Parshat Vayikra

And if his hand cannot attain two turtledoves or two young pigeons,

He shall bring as his offering for what he has committed

A tenth of an epha of fine semolina as offense offering.

(Vayikra 5:11)

 

The root reason for the precept: We have already said (Mitzvah 95) that the purpose of the sacrifice is to remind the sinner and to help him recall through action that he has sinned, and that he should ask forgiveness from the Creator for what he has done, and that he be careful in the future. In His wisdom, the Blessed One is aware of man's shallow intelligence and sparse understanding and weak strength, and therefore He eased their atonement for those specified transgressions, taking into consideration their wealth and their poverty and also the fact that these [sins] are widespread for, without doubt, sins of the tongue are easier and more frequent than sins of action...

 (Sefer HaChinuch, Mitzvah 123)

 

You shall not pour over them oil (Vayikra 5:11), refers to the minha offering of the sinner. The reason written in the Sefer Hachinuch (Mitzvah 125) is that oil symbolizes the high position which floats above others, whereas the sinner should be in a state of concern and humility, and [another reason for the prohibition against pouting oil on the offering] also not to trouble the pauper too much.     

                                                             (Rabbi Yosef Pachenovsky: Sefer Pardes Yoseph, Vayikra 5:11)

 

His offering for that which he has committed - Let us compare the following passages: "And that concerning which he has offended from the sanctum" (5:15) and " risks his life [lit. "sins against his life]" (Proverbs 20:2), and "guilt for yourself" (Habakkuk 2:10) [The three emphasized words share the Hebrew for 'sin'], we find that the verb het-tet-alef (sin) can have as its object, not only sin itself, the cheyt, but also the thing against which one has sinned, which one has violated by one's sin. So that "His offering for that which he has committed" means: the expression of the nearness of God, which one has thrown lightly away by his sin.

(Rabbi Shimshon Rafael Hirsch, 5:11, translated into English by Yitzchak Halevi)

 

 

Salt-water, soul-man

Elon Langbeheim

The opening passage of the chapter dealing with the olah offering (burnt offering) and that dealing with the minhah offering (grain offering) share similar meter and syntax, thus underlining a basic difference between the subjects of the sentences. Regarding the olah it is written: "Should any person [adam] from you bring forward to the Lord an offering, of beasts: from herd and from flock shall bring forward your offering" (Vayikra 1:2), whereas in reference to the minhah it is written: "Should a soul [nefesh] bring forward a grain offering to the Lord, fine semolina his offering shall be,…" (Ibid., 2:1).

The difference in terminology disturbed Chazal, and they explained: "Why the change in the case of the minhah, that it says "soul"? Said the Holy One, Blessed Be He: Who usually offers the mincha - the indigent, I consider it as though he had offered his soul to me." (Menachot 104b). The Talmud concludes that the unusual word 'soul' assigns the person who offers his minhah from the vegetable world (ostensibly the simplest form of offering) the highest grade. According to this Talmudic statement, the value of an offering in the eyes of God is not measured in terms of nominal market value, its value is determined by the degree of sacrifice made by the soul who brings the offering. The pauper who brings the minhah offering invests more of his wealth and his consumer goods in the mincha; he is investing in it his actual livelihood and soul, and therefore its value in the eyes of the Holy One is most high.

Rav Kook resolves the above difficulty in a totally different way. In his "The Vision of Vegetarianism and Peace", he writes:

When mankind will reach its highest stages, when the mind of the moral decline will be completely cured, [that mind] which brought about animosity between species, [that mind] which should have paved a smooth path, an attitude of love and fraternity, between the human and all living creatures [...] Then, from Nature's beneficence, from the ascendance of morality and the quality of leadership [...] Man will be filled with courage and bravery, until there will no longer be need for the consumption of meat in order to maintain his body's strength. It was with regard to that era which will mark the pinnacle of the refined culture that our Sages made their important statement, that great and amazing statement, that "All the sacrifices will be terminated in the distant future" (Tanhuma Emor 19). And Scripture, speaking of the end of the vision "Then the [minhah] offering of Yehuda and Yerushalayim will be favorable to the Lord" emphasizes the vegetable minhah replacing the [animal] sacrifices. This is also alluded to in the Torah: The word nefesh appears in conjunction with the minhah, whereas the slaughtered offerings are brought by adam - by man. This points out the cause of [man's] shortcoming, i.e., the "adam" whose decline and fall are described in the story of Creation, who needs to be uplifted from his moral baseness [...] to teach that the human moral imperfection is the true raison d'etre for the institution of slaughtered offerings.

