In the Torah (Exodus 22:28), God commands: “You shall give me the firstborn of your sons.” From the context it is clear that this is a sacrificial offering.
In another place (Numbers 18), where sacrificial offerings are described in more detail, it explains that although every living thing that opens the womb, human being and beast alike, are to be offered to the Lord, “you must redeem the firstborn of human beings …” (18:15)
That’s the tradition behind the story of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple in Luke 2:22-25:
When the days were completed for their purification according to the law of Moses [i.e. 40 days], they took him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, just as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every male that opens the womb shall be consecrated to the Lord,” and to offer the sacrifice of “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons,” in accordance with the dictate in the law of the Lord.
Since I am a firstborn son, I’m glad that I didn’t have to be sacrificed.
There is a certain irony to my personal situation, though. My mother’s identity was Catholic and my father’s, Jewish. They agreed before marriage that any children born of their marriage would be raised as Catholics.
That seems like the resolution of an either/or challenge, but, if you consider Christianity as a sort of branch of Judaism, then it’s not quite so divisive as it sounded.
In any case, although my father always identified himself as a Jew, he was not what one would call “observant”. He certainly was a good man and a believer, but not a synagogue goer nor a practitioner of any traditional Jewish customs.
My father was a self-made businessman. He grew up in a relatively poor family. Although he was smart and a good student, he left high school to go to work and make some money.
When I was about ten years old, he had a plan to start his own business, a small factory for knit wool gloves. His venture was successful, and we gradual became a middle-class family.
My father probably hoped that one day his son would take over the business, but I was never pressured to do that.
In the course of things, by the time I graduated from college (a first in my family), I felt that I was called to be a priest
Although I was a regular, church-going Catholic—like my mother—there never had been any thought on my part, growing up, nor on the part of my parents, that such a thing would ever happen.
For my mother it was a totally unexpected but wonderful thing, beyond any dreams or hopes she might have had for me.
For my father, it was a curious and unfamiliar thing, but he supported, embraced, and over the years celebrated it.
I sometimes reflect about the ultimate irony of it all. My father, the non-observant Jew, made one of the greatest sacrifices that Jewish tradition could imagine. He gave his firstborn son to the Lord!
Another curious irony was many years later, when I was placed in charge of a Vatican aid agency for the Eastern Churches. My father really appreciated that and was proud of me, for the agency had a multi-million-dollar budget, and his son had become a businessman after all!
10 February 2021