"When a person brings an offering it shall be from what is yours" (VaYikra 1:2) The simple explanation is that one should devote his innermost strength and will to Hashem, as it says it Pirkei Avot, "Make your will like His will." And this is the essence of an offering: to bring all of one's actions to Hashem. That every individual should give what is particular to him to Klal Yisrael. (Sefat Emet 3)
VaYikra
Reb Shlomo Minyan HarNof
(R. Raphael, email: [email protected])
Offering Resistance
Pressing "against," in love, we lose ourselves in the inwardness of the Other, and words come that surprise us with their tenderness. Pressing "against," in anger and fear we find the deepest instincts of self-survival, we shout and scream and are amazed at our strength. Pressing in teshuvah we re-link our pure heart to our hands with words of caring for ourselves and the Other.
The act of physically conveying the offering to the entrance of the Sanctuary for slaughter is only the beginning of the process of teshuvah. It is the initial bringing close, the expression of the will to come near to Hashem. But this is a beginning, a vessel that needs to be utilized in order to move from the outward act to work a lasting, inward effect. While the general intention expressed by bringing the sacrifice for atonement does do something, in order to work a full atonement, it is vital to give language to the act. "The one bringing the offering shall press his hands on the head of the sacrifice" (VaYikra 10:4). The Gemara in Yoma learns from this pasuk that the one who brings the offering "puts his hands between the animal's two horns without any obstruction between them and confesses his sin" (Yoma 36a). But why is the need to speak learned from pressing and why is all of this necessary for a full teshuvah? I would like to offer a suggestion.
We are constantly confronted with the need to clarify our animal nature in order to find its power of spirituality. Although this aspect of self may not be particularly clever, without direction, it draws us inexorably towards its desires. Like a herd, there's a momentum that pulls everything along with it. Now, while people usually think that righteousness means obedience to the rules, this misses an important point. Mere obedience can lead as easily towards the cliff as towards renewal and faith. We need to be sure that we are exerting our will when we do mitzvot or we fall into a lethargy which can be spiritually fatal. By pitting ourselves against wayward desire we need to enlist our baser powers for the cause of spirituality. We are aroused to turn ourselves away from the old and towards the new. When we join our words of confession - not rote recitation but words said in the heat of teshuvah - we wrestle authentically within ourselves, like Yaakov who received his name Yisrael after wrestling with the power of his twin, Esav.
We can begin to find words of supplication towards Hashem to help us as we really are and not just as we are expected to be by the community. Pressing against the animal, we experience how much resistance there is inside each of us. Pitting ourselves physically against the offering, our exertion arouses passion that brings forth words, forming a bridge of feeling between what we have been and what we will be. The animal to be slaughtered is both our better nature and the corruption of it. It is only the struggle that includes this that leads to change. It is only this that makes us new before Hashem.
When we leave the Mikdash to return home, as awe-inspiring as the experience may have been, the more we wrestled there with the animal the more change we will take home. Because home is where it all starts. That's where we fall into habit. That's where we know what the community expects of us, what we chose to tolerate and what we feel we can get away with. By wrestling with our animal nature in the heat of teshuvah, speaking out the conflict within, we discover language that will help us resist the unthinking forces both inside and outside of us. Because no one is expected to just surrender unthinkingly to the Klal whether they think this is an act of obedience or not. Each of us is expected to bring to the Klal the uniqueness of what was given to us by Hashem. A meek act of teshuvah will not act as a bulwark against the force that pushes us inexorably in its direction. Only when we have developed the counter force of self, attached to Hashem, can we withstand this.
A Short History Of Sacrifice
Adam HaRishon was the first to bring an offering to Hashem. In Tractate Avodah Zarah, the Gemara says that Adam sacrificed a bull whose horns were formed before it had hooves. Furthermore, Rebbe Yehudah states that this animal actually had only one horn and that it was located in the middle of the bull's forehead. The Maharal explains in Chiddushei Agadot that it was fitting that Adam, who was at the head of all the generations, should offer an animal whose head was completed before the rest of his body, and whose horn was singular like Adam when he was first created, prior to any duality.
Since Adam was first and thus closest of all mankind to Hashem, he was innately drawn towards teshuvah. This is why he was provided with an animal that epitomized purity. Because being one-horned is, in itself, sufficient to prove an animal's purity, as with the tachashim, one- horned animals of land or sea whose skins were used to cover the Sanctuary in the wilderness. Now, the pure animals are the principle creations of the animal kingdom - the impure are only there because of them. And we can assume that the Maharal is speaking on many levels when he says this. For one thing the impure animals reflect the distortion of good and this dichotomy gives man the free choice to decide what he puts in his body. On a strictly spiritual level pure animals represent the utilization of one's lower powers for holiness while the impure symbolize character traits that a person develops that have no place in a sanctified life. These character traits parallel the impure animals which were created only so that we can continue to exist in impurity until the time when we choose the path of teshuvah - exchanging the impure for the pure.
Adam, the midrash tells us, was gathered from the earth of the altar which stands at the center of the world and contains the dust of all the world. Thus, it is fitting that his offering should have this attribute of focusing everything upwards in its crowning horn. And just as the horn or "keren" always represents attachment to Hashem, Adam as the first was the most complete in this way. By doing teshuvah one goes from waywardness back towards faith in truthfulness, and so the bullock of Adam had its horn in the center.
Noach also brought sacrifices to Hashem. When he left the ark he offered an ox, a sheep, a goat, two doves and two pigeons. He brought these because he understood from Hashem's command to take seven pairs that these were pure and fit for offering. The altar he built was in the same place that Adam (Kayin and Hevel as well) had brought their sacrifices, the same spot on which the altar in the sanctuary of Jerusalem would later be erected. (see Midrash Rabbah, Pirkei d'Rebbe Eliezer)
Noach, the pasuk says, brought these animals as "olahs" (lit., uplifting, usually understood as, completely burnt) offerings and it means a specific type of offering, the same that is designated "olah" in the Temple as is commanded in this week's parashah. That Noach's offering was an olah goes according to Rebbe Chanina who quotes the pasuk from VaYikra 6:2, "This is the law of the burnt offering: that very burnt offering," i.e., the offering that was offered during the times of Noach. This rejects the notion that the primal offerings were peace offerings. (see Midrash Rabba 34:9)
The Patriarchs also offered sacrifices. When Hashem commanded Avraham to take up Yitzchak, he designated him as an "olah," : "Bring him up as an all-burnt offering" (Br. 22:2) and when Avraham substituted the ram for Yitzchak this was also called an olah.
It is not until the stage in history when there was a nation to serve Hashem that the offering of shlomim, peace offerings, became prevalent. B'nei Yisrael were commanded to bring the korban Pesach before leaving Mitzrayim, an offering which is, essentially, a peace offering. And when it came time to receive the Torah, the Shalom or Peace offering is presented by Moshe. He "sent the young men among the Yisraelites and they offered oxen as burnt offerings and peace offerings" (Sh. 24:5).
The main difference between the peace offering and the olah offering is that in regards to the peace offering, the meat of the animal is divided between Heaven and earth. Some goes on the altar, some is eaten in joy by the offerer. In contrast, the olah is completely burnt on the altar. This suggests two different kinds of relationship. Rashi says that the shlomim (peace) offering brings peace between Heaven and earth. This is consistent with the time when this offering first appears after the giving of Torah when the split, so to speak, between Heaven and earth has been healed. The olah is an offering of din: the offerer offers himself completely to Hashem, the offering appropriate to the time when those who chose Hashem stood against the opposition of the whole world and needed to separate themselves utterly.
Mitzvot According To The Sefer Hachinuch
There are sixteen commandments in this parashah. Almost all have to do with offerings on the outer altar. Among them are:
At A Glance