Bereshit: Sacrificing to God

For anything worth having one must pay the price; and the price is always work, patience, love, self-sacrifice — no paper currency, no promises to pay, but the gold of real service. –John Burroughs

Cain, the first child of Adam and Eve is the first person recorded as bringing a sacrifice to God. He brings from the fruit of the land. Abel, his younger brother, follows in his brother’s footsteps but brings an animal from his flock as a sacrifice.

God accepts Abel’s sacrifice but rejects Cain’s. The question is why. What difference was there between Cain’s fruit to Abel’s animal that God should reject one and accept the other?

The Meshech Chochmah states that it had to do with each sibling’s respective efforts. To merely pluck fruit off a tree and sacrifice that to God is not truly a sacrifice. It is not a sacrifice of time, effort or resources. To sacrifice an animal that you fed and cared for is a significant sacrifice of time, effort and value.

Cain’s sacrifice was insignificant and God, therefore, rejects it. Abel’s sacrifice was significant and God accepts it. This connects to the same rationale as to why in times when sacrifices were offered there was a prohibition to offer grains or honey (date honey). Both grains and honey are unprocessed; very little human effort has gone into them. This is as opposed to bread, wine, olive oil or animals all of which require significant human work and investment and are accepted as sacrifices.

It seems that when we offer something to God, even if it’s voluntary, God wants us to make a serious effort. He doesn’t want a shallow display. It shouldn’t be just marking off a box to say “we did it,” just to get some onus off our backs. He wants us to mean it. He wants our sacrifices to be meaningful. He wants us to pour our heart and soul as well as our hands and our wallets into anything we offer to Heaven. It shouldn’t be cheap or superficial. It should be deep, valuable and meaningful. It should be an investment of thought, time and effort.

God accepts real sacrifice. He values and cherishes it. And He reciprocates in multiples of whatever we ourselves invest.

May we make correct and worthy sacrifices.

Shabbat Shalom,

Ben-Tzion

Dedication

To the memory of Ronald Joseph Sassoon z”l, who passed away on Tuesday; and in honor of his great-grandson, Eitan Aryeh Eliezer Gilat, whose Brit Mila was on Wednesday. Condolences and Mazal Tov to the entire family.