2: of or relating to a metal that serves as an anode which is electrolytically consumed instead of another metal that is present Other Words from sacrificial Example Sentences Learn More about sacrificial. A common part of the sacrificial process in the ancient world was the cooking and eating of the flesh of the sacrificial animal. In Greece, only meat obtained through sacrifice could be eaten (Green 2001, 42) – they didn't have butchers on the street corners. These sacrificial rites were the occasion of great feasting and joy.

For our course, DEI613: design principles and practice I, we were tasked to design an artifact or an object for a fictions world using a technique called sacrificial concepts. It was my first time hearing this term and as our professor talked about, I became intrigued and actually puzzled by it. Many questions came to my mind, what is this practice? Is it a design ritual? What is being sacrificed in the process? As I discussed it further with the professor and my team mate, the concepts started to become clearer and clearer.

What is Sacrificial Concepts?

Sacrificial concepts is a method, created by IDEO, to help designers infer meaning about the world and users they are designing for. You can think of it as a design thinking exercise. This method is widely used in media industry, game and product development. As designers and UX researchers we need to have empathy and understanding of people’s needs who can be different than us. This helps us design products/ services that meet those needs. What is the role of sacrificial concepts practice? it provides a way to gain insight and deeper understanding about the beliefs, culture, society or environment; things that are different from us. Thus, helping us tackle problems from multiple perspectives while ensuring that we develop empathy for the users or world we are designing for.

You might wonder what is being sacrificed in this process? When using this process, you come up with concepts that are raw and not necessarily feasible in that world. Those concepts function as a way to help spark discussions and conversation about that world. In other words, it works as ideas generating mechanism. As the discussion goes on, the picture becomes clearer and our understanding of the world we are designing for unfolds. As we collect the ideas and thoughts, then we can let go of the concept and focus not the design. For example, if you are going to design a school in the world of avatar movie, for example. You have to think of what things are present in a school in that world. Do they use black boards or books? Then you think how a school would fit in there? Does the Na’vi, the blue Pandora planet inhabitant, have a school system? Doe they have a written language? How do they transfer knowledge? as you continue on, you get a clearer picture how that world live and how the society interact. At the end you end up with a design idea.

The Design Challenge

World of Pandora, retrieved from james-camerons-avatar.wikia.com

The first step in our challenge was to pick a sci-fi or a fantasy movie to design for its world. I expected that we would choose planet of the apes or lord of the rings, but at the end we all agreed on avatar. Our choice was not based on the movie’s beautiful graphic or mesmerizing world. It was more based on the complexity of the of the world of planet Pandora and the society of Omatikaya. If you don’t know anything about Avatar, I advise you to read Avatar as design fiction written by my team mate Kesiena who explains about the world of avatar.

Sacred Seeds, retrieved from james-camerons-avatar.wikia.com

The next step, we each watched the movie individually to familiarize ourselves with the world of Pandora, build our views and to use a critical lens when observing details within the movie. Also, taking notes of possible problems or needs that are depicted in the movie or can be present in that world. Like Jake, the human protagonist in the movie, I navigated through the world of Pandora; observing and analyzing each detail. I can say that I was interested in the environment, the diverse fauna and flora, and how the Na’vi lived in harmony with their environment. because there are many interesting things in the movie, I decided focus on few points:

• The Na’vi beliefs, culture and behaviour. (are they social or individualistic)
• Their relationship to their environment.
• The tools the Na’vi are using (material used)

This helped me note details about their environment, how they interact with each other and with their environment. What is their physiology? What do they eat? Is their society primitive or sophisticated? And what is the role of the flora and fauna?

Notes taking and ideas drafting during movie watching session

Sketches and drafts of some ideas in the avatar world and designs for the Na’vi

After this step, we met and watched the movie as a group. Each one of us brought their ideas and perspective that we built after the individual watching process. As we started the movie, we took notes about what we observed and we actually focused on few scenes, which we discussed deeply to help us better understand that world and its inhabitants. Although the movie was long, it was an enjoyable to watch the movie with the group and at the same time enjoying the snacks that we shared.

discussion among the team as we watched the movie, from right: Raycher, Nicole, Will, Athi, Kesiena and me (behind the lens)

Then it was time for the group sacrificial concepts. We brainstormed couple of concepts from our world that are applicable in the the planet Pandora:

-Town Hall

-Education

-Cooking

-Grooming

-Entertainment

-cloths

To stay focused on the task, we agreed on using two concepts, cooking and entertainment. Then we brainstormed ideas from our experience and life that falls under those concepts. For instance, we thought about these things when we discussed cooking:

-Fire

– Cutlery/ pots/ plates

-Ingredients/ seasoning

-Dining area

-Cleaning

-Water

-food

Kesiena suggesting a point to the group

Based on those points we started to infer about the Na’vi, precisely the Omatikaya clan, and the world of Pandora. Each one of us came up with ideas which we discussed and organized them into facts, beliefs or assumptions. For instance, we discussed whether or not the Omatikaya have cutlery? What kind of food they eat? Does their diet include both meat and vegetables? How they serve the food? And do they have cooking plates? From those, then we discussed what we saw in specific scenes and using them as points to come up with facts about the Omatokaya eating habits and the tools/ materials they use.

Facts, belief and assumptions that we inferred about Na’vi and Pandora

What I like about this process is how few concepts helped us generate multiple ideas; additionally, it gave us deeper understanding about that world. Who new that we were able to figure out how the Omatikaya interacted with one another from their eating habit! or how the environment is tropical based on the how they drink water and way they collected it!

Although the process took us a lot of time, but I can say that it was a time well spent. It was a truly enlightening and interesting discussion that I enjoyed. Now our next step in the challenge is to agree on our rules and our design challenges.

