Vayikra:  Sacrifices

The common usage of the word sacrifice deviates from its etymology.  The word originates from the Latin sacer, sacred, holy. The korban ( unfortunately, not related to carbon) was the object that approached, implicitly, the holy. It was a formula for coming closer to the entity that could never be approached. 

The holy is the master over the master.  The attribution of kedusha, holiness is a concept that threatens the temporal order.  The government does not have the last word, there is a greater authority to answer.  I think that is why the third blessing of the Amidah,  "You are holy" is so short and enigmatic.  During the repetition, the expansion of this prayer , in the kedushah, clarifies that GD's power supersedes the temporal.  On Rosh HAshannah and Yom Kippur, the expansion of this blessing  and the altered ending, ascribing (temporal?) royalty to the invisible Gd, reveal the subversive nature of the holy. 

Vayikra details instructions for the approach to the sacred.  It is done by killing animals, sprinkling their blood, burning the entrails, giving portions to the Kohanim.  It is done by causing and witnessing death; and enduring economic loss.  The korban removes the donor from the usual reference frame, she moves to an alternate set of values. 

The waste aspect of the korban gives it some of its power.  Every person that brought a korban could feel the forfeiture of food to a consuming fire.  I do not know how these herders felt about the death of an animal.  I have seen animals slaughtered and the evaporation of life in the instant of slaughter is breath-taking.  I imagine that people who were closer to animals on a daily basis became (somewhat) immune to this feeling, but there was still a twinge.  Life is so important, but in the face of the sacred, it is devalued. 

From the perspective of eternity, the individual life has little value. Life  is short.  In the best of circumstances it contributes something to the human endeavor, but mostly it eats ( and often kills to eat) and sleeps and dances in circles. Poof and it is gone.  Money has even less value. It is tokens in a game , the allocation is high , then low; only  the illusion of control. 

The pandemic confers many meanings to sacrifice.  The modern  understanding of the word directs us to the economic loss.  Most people are giving  up their freedom of assembly, their freedom of mobility, their usual ways for making money.  First responders and health care providers are giving up their safety  - and sometimes their  health or their lives.  These are sacrifices,  losses without payment.  Sometimes, they are also approaches to the sacred, approahces to the surrender to the Highest Power.