deed of charity, an act of kindness, a ritual moment—each is prayer in the form of a deed. Such prayer involves a minimum or even absence of outwardness, and an abundance of inwardness.[3]
These are not just poetic words. They are a challenge. Because it’s easier to focus on outwardness. It’s easier to check boxes, to follow procedures, to perform religion than to live it from the inside out in everything we do. But that’s what Torah is inviting us to do.
Vayikrah, often considered the most technical, even “boring” of the books of Torah, is in fact filled with profound insights. It reminds us that even the most detailed ritual must be rooted in presence. That holiness is not found in performance—but in intention.
In our own lives, what would it mean to shift our spiritual focus from the outside in? To treat prayer not as performance but as presence? To treat kindness not just as habit but as an expression of love? To see every mitzvah not just as a duty, but as a doorway into deeper awareness?
That is the invitation of this parashah: to stop looking for God somewhere far away and instead begin cultivating inwardness. To allow ourselves to approach the Divine not only through words or actions—but through attention, humility, and heart.
As we begin the book of Vayikrah, let us renew our commitment to this sacred inwardness. Let our words be true, our actions thoughtful, our prayer alive. Let us remember that we don’t need incense or offerings or altars to come close to the Divine.
We need kavanah. We need inwardness. And we need the courage to bring our full selves to the sacred.
Shabbat shalom.
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