Rav Kook foresees that when the level of human morality rises, sacrifices will no longer be required, and people will loath consumption of animals. But as long as Man, that material creature, remains imprisoned in a low moral level of passions, jealousy, and materialism, it is proper that he evince gratitude to his God through the offering of animal sacrifices. In this way, man "replenishes that which is lacking" by placing the death of the animal - caused by his base moral perception - at the center of his dialogue with his God. But in the future reality, in which Man is transformed into pure 'soul', and realizes that the slaughter of animals for human consumption is immoral, the minhah offering will continue to be brought only from the vegetable.

In addition to the Torah's beginning the minhah chapter with the term nefesh - soul- it mentions another aspect particular to this offering: "And every offering of your grain you shall season with salt; you shall not leave out the salt of the covenant of your God from your grain offering" (Ibid. 2:13).

Many rationales, based upon the properties of salt and its uses, have been suggested for the obligation of salting the minhah offering. The most simple is that man's main use of salt is to improve the taste of food. Therefore, the function of salt is to season the minhah given to the Temple priests for their consumption so that it not be tasteless. (Ramban, Ibn Ezra)

Even if this is an adequate explanation for salting the minhah, it does not explain why salt in particular - rather than the frankincense and the oil which were also part of the minhah offering - was chosen to be a component in the procedure of making covenants.

The concept "salt of the covenant" may be homiletically explained: The first explanation offered by the Baalei HaTosafot ascribes to the salt of the covenant the significance of preservation and continuity, similar to the use of salt in the preservation of food.

Salt is a crystallized substance that melts easily in water, and therefore draws sweet water from wet bodies and causes them to dry. The use of salt in food preservation derives from this property that prevents spoilage from spreading in salted food products. Salt performs a similar function in the searing of wounds and other therapies, thus attributing to salt a medicinal image.

The second homiletic explanation is offered by Ibn Ezra on Parashat Korah (Bemidbar 18:19) "A covenant was made condemning a fruitful land into a salt marsh and the location of salt is identified by the lack of vegetation, and similarly brimstone and salt (all the land a burning)." Because of the tie of salt to water, salted land does not allow plants to absorb water, and therefore they cannot survive. This property of soil, identical to the searing of wounds, causes earth to be "burnt" and arid. According to this point of view, salt is a form of punishment for deviation from the rules of sacrificial ritual.

A third d'rash explanation is perhaps the strangest of all. Rashi, commenting on the passage under discussion, writes: "At the Creation, God made a covenant with the waters that were divided that they would be offered upon the altar in the form of salt, and also as water at the libation ceremony on the Feast of Tabernacles." This explanation, based upon a midrash of the Sages, presents the covenant of salt as compensation given by God to the lower waters for having been separated from the upper waters on the second day of Creation. This compensation is composed of two parts: A. The salt which is derived from water is offered with the minhah, B. the waters themselves are offered in the libation ceremony.

Now it remains to determine why the covenant of salt was made particularly in the context of the minhah offering. As we noted above, the word "nefesh" - soul - mentioned at the Torah's introduction to the minhah chapter, may have two meanings: on the one hand, the Talmud's statement that the pauper who brings the minhah expresses thereby an especially high degree of sacrifice, equal to the sacrifice of his soul. On the other hand, we learned from Rav Kook that the minhah is the offering brought by the "nefesh" that has reached a high moral state that does not permit him the taking of any form of life. Together, the two approaches seem to say that those who bring the minhah are to be found at the two extremes of society: on the one side, the pauper, whose material life is so poor that he cannot afford to buy even a fowl. At the other end is the refined and sensitive soul, who objects to the eating of animals.

Under the inspiration of the covenant of salt, may I suggest a third explanation for the word "nefesh", one that expands the category of persons able to offer the minhah offering. In my opinion, the salt in water is symbolic of the human soul. The "nefesh" in the human body supplies flavor, as does salt to water [Translator's note: The Hebrew for both 'flavor' and 'purpose' is taam]. On the one hand, just as salt is a cure for wounds, so is the soul necessary for the restraint of man's passions and drives, and is thereby a cure. On the other hand, just as salt in the earth is liable to kill all animal and vegetable, so the divine soul in man is liable to give up hope and to sever him from the material world. And finally, since the minhah offering does not ascend to Heaven in smoke as does the olah offering, the salt is necessary to give flavor and uniqueness just as the nefesh is necessary for the body, to enable a life of meaning and holiness. Therefore, the meaning of 'nefesh' indicates the need for attaching special spiritual intent to the minhah offering, intent which does not exist when bringing other voluntary offerings,

An allusion to my thoughts may be found in the words of the author of the Mei Shiloach:

(Salt) is the opposite of the good, for it will not permit goodness to spread and grow, because salted soil is not conducive to growth, but it is something which can mix with the good and add flavor to it. And this is why the sailor is also called 'malach' [Trans. note: melech (salt) and malach (sailor) are spelled alike] because he is involved with water and melach has the connotation of mixture, and it is with regard to this that it is written "And on every minhah offering shall you sprinkle salt", meaning that Man should adhere to the Blessed Lord, not to be cut off by anything in this world. On the contrary, his devotion will be most clarified with good taste and knowledge.

