INTPARSHA61 -23: Parasgat Vayikra [Rav Hattin]
Yeshivat Har Etzion's Israel Koschitzky Virtual Beit Midrash
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YESHIVAT HAR ETZION
ISRAEL KOSCHITZKY VIRTUAL BEIT MIDRASH (VBM)
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INTRODUCTION TO PARASHAT HASHAVUA
PARASHAT VAYIKRA
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In memory of the victims of yesterday's terrorist attack, Eliran
Rosenberg-Zayat and Naftali Lanzkron, Hy"d. We pray for a refuah
sheleimah for the wounded.
The entire yeshiva extends tanchumim to our Shana Alef talmid
Robert Lanzkron, and to his entire family, upon the death of his
cousin Naftali. HaMakom yenachem etkhem betokh she'ar avelei
Zion veYerushalayim.
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The 'Korban' and the Service of the Heart
By Rav Michael Hattin
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To all the wonderful people who donated generously, as well as
prayed for Yael Devora Malka bat Gilbert - thank you from the
bottom of my heart. With God's mercy, Yael is recovering from her
surgery, and IY"H will celebrate Leil HaSeder here in Israel. As
she has not as yet fully recovered, I ask that you continue to
include her in your tefilot. - Her Brother
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Introduction
Parashat VaYikra is the first section to be read in the Book
of VaYikra. Like the majority of the book, it deals
primarily with the order of the sacrificial service. The
concluding sections of Sefer Shemot, which we read last
week, detailed the construction and erection of the
Tabernacle or Mishkan, as well as the precise fashioning of
the priestly garments. Thus, Sefer VaYikra, describing the
service that took place by the Cohanim at that edifice,
follows the end of Sefer Shemot quite naturally.
The order of the sacrifices is a complex and exacting
service involving a wealth of details and contingencies.
Broadly speaking, however, we may conveniently divide up the
sacrificial cult into public and private offerings. Public
offerings are of course communal in nature, and the Daily
Sacrifice, as well as the Shabbat, Holiday, and Mussaf
sacrifices belong to this category. These sacrifices and
other communal ones like them are offered on behalf of all
of the people of Israel and are secured through the use of
public treasury funds. In contrast, private offerings are
brought to the Mishkan by the individual man or woman, who
presents them to the Cohanim for immolation. Among the more
well known individual offerings we may enumerate the Olah
(Burnt Offering), the Chattat (Sin Offering) and the Asham
(Trespass Offering), as well as the Shelamim (Peace
Offering).
To organize the matter from another perspective, we may
speak of obligatory as well as of voluntary sacrifices.
This is to say that some sacrifices (such as the Chattat and
Asham) are obligations that are occasioned by specific
transgressions or situations. Others (such as most Olot and
Shelamim) are brought as an expression of the free will of
the supplicant and are not motivated by ritual or ceremonial
necessity.
As a general rule that is not, however, absolute, the
majority of communal sacrifices tend to be obligatory in
nature while many individual sacrifices are readily
presented by the person without prior liability.
The Opening Sections of the Book
Significantly, Parashat VaYikra, which opens this most
obscure and, for many of us, most atavistic of the books of
the Torah, does not begin with a description of the public
offerings nor with a enumeration of obligatory sacrifices.
This is notwithstanding the fact that we naturally would
tend to ascribe more importance or gravity to these types of
offerings. After all, communal concerns tend to outweigh
individual needs and necessity overrides contingency.
Nevertheless, the text rejects this convention by opening
with a listing of the Olah or Burnt Offering presented by
the individual who simply desires to voluntarily present it.
This is followed by a detailed description of the Shelamim
or Peace Offering, another type of sacrifice presented by
the individual as an expression of free will.
The inference of this subtlety is far-reaching, for it casts
the sacrificial service in an entirely different light. As
moderns, most of us have sufficient difficulty relating to
forms of worship which seem to us arcane and perhaps even
primitive. The killing of animals, the collection and
sprinkling of their blood, the burning of their internal
organs and fats, all strike us as no longer meaningful, at
least in so far as serving God is concerned. We may
countenance such practices to fill our bellies, but draw the
line at employing them for 'higher' purposes! The
difficulty is of course greatly compounded by the fact that
the sacrificial cult, characterized by incessant detail,
restrictive formalism and fixed ceremonial, appears to us as
the antithesis of what sincere worship ought to be. Such a
reading of the matter may be a comfortable and convenient
means of allowing us to reject sacrifice out of hand as
being entirely irrelevant to our experience, but also,
unfortunately, misses the point.
