Parashat Vayikra

SPEAK TO THE ISRAELITE PEOPLE, AND SAY TO THEM: WHEN ANY OF YOU PRESENTS AN OFFERING OF CATTLE TO THE LORD YOU SHALL OFFER YOUR OFFERING FROM THE HERD OR FROM THE FLOCK.

(Vayikra 1:2))

 

 

The Sacrifices: Of You? Of Animals?

What does it say previously about this matter? When one has thus sinned and, realizing his guilt, would restore that which he gained through robbery (Vayikra 5: 23) and afterwards, This is the ritual of the burnt offering (6:2). If you want to offer a sacrifice, never rob anything from anyone. Why? Because, in connection with the burnt offering, God loves justice and hates robbery. When can you make a burnt offering that is acceptable to Me? When your hand has no part of robbery. David said: Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart (Tehillim 24:3-4). From the beginning of the laws of sacrifices we learn, when mikem [any of you, but also from you - not from the possessions of others] presents an offering...

The Holy one Blessed be He said: When you offer sacrifice to me, be like Adam [a play on the verse, When any of you - adam- presents an offering] who could not steal from others because he was the only person in existence.

(Yalkut Shimoni Vayikra 6: 480)

 

Adam ki yakriv mikem [When any of you presents]: This may be read as allowing for human sacrifice, since it could have been formulated less ambiguously as Adam mikem ki yakriv. However, Scripture has avoided this and prohibited it [human sacrifice], and so the verse should be rendered: If a person from amongst you wishes to make an offering to God, you should offer cattle or sheep, but not humans. And that is what the prophet said: Which I never commanded, never decreed, and which never came to My mind (Jeremiah 19: 5). And that is why the section regarding sacrifices begins with the word adam [human being], to tell you that humans will be the sacrificers and not the sacrificed.

(Rabbeinu Behayeiy on Vayikra 1:2)

 

It is written: Which I never commanded, never decreed, and which never came to My mind (Jeremiah 19: 5).

Which I never commanded - This is the son of Mesha King of Moav, as it is written: So he took his firstborn son, who was supposed to succeed him as king, and offered him up as a burnt offering (II Kings 3: 27).

Never decreed - this is Yiftah.

And which never came to My mind - That is Isaac, Abraham's son.

(Ta'anit 4a)

 

Adam ki yakriv mikem korban la'Hashem min habeheimah [When any of you presents an offering of cattle to the Lord] One must understand why the word adam appears several times in Leviticus. In my humble opinion, it appears that if Adam had not sinned, sacrifice would be practiced in a completely different way, in the spiritual manner of angels, as God said, "I want words" (Shemot Rabbah 38:4). That is why it begins with the word adam, as if to say that Adam's sin made this form of redress, i.e., the presenting of an offering of cattle, necessary.

(Yodei Binah, pg. 57)

 

 

And He Called to Moses - and Who Heard?

Pinchas Leiser

 

My words are largely based upon Prof. Y. Leibowitz's Sheva Shanim shel Sihot al Parashat HaShavua, pp. 438-441. My prayer is that, in due time, they shall bring redemption to a wounded and bleeding world.

Rashi, following the Sages (Yoma 4a), makes a precise textual inference:

And He called to Moses (Vayikra 1:1)-This implies that the Voice went on and reached his [Moses's] ears only, but all the other Israelites did not hear it.

(Rashi quotes based on Silberman translation)

An interesting question arises in this connection: On whom does the hearing depend, on the speaker or on the listener? Or perhaps on both of them? (The halakhah regarding the blowing of the shofar comes to mind. As the RaMBaM formulated it, "He does not fulfill his obligation until both hearer and blower have proper intention" - Hilkhot Shofar 2:4).

In addition, what is the instrument through which one "hears" the voice of God? Rashi's further comments shed some light on the kinds of voice and hearing involved:

From the Tent of Meeting - This teaches us that the Voice broke off and did not issue beyond the Tent of Meeting.

Since we have not been informed that the Tent of Meeting was surrounded with a sealed acoustical wall and a sophisticated system of insulation - it did not even have a roof - we can assume that we are dealing with a rather different kind of "voice" and "hearing."

