Leviticus Chapter 3:2 “And he shall lay his hand upon the head of his offering, and kill it at the door of the tent of meeting; and Aaron’s sons, the priests, shall dash the blood against the altar around it.” (translation from Hertz ed. Pentateuch and Haftorahs, 1992 2nd edition) What is the purpose of Aaron’s sons “dashing the blood against the altar around it?” This would mean there would be a lot of blood around the altar. It would seem that blood and peace do not go together. Please explain.
Indeed, I suppose that this would seem strange when coming upon the matter from the “outside.” You could also have asked (with equal force) why innocent animals had to be slaughtered at all. Or, and this would be even closer to the point, why there had to be a temple structure and service in the first place.
This is a very large subject (I’ve dealt with it in general terms here ) but you certainly deserve an answer to at least the specific question you’ve asked. If the institution in both its detail and totality was meant to impress upon a human being his purpose and inspire him to ambitious growth (something discussed brilliantly by Rabbi S.R. Hirsch in his 19th Century commentary to the Torah), then each animal offered would have the symbolic power to impress a person with a specific aspect of this message.
In Rabbi Hirsch’s terms, the blood, the life’s-strength of a living thing, is offered up beside the vertically ascending altar (itself a symbol of the human desire to build beyond the natural world and to create a human society of perfection). It’s as if the person offering it is saying “I hereby enthusiastically commit my entire being and energy to the purifying and ennobling rule of G-d’s Torah.”
Stripped of the Torah’s full context, it’s just wanton destruction. But within its proper context, there’s a world of wholesome improvement attached.
That’s a taste, but I can offer no better advice than that you find the opportunity to study Rabbi Hirsch’s words on your own (they’ve long been translated into English – see here).
With my best regards,
Rabbi Boruch Clinton
Ottawa, Canada