Sacrificial Pressure

long hours of discussion but we came up with many ideas

After we are done, we celebrated by taking a group selfie

Group selfie: Wil, Nicole, me, Athi, Kesiena and Raycher

What will we design for the N’avi? Stay tuned for part II 😉

What are sacrifices? “Sacrifice” means giving up something for someone else. In general, there are three kinds of sacrifice:

1. “Sacrifice for yourself.” Think about sports training – you work hard in order to improve your strength and skill. In the Bible, Joseph suggests that the Egyptian Pharaoh make this kind of sacrifice: The king should store food during years of plenty so that there will be enough to eat during years of famine. He gives up enjoying the harvest now so that he and his people will have enough food later. (Genesis, Chapter 41)

2. “Sacrifice for others.” Think about doing chores – you give up your free time in order to help out your family. In the Bible, Yocheved makes this kind of sacrifice: She sends away her baby, Moses, and agrees to have him be raised in the Pharaoh’s palace in order to protect him. She gives up being close to her son in order to keep him safe (Exodus, Chapter 2).

3. “Sacrifice to come close to God.” Think about donating money – you give up buying something for yourself so that other people can have a better life. You may not know the people you’re helping, but you still feel happy anyway; this is because donating money is tzedakah (which means “righteousness”), and it is a holy act. In the Bible, we find this kind of sacrifice in the laws about the priests and their service in the mishkan or Tabernacle. People give up their animals, grain, and money as a way of being holy.

Usually, it’s the third kind of sacrifice that surprises and confuses us the most. So let’s take a closer look.

Korbanot – Sacrifices in the Desert

Throughout the Torah — especially in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers — we read many, many passages about sacrifices. Here’s a quick summary:

• A group of people called the kohanim (“priests”) were the only ones who were allowed to make sacrifices to bring people close to God. The first kohen was Aaron, and his sons became kohanim after him.

• The kohanim would make sacrifices for themselves, for other individual Jews, or for the entire Jewish people.

• These sacrifices were called korbanot. The word korban means “something which draws close.” Their purpose was to bring people closer to God.

• The kohanim would offer korbanot every day during the evening, morning, and afternoon services. Additionally, they would offer korbanot on holidays and whenever someone else (who wasn’t a kohen) would want help making a sacrifice of their own.

• There were three basic kinds of korbanot: Animals, grain, and money. Animals would be killed, grain would be burned, and money would be donated. Sometimes, when a person didn’t have any animals to sacrifice, they would offer grain or money instead (see for example Leviticus 5:11, 5:18, and 14:21).

Sacrificial Princess Manga

The kohanim were called “those who come close to the Eternal” (Exodus 19:22), showing that their job of offering korbanot involves closing the distance between human beings and God. Indeed, God tells Moses to build the sanctuary where the korbanot are offered so that God can “dwell among” the people of Israel (Exodus 25:8). So, offering korbanot was one way of bringing God and the Israelites closer together.

Sacrificial Layer Etching Process

Why Sacrifice Animals?

We often have questions about why animals were chosen to be killed so that human beings could get closer to God. Isn’t that cruel? Maybe yes and maybe no. We can look at it both ways.

On the one hand, killing animals is wrong. The story of Creation teaches us that human beings are meant to protect life on earth, not destroy it (Genesis 2:15). So even though the ancient sacrifices had a holy purpose, they were unnecessarily violent. Today, we know that there are many other ways we can draw close to God that don’t involve killing animals. In particular, Judaism teaches that prayer is a replacement for animal sacrifices.

On the other hand, killing animals is not wrong, especially when human beings then eat the animals. The story of Noah’s Ark teaches us that God understands people’s desire to eat meat (Genesis 9:3). Humans have eaten animals for thousands of years and still do today. This is related to korbanot because every animal that was sacrificed was later eaten. In fact, the only time the Israelites ate meat in the desert was after a sacrifice (see Deuteronomy 12:20 and Rashi’s comment). So, sacrificing animals in the ancient world was similar to killing animals today for food.

To summarize, the priests killed animals for some korbanot. Today, we can understand this practice as both “wrong” and “not wrong.”

What Does It All Mean?

Korbanot were used to draw people closer to God. Israelites brought offerings of animals, grain, or money to the kohanim, and the kohanim in turn offered them as sacrifices to God. This was the main process used to connect ancient Jews with God. People gave up their prized possessions as a symbol of their dedication to God, and this became the most important part of Jewish worship.

After the destruction of the Temple in the year 70 CE, Jews stopped offering korbanot. Instead, they began to offer prayers. The rabbis taught us that we can become closer to God with the words of our mouths rather than with physical sacrifices. Nevertheless, they still based the Jewish evening, morning, and afternoon prayer services on the ancient rituals for offering korbanot.

Today, when we come together as a community to pray, we use the model of the korbanot to guide our prayer. The korbanot teach us that we have to give something of ourselves in order to draw nearer to God. They teach us that it can be easier to come close to God with the help of other people rather than all by ourselves. And they teach us that prayer can be deeper when we use ancient rituals. In all these ways, the korbanot still lead us to holiness today.

Only each one of us can answer what sacrifice means for ourselves. As you think about sacrifices in the part of Torah you’re studying, also think about what sacrifice means in your own life. You might find the following questions helpful:

Sacrificial Princess And The King Of Beasts

1. What kinds of sacrifices are present in this Torah portion? (Sacrifice for yourself, for others, or to come closer to God?)

2. When have I made that kind of sacrifice in my own life? Or when could I make that kind of sacrifice in the future?

3. Sacrifices in the Torah required very specific rituals. What are some rituals that are important to me that help me to feel Jewish or holy?

4. What are some ways I can draw close to God?

5. What might I want to teach my friends and family about sacrifice from a Jewish perspective?