The midrash Tannaim Sifra (Chapter 5) further clarifies the issue:

Could it be [that the Voice was not heard outside the Tent] because it was weak? The words et hakol [the Voice] teach us otherwise: The Voice is understood in Scripture [in accordance with the verse]: The Voice of the Lord is power, the Voice of the Lord is majesty; the Voice of the Lord breaks cedars (Tehillim 29:4). If so, why does it say from the Tent of Meeting? This teaches us that the voice was cut off [from being heard outside the Tent].

According to the above, ability to hear the Voice is not limited by hearing problems or acoustical issues. Rather, it is dependent upon the will of the Speaker, or that of the listener, or upon the relationship between Speaker and listener.

Yeshayahu Leibowitz (in his Sheva Shanim Shel Sihot al Parashat Ha'Shavua) cites the Midrash HaGadol on this topic, which presents a particular reading of the Sifra selection brought by Rashi:

Could it be that [the Voice] was weak? The word hakol [the Voice] as understood in the Writings, teaches us otherwise. And if so, why does this one [Moses] hear it and this one [Israel] not hear it? Rather, all those whom God wants to have hear it, do hear it, and the rest do not hear it.

According to this way of thinking, the ability to hear the Voice is conditional upon divine grace, and God chooses those who will hear His Voice.

In contrast to this view, we may glean a different notion from the words of Rabbi Hayim ben Atar, author of the commentary Or HaHayim:

And He called to Moses: Perhaps this is intended to speak of God's powers, that He can call out in a great Voice and be heard only by those whom he chooses. That is the meaning of and He called to Moses - although He called out, His speech was only heard by Moses and not by those with Moses.

The Hebrew expression asher yahpotz - "whom He chooses" - is ambiguous. Does it mean "whom He chooses," as the Midrash HaGadol would claim? Or does Rabbi Hayyim ben Atar mean to say that he who chooses to hear God's Voice will be able to it, making the whole thing dependent on people themselves?

 

Prof. Yeshayahu Leibowitz tries to suggest that both views share a common element: Whether God's voice only reaches those special individuals chosen by God, or whether it reaches all people who choose to hear it, reception of the Voice is not dependent on the Voice itself, but rather upon the character of the person receiving it. Leibowitz deduces from this that, in any event, worship of God via the acceptance of the yoke of the Torah and the commandments can enable people to hear the Voice, and not vice versa. This is largely compatible with the RaMBaM's theory of prophecy.

The Tanaitic midrash Sifra, and Rabbi Hayyim ben Atar in its wake, also expound upon the word leimor ["saying," from the verse The Lord called to Moses and spoke to him from the Ten of Meeting, saying]:

He spoke with him for Israel's sake and not for his own sake, for his speaking to Moses was only for Israel's benefit.

Moses, the greatest of prophets, served as the "pipeline" for transmitting God's Voice to Israel. This is reminiscent of a verse that follows the Ten Commandments: "You speak to us," they said to Moses, "and we shall obey; but let not God speak to us, lest we die (Shemot 21:16).

RaShBaM explains: "'You speak to us' - If they had not said this, God would have communicated all of His commandments to them directly."

Moses, who was capable of "hearing," had to mediate between God and Israel, which was incapable of "hearing." We can infer from this that a different kind of hearing was involved, which was not dependent upon auditory and acoustical factors.

And what are those words which are heard in our parasha, which opens a series of parshiyot dealing with the sacrificial worship of God?

RaMBaM's attitude towards the sacrificial rite, which he explained in the Guide for the Perplexed, is well known. He saw the sacrifices as a kind of concession to irrepressible pagan tendencies. The Torah's precisely prescribed rite, which required painstaking attention to the proper place and method of sacrifice, would raise it into a form of worship of God.

In contrast to the RaMBaM, the RaMBaN and others viewed sacrifice as a way to draw near to God, in which a person could symbolically sacrifice his own animalistic nature by offering up an animal sacrifice.

It seems to me that, at the end of the day, the common theme of these two approaches is that God's Voice commands us to exercise restraint and maximum control over our drives, while not denying the existence of those drives.

Can words of prayer or the study of these parshiyot serve as proper substitutes for the hard work of giving reign to reason, morality, and God's Voice over the powerful drives which awaken in us in our hours of distress? Do today's synagogues and batei midrash serve as places where the public is taught to lend God's Voice control over strange and violent emotions?

