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Sh'lah on the Torah |
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Parshat VAYIKRA – TZAV The following translation by Mr. Eliyahu Munk is an excerpt from the book Shney Luchot HaBrit -- the Sh'lah The portions Vayikra and Tzav speak about the priests who are offering sacrifices, and about the animals or meal offerings which are being offered. The sacrifices whose function it is to help us obtain atonement from specific sins will rehabilitate us from the sