Parashat
VaYikra
Rav Haim Lifshitz
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
|
|