It seems to me that in this short text may be found a wide range of meanings. Because of its many contradictions, however, I cannot be certain that I fully understand it. I invite the readers to enlighten me in this matter.

Elon Langbeheim is a Doctoral Candidate and teaches physics.

*Proper disclosure: The author is not a vegetarian.

 

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)

 

When a man from [among] you brings - When he brings something of his own, with words of confession and submission, in the manner expressed by the verse our lips shall offer bulls, and as it says the sacrifice to God is a broken spirit, for there is no interest in fools who sacrifice without first submitting themselves.

(Seforno Vayikra 1:2)

 

Adam ki yakriv mikem korban la'Hashem min habeheimah [When a man from [among] you brings a sacrifice to the Lord] One must understand why the word adam appears several times in Vayikra. 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)

 

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)

 

The Sacrifice Symbolizes the Way One Approaches God

And if his sacrifice to the Lord, is a burnt offering from birds, he shall bring [it] from turtle doves or from young doves.

Rabbi Yehoshua of Sikhnin said in the name of Rabbi Levi: Come and see how God is considerate of Israel's possessions -

He said to them: If one is obliged to bring an offering, if the offering is to be an olah - a burnt offering - let him bring from his cattle - If his burnt offering is a burnt offering from the herd (Vayikra 1:3); and should he not find from the herd, let him bring a sheep, - ... of sheep (Ibid., ibid. 10); and should he not find a sheep, let him bring a goat, or of the goats (Ibid.)...; and if he does find a goat, let him bring from the birds and from the fowl, and if he does not find a fowl, let him bring an offering of meal - choice flour as a regular meal offering. Yet more, all [other] offerings may not be brought by halves, but this latter one is offered by halves - half of it in the morning and half of it in the evening (Vayikra 6). Yet more, whoever offers this is reckoned as though he offered from one end of the world to the other end, as is written, For from where the sun rises to where it sets, etc. (Malachi 1).

(Vayikra Rabba, Parasha 8)

 

Said Rabbi Abahu: Let a person always be of the pursued and not of the pursuers; among the fowl, none is pursued more than doves and pigeons, and the Torah decreed them acceptable for offering upon the altar.

(Bavli, Bava Kama 93a)

 

Approaching god sometimes demands the slaughter of 'holy cows"

The Egyptians worshipped the constellation "Lamb'. Therefore they forbade the slaughter of sheep and abominated shepherds. There were sects of "Tsaaba" (idolaters whose center was in Babylonia) who worshipped demons, believing that they appeared in the form of goats, and therefore they called the demons se'irim' - 'hairy goat demons', and subsequently there were sects which forbade the consumption of goats. Even in our day one finds the Hindus who do not slaughter cattle at all. In order to erase the traces of these fallacious doctrines, we were commanded to offer up to Him these three species in particular, from the flock, from the herd, and from the sheep, so that the act which they considered the height of rebellion was chosen to be the instrument of approaching God; with that act [of sacrificing those animals] sins are atoned for. By going to the opposite extreme, those evil doctrines, which are sicknesses of the soul, are cured.

(Rambam, Guide of the Perplexed, Part III, Chap. 46)

 

Redemption Requires Purification

And Parashat Hahodesh [is read] on the fourth [Sabbath], for it is relevant to the date [Rosh Hodesh Nissan]. The month of Nissan is first among the months and it determines the order of the festival. Our Rabbis said (Yerushalmi, 3;5): Logically, Parashat Hahodesh should precede Parashat Parah, because on the first of Nissan the Sanctuary was established, and only on the second day, was the red heifer burned. Why, then, does Parashaat Hahodesh precede Parashat Parah? Because the red heifer facilitated purification of Israel of the impurity brought on by [contact with] death, so that their Pesach celebration not be postponed to the Second Pesach.

(Sefer HaShelah, Megilla 42)          

                                               

Thus said the Lord God: Enough, princes of Israel! Make an end of lawlessness and rapine and do what is right and just! Put a stop to your evictions of My people - declares the Lord God.

(Ezekiel 35:9, from the Haphtarah of Parashat Hahodesh according to the Yemenite ritual)

 

But the prince shall not take property away from any of the people and rob them of their holdings. Only out of his own holdings shall he endow his sons, in order that My people may not dispossessed of their holdings.

(Ibid. 46:18-19, from the Haphtarah of Parashat Hahodesh according to the Askenazi ritual)

 

 

 

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