The Desire to Connect
At its core, the notion of sacrifice is a concretization of
the genuine and authentic desire of the human being to
establish or to strengthen communion with God and to foster
a relationship with the Creator. We offer sacrifice because
we desire to be close to God. The text highlights this
fundamental truth by opening with a listing of individual
freewill sacrifice, for it is this form of worship that is
meant to color the entire service at the Mishkan. While it
is the case that there are sacrifices of the community as
well as offerings that are obligated, they too must be
brought in the same spirit of drawing near and coming close
to the Absolute One Who is not only approachable but even
desirous of being approached.
This important but often overlooked fact is emphasized by
the recurring use of the Biblical word for 'sacrifice', for
the context refers to 'KoRBan' (noun) and 'lihaKRiV' (Verb)
without fail. This word 'korban' is predicated upon the
root 'KRB' and means to come close or to draw near. Thus,
the Torah describes this form of worship in all of its
variations, be they communal or individual, obligatory or
voluntary, by employing grammatical forms that suggest its
primary and principal theme. 'Korban' is a means of joining
the human with the Divine, of bringing together the frail
human heart and the Life of the Worlds. Korban eloquently
speaks of a possibility that ultimately can be a function of
only one thing: our veritable and heartfelt longing to
connect with God.
Four Variations of the Olah or Burnt Offering
We may further note that the text describes this Olah
offering according to four variations: a sacrifice offered
from cattle (1:1 – 1:9), sheep (1:10 – 1:13), birds (1:14 –
1:17), or even grain (2:1 – 13). The implications of this
ordering are clear for it actually represents a schematic
description of the socioeconomic status of the supplicant.
Thus, the wealthiest individuals offer cattle for their
Olot, the members of the middle class present smaller and
less expensive sheep, the lower classes offer birds, while
the most indigent people present grain.
In other words, the Torah clearly indicates that no one is
to be excluded from participation in the service as a
function of their financial standing. Or, to employ the
more colorful language of Rashi (11th century, France) who
quotes from the Talmud: "(The Torah mandates that the bird
offering be completely burnt on the altar, including its
covering of feathers). Is there anyone who smells the scent
of burning feathers and does not thereby become nauseated?
Why then did the Torah mandate that the bird Olah be so
offered? Rather, it is to emphasize that the altar must be
accepting, satiated and in fact glorified by the sacrifices
of the poor as well…" (commentary to 1:17).
Concerning the grain offering, Rashi similarly explains:
"The Torah speaks of 'a soul that desires to offer an
offering of grain'. Why does the Torah employ the term
'soul' rather than 'individual' or 'person'? In fact, in
the entire description of voluntary Olot here enumerated,
the Torah employs the term 'soul' only with respect to the
offering of grain! Who is the person most likely to be
presenting an offering of grain? Is it not the poor man?
Thus, it is as if God states: 'I consider the offering of
the poor person to be a sincere offering of his soul to
Me'"(commentary to 2:1).
We may sum up thus far by therefore noting that the opening
of Sefer VaYikra represents the key to comprehending the
broad outlines of the sacrificial service in its entirety.
The meeting between God and man may take place in the shadow
of ceremonial and convention, but the spiritual yearning
that constitutes the engine of that encounter is expressed
by the 'korban'. This desire to engage God in meaningful
dialogue is universal in scope and therefore cannot be the
exclusive preserve of the wealthy or the powerful. The
sacrificial service therefore allows for all people,
irrespective of social status, tfreely participate.
An Innate Desire
There is another dimension to the sacrificial service that
is expressed not by the formal acts of the rites but by the
location in which they take place. The Mishkan, God's so-
called 'Dwelling Place', represents a physical point in
space where human beings may experience God's presence. In
the context of the Torah, it is a temporary expression of a
more permanent idea, namely that of the Mikdash or Temple.
Thus, as the people leave Egypt and triumphantly traverse
the Sea of Reeds, they sing of God's greatness and
miraculous intervention (see Shemot Chapter 15). In their
mind's eye, they see God's helping hand not only in the
overthrow of Pharaoh's host (15:1-12), but also assisting
them during their expected entry and settlement of the land
of Canaan (15:13-16). Climactically, they sing of God
establishing His Temple among them and 'being sovereign
forever' (15:17-18).
But many setbacks and delays await the people, reversals
that may check the progress of their journey for some time.
Therefore, God provides them with the possibility of the
Mishkan, a more temporary structure that will always
accompany them wherever the winds of fate may carry them,
until that day of permanent settlement in the land dawns.
The sacrificial service introduced in the Mishkan will then
be transferred to more permanent quarters, and eventually to
the Temple at Jerusalem.
Rambam's Formulation
Significantly, the Rambam (12th century, Egypt) traces the
continuum of this 'temple' idea and relates it to the
beginnings of human history. In his Book of Service, Laws
of the Temple (Chapter 2:1-2) he records: "The location of
the altar must be very precise, and can never be moved. As
the verse states: 'This shall be the altar of burnt offering
for Israel' (Divrei HaYamim/Chronicles 1:22:1). At the very
location of the Temple, the binding of Yitzhak had taken
place (centuries before), for God had commanded Avraham to
'go to the land of Moriah, to offer Yitzhak upon one of the
mountains that I will show you' (Breisheet 22:2). and In the
Book of Divrei HaYamim (2:3:1)it states that 'Shelomo
commenced the building of God's House at Jerusalem on Mount
Moriah where God had appeared to David his father, at the
place that David had prepared…"
"It is a well-established tradition that the place where
David and Shelomo erected the altar at the threshing floor
of Ornah the Yevusi was the very place where Avraham had
prepared his altar upon which to sacrifice Yitzhak. It is
the same place where Noach had built an altar when he
disembarked from the ark, and the same location where Kayin
and Hevel had sacrificed to God. The first man, Adam, there
offered sacrifice after he had been created, and in fact was
created from earth drawn from that very place. As the Sages
put it: 'Man was fashioned from the place of his
atonement'".
Rambam thus relates the location of the Temple to a series
of events in Biblical history. If we rely exclusively upon
textual evidence, however, only the tradition linking the
binding of Yitzhak with the building of the Temple is
unassailable, for the Torah does not explicitly record
Adam's presumed sacrifice, nor does it state the location of
Kayin and Hevel's altar. In fact, the Torah itself seems to
argue against Noach offering sacrifice at the site of future
Jerusalem, for the text makes it clear that the ark landed
at Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey!
The Human Desire to Encounter God and Conclusion
Rambam, of course, is attempting to indicate a more profound
truth, one that transcends a mere attempt to link historical
events with the Temple Mount. He in fact is telling us that
the Temple at Jerusalem is part of a larger and more ancient
idea, for it actually expresses in real terms the universal
human aspiration to commune with God. Adam, Kayin, Hevel,
Noach or even, for that matter, Avraham, were not 'Jews' in
the conventional sense of the term, for they lived before
the Revelation at Sinai, when God's laws entered human
history as formal and binding expressions of His will.
Nevertheless, they sought a relationship with their Creator,
for by heaping up the mundane earth to fashion an altar
grasping for the sky, they expressed an intense longing for
Someone higher, the Source of all being Who transcends the
terrestrial plane and its profane pursuits.
Rambam, quoting the Sages, goes a step further, for he
maintains that the earth from which Adam was fashioned had
been gathered from the very place of the altar. This is
another way of saying that the desire to be close to God, to
offer 'korban' and experience connectedness, is innate to
the human personality. It is not a conditioned response or
some sort of learned behavior, for the desire to pray, to
offer to God, to 'sacrifice' and to be connected, is part of
our very makeup, constituting part and parcel of the
elemental matter from which we were fashioned. 'LihaKRiV',
to truly sacrifice to God, is to come close to Him and to
bask in the radiance of His presence, and ultimately that is
the bedrock upon which the Book of VaYikra and the
sacrificial service are securely founded.
Shabbat Shalom
Last year's shiurim in Parashat HaShavua
are now posted on our website!
see http://www.vbm-torah.org/thisweek.htm
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