Face Up

On Cain and Leviticus

And the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you distressed, and why is your face fallen [naflu panecha]? Surely, if you do right, there is uplift. But if you do not do right Sin couches at the door; Its urge is toward you, yet you can be its master.” (Genesis 4:6)

If your offering is a burnt offering [olah] from the herd, you shall make your offering a male without blemish. You shall bring it to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, for acceptance in your behalf before the Lord [Lifnei Hashem]. (Leviticus 1:3)

The Book of Leviticus (Vayikra), which we begin reading this week, enumerates the various sacrifices one might bring to the Tabernacle, now that it has been constructed (at the conclusion of the Book of Exodus). The phrase “Lifnei Hashem”—which means “before God”—recurs throughout Leviticus, but appears for the first time, repetitively, in its opening chapters. If you bring X, make sure to do it lifnei Hashem—before God. (1:3; 1:5; 1:11; 3:1; 3:7; 3:12; 4:4, etc.) The language seems redundant. Is it not obvious that one is sacrificing to or before God? Who else could be the addressee?

The repetition of this phrase—before God— leads Zoharian-Kabbalistic commentators to entertain the demonic possibility that one might would offer sacrifices to a counter-deity, the “other side” (sitra d’achra). But I take the repetition of the phrase to have a more banal, if psychologically cutting, force. It is easy, in the practice of religion, to lose sight of God, and to think religion is just about ritual, catharsis, community, authority, humanity. It’s easy to think that the sacrifices are for the priests, or that synagogue membership dues are for the sake of paying the rent. No. The sacrifices are for God. The prayers are for God. The plausibility structure needed to maintain worship may require all sorts of mundane considerations, but we should not conflate the purpose of religion with its mechanical operations.

In the details of the sacrifice, it is easy to forget why one is bringing it in the first place. The spectacle of visiting the Temple may be so aesthetically overwhelming that religion becomes about the beauty or the foreignness or some other quality, rather than about transcendence. We need to be told that we are lifnei Hashem because most of the time in our lives, even while in synagogue, or while in observance of a holiday, we are unaware. In a different context, Heidegger describes selfhood as fundamentally a flight from Being, an avoidance of death, an anxiety about finitude. So desperate not to encounter ourselves, we rush headlong into all kinds of distractions. In the Twittersphere, a meme to this effect goes: “Men would rather do X than go to therapy.” Israelites would rather cut up sheep, give up their choicest calves, than examine their misdeeds.

Sacrifice is intended to shock the self out of complacency, but it is not immune to co-optation by a self bent on justification. It can easily become a form of “spiritual bypass” just like anything else. Lifnei Hashem is a wake-up call: is religion just about feeling sublime and having a meaningful time, or is it about refining oneself and one’s way of being in the world? Only one who stands lifnei Hashem, the text suggests, has a chance at transformation. Everyone else is just a consumer.

We can extend this metaphor to include many spheres not typically thought of in religious terms. Does one offer a good point to prove that one is smart or to help the other person? Too often the philosophy seminar or the yeshiva hall or the sermon or the therapist’s chair are occupied by those who think the goal is making a good point or argument, rather than accompanying lost souls in their search for home. But this is like the person who thinks that the point of the sacrifice is the way that it’s cut. Sacrifice is an operation, but that’s not what it’s about. In Heidegger’s terms, sacrifice is an existential mode of being.

The first sacrifice mentioned in the Torah makes no mention of the phrase “lifnei Hashem.” Neither Cain nor Abel offers their sacrifice before the Lord. Yet this phrase may be hinted at in the fact that Cain falls on his face (vayiplu panav). The word p’nei, which means face, is contained in the word lifnei, meaning before or on behalf of. To face someone is to stand before them. A person who turns his back on another, even if he is standing within an arm’s breadth, is no longer before the other. God tells Cain to pick up his face (“why is your face fallen”—lama naflu panecha), to good, and lift himself up. Cain gets caught up in the human aspect of religion, and ends up killing his brother. He treats the sacrifice through the lens of class and status and prestige.

Cain is the first person in the Torah to bring an offering to God. He is also the first person to commit manslaughter. The Torah gives us a warning about what can happen when religious life is distorted into a form of self-aggrandizement. One who stands lifnei Hashem will not fall on her face.

Validation and praise are one way that people lose motivation. How many chess prodigies stop playing because they are crushed by the pressure to win, instead of encouraged by love of the game? Religion is no different. When bringing a sacrifice, it must be lifnei Hashem, to prevent the worshipper from thinking, “You know what, I’m really good at this thing?”

What heals the person bringing the sacrifice is not the sacrifice itself, but the awareness of God. To bring the sacrifice lifnei Hashem is the most important part of the ritual, it is the part where play-acting becomes real, where going through the motions transforms into deep sincerity.

In his short story, “Good Old Neon,” David Foster Wallace presents a character who is unable to meditate because he is so distracted by his desire to be seen and affirmed as the best meditator. To stand lifnei Hashem is to break this neurotic spell. If we are lifnei Hashem, we are no longer dependent on others to like us. Unblocked, we can look at our shortcomings non-judgmentally. We stand “before the Lord,” not the priest, even if the priest is right in front of us and the Lord is more abstract. When we stand before the Lord, we recognize that we are ontological and not just ontic beings, that we are beings who care, and not just beings who operate. Returning to our essential care, we are renewed.

Shabbat Shalom,

Zohar Atkins @ Etz Hasadeh

P.S.—Grateful to share my podcast conversation with Noah Feldman about Jewish theology, pluralism, and the importance of striving.

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