Parashat VaYikra

 

Rav Haim Lifshitz

 

 

 

Home

Essays

Glossary

 

 

 

Essays and Articles:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Go to Hebrew site

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

The Revealed and the Hidden in Reasons for the Korbanot

Rav Ze'ev Haim Lifshitz

 Translated from Hebrew by S. NAthan

l'ilui nishmat Esther bat mordechai

 

 

 

If the Ibn Ezra saw fit to emphasize the nistar view of the korbanot, it would seem plain that the nistar view occupies a central position in the mystery of the korbanot.  What is more, while nigleh, understandable explanations for the reasons for the korbanot are abundant, many of them are highly controversial.  The Ramban vigorously disputes the Rambam’s opinion as stated in Moreh Nevuchim, and in addition he brings the classic explanation.  He also hints – he offers a highly detailed explanation, yet his words here somehow never emerge from their veil of secrecy, nor descend from their elusive hint status – at Ibn Ezra’s explanation.   

 

Ibn Ezra:  “And the reason for mentioning korbanot before mitsvot is that the Shechina would go back to its place if they would not keep the law of the ola, the perfect sacrifice.  And indeed so it was!  And halila v’halila – Heaven forefend to have a need for an ola.  For thus it is written: ‘If I would hunger, I would not tell you.’”  (Ibn Ezra, VaYikra 1:1)

 

Sacrificing out of Initiative – Sacrificing out of Compulsion

 

After rejecting the explanation which maintains that korbanot are the means for removing the human tendency toward idolatry, the Ramban brings the commonly accepted explanation.  

 

“And it is more worthy to accept the explanation that has been given for them, that since human action concludes in thought and in speech and in deed, God commanded that when one sins one should bring a korban.  He should lay his hands on it, to correspond with the deed, and he should confess verbally, to correspond with speech, and he should burn in fire the innards and the kidneys which are the tools of thought and of desire, and the legs which correspond to human arms and legs, which do all his work.  He should throw them on the altar to correspond with his life force’s blood, in order that a man shall think, upon doing all these things that he has sinned to his God with his own body and with his own life force.  Really he is worthy of having his own blood spilled and his own body burned.  Were it not for hesed haborai, the generous kindness of the Creator, who has accepted a surrogate in his place, and allowed this korban to atone for him, that its blood should be in place of his own blood, its life force in place of his own life force: That the major organs of the korban would correspond to his own major organs, and the portions given to support those who teach Torah will be so that they will pray for him.  The korban tamid, the constant sacrifice was in order that the masses might be saved from sinning constantly – and all these words are reasonable, persuasive, and emotionally appealing, as are words of agada.” 

 

According to this, the reason for the korban seems to be the benefit it offers and the need it fills, in repairing the damage caused by sin. 

 

The Ramban does not entirely reject this reason, the way he rejects out of hand the reason given in Moreh Nevuchim, which he calls meaningless.  Nevertheless, the Ramban does not hide the direction in which his own opinion leans.  He elaborates further:

 

“And by way of truth, the korbanot contain an elusive mystery...And should you try to say, He needs it for eating, the text says ‘if I would hunger, I would not tell you, for the world and all that fills it is Mine.’  [Rather,]  I only told you, ‘slaughter sacrifice,’ so that My will would be spoken and carried out...”

 

“Yet this entire issue is explained in the Torah, for it is said: ‘My korban, My bread for My fire’...and in the Minha offering, where it says, ‘and the kohen will burn its memorial incense to be a fire of nihoah fragrance for God.’” 

 

Here Ramban offers a rather surprising interpretation of the phrase raiah nihoah:

 

“For you see that nihoah is from naha, rested – as in, ‘Eliyahu’s spirit rested on Elisha.’  ‘  And the spirit rested upon them.’  And all korban is derived linguistically from kraiva, nearness, and union.  Thus it says, ‘and no ola did they bring up, in sanctity, for the God of Yisrael,’ because the ola bakodesh is for the God of Yisrael.  The angel-messenger taught Manoah this issue of the korbanot.  He said: ‘If you detain me, I will not eat of your bread.  But if you would make an ola, do it for God alone, and it will be l’ratson, pleasing, on God’s fire,’ and then the angel-messenger rose up to heaven along with the flame on the altar.  So you see the whole issue has been thoroughly explained, and God Who is good shall atone for me...”

 

From The Ramban’s obscure words, the Ibn Ezra’s mystery is cleared up.  According to the Ramban’s surprising interpretation, nihoah does not mean “meant to be smelled,” as is conventionally understood, but is rather linguistically derived from ”being present,” as in our discussion of Godly Presence. 

 

In other words, bringing the ola sacrifice is intended for one purpose only: To continually expand God’s Presence from heaven until it reaches earth.  This Presence is free of other intentions that are needed for other purposes, such as atonement or repair, or any other benefit that happens to be required by the person bringing offering.  Rather it is only for God’s Presence for Its own sake.

 

It is superfluous to point out that the Holy One does not require sacrifice, in keeping with that inferior level of understanding grasped by those who worship idolatry, who bring offering for the sake of bribery, in order to appease God, so to speak, k’vyachol, of his wrath. 

 

It is not even for man’s sake, as might be inferred from the popular explanation of the korbanot as repair for the damage inflicted by sin.  This explanation can perhaps attach to the sin offering or the guilt offering, but never “halila halila to have a need for an ola,” as Ibn Ezra puts it. 

 

This means that the ola does not come to serve any need whatsoever, neither a need of the One Who dwells on high, halila, nor a need of man.  (That Ibn Ezra would repeat the word halila a second time – this most succinct of all the commentators...)  The ola comes only and solely in order to actualize God’s Presence.

 

We have before us a phenomenon of dualism, which brings conflict to man’s mind, being composed of the materials of survival and also of the spirit’s eternal components.  The polar distance between man’s two parts is immeasurable.  Man himself is a Godly Presence, privileged to take part in the direct actualization of the Godly Presence, of which the korban ola serves as an expression, the equal of which does not exist for purity and for directness.  Yet man is a creature enslaved to the laws of ephemeral matter, whose being immersed in material conditions harms his integrity and his spiritual perfection. 

 

Korbanot such as hatat, sin offerings, asham, guilt offerings, and even shlamim, peace offerings, are intended to meet the needs of this dual creature, to enable him to repair the damage his action inflicts.  The Torah does not take the need for repair lightly, halila.  It embraces God’s servant – who has stumbled in error – with avotot ahava, bonds of love.  It bestows a fragrance of vital existential realness upon God’s service.  It gives the service of offering korbanot the fragrance of his own emotions – the tremulous sorrow and regret that arouses the longing for repair, for dvaikut to one’s Godly purpose.  It is the smell of a living man, bringing with him the powerful pulse of his own existence, to dedicate it and sanctify it to God.

 

In contrast, one who offers a korban ola is bringing his thought process, his innermost ethereal intention, separated and detached from existence’s primal power.  He is seeking to connect, lidbok, to attach to the supreme source, by ignoring and distancing himself from his very experience of existence.

 

From the tension created by these two antagonistic tendencies, yet bound by their umbilical cords to God’s servant, he draws the vital energies for the sacred fire that burns within him.  His seething life he harnesses to a wondrous creative work, which is born of his worship of God.  This creative work exposes the diamond revealed within the fathomless depths of God’s hiddenness. 

 

Whereas the one who offers an ola rises far above this reality, and paves the road for the worship of all the other sacrifices.  This road winds around and through all the pachim k’tanim, all the minute and mundane details of existence, to carry them all, to raise them all, and to sanctify them all.

 

 Go To Top

Home

Essays

Glossary