This question may demand ceaseless thought. Perhaps it all depends on the quality of our hearing of that Voice. Or, perhaps, as Yeshayahu Leibowitz lyrically expressed it, do the hearer and the speaker of God's Voice stand within the Tent of Meeting, or outside it?

Pinchas Leiser, editor of Shabbat Shalom, is a psychologist.

 

 

Who is Affected by Whom?

If it is the anointed priest who has incurred guilt, le'ashmat ha'am [so that blame falls upon the people] (4:8). What is the meaning of the article le' in this verse?

There are two approaches to understanding this matter, which may be expressed in the words of the Sages: Does the generation - that is to say, the social, cultural and moral character of a certain population at a certain time - go according to the Prince (i.e., does the leadership determine the people's character)? Or does the Prince go with the people (the leadership is appropriate to the people)? Or as the nations of the world are wont to say, does each nation get the leaders it deserves?

And so, there are two interpretations of if it is the anointed priest who has incurred guilt, le'ashmat ha'am. It can mean that the priest's unintentional sin (i.e., the leadership's mistakes) cause the people to sin as well. That is to say, the sin of the anointed priest also incurs guilt for the people. Or it can be interpreted as saying that the people cause the priest to sin. That is to say, he sins because the people sins.

This returns us to a problem of profound social-political significance: Are the generation's faults to be blamed on the leadership? Or should we say that the character of the leadership reflects the character of the people? There is an important practical consequence to the way we answer these questions. In the one case, we can improve a situation by changing the leadership. In the other case, the people cannot be changed, and improvement would be dependent upon everyone's improving himself.

(Y. Leibowitz, He'arot le'Parshiyot Ha'shavu'a)

 

Who is the Adam (Person) Who Offers Sacrifice?

Adam includes converts who take the covenant upon themselves as does Israel, including non-Jews who do so. Even though adam here means [a member of] Israel, later in the verse we find the word mikem [from you], which means from you but not from the nations of the world. Together they constitute an instance of one exclusionary phrase being followed by another. [According to the hermeneutic rule] such a double exclusion must imply the inclusion of non-Jews. Similarly, [we apply this rule to the repetitive expression] ish ish ("every man and man"), saying that it includes non-Jews, that they make vows and pledges like Israelites.

(Hizkuni Vayikra 1:2)

 

"Jerusalem was Destroyed Because of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza"

There was an incident involving a certain man whose friend was called "Kamtza" and whose enemy was called "Bar Kamtza." He made a feast, and told his servant: "Bring me Kamtza." He went and [mistakenly] brought him Bar Kamtza. He came and discovered him [Bar Kamtza] sitting [at the feast]. He said to him: "Look, you hate me, what are you doing here? Get up and leave!" He said to him: "Since I am already here, leave me alone, and I will pay you the cost of whatever I eat and drink." He told him: "No!"... "I will pay the cost of your entire feast!"... "No!" They grabbed him by the hand, stood him up, and took him out.

Bar Kamtza said: Since there were sages sitting there and did not protest - they are untroubled [by my humiliation] - I will go and inform on them to the king. He came to the Emperor and told him: "The Jews have rebelled against you"... The Emperor said, "Who can know?..

He told the Emperor: Send them an offering and see if they will sacrifice it.

He went and sent a calf with him (Bar Kamtza). On the way, Bar Kamtza mutilated its lip - others say he mutilated the external membrane of the eye - a place that is considered a flaw for us [rendering the animal unfit for sacrifice] but not for them [according to Roman ritual law].

The Sages said it should be sacrificed to preserve the peace of the kingdom. Rabbi Zekhariyah ben Avikolus said to them: "[People] will say, ‘unfit animals are sacrificed at the altar!?'"

They said that Bar Kamtza should be killed, so that he would not go and tell the king, Rabbi Zekhariyah told them: "People will say: ‘One who blemishes a consecrated animal is to be killed?!'"

Rabbi Yokhanan said: Rabbi Zekhariyah ben Avikolus's humility destroyed our house, burned our temple, and banished us from our land."

(Gittin 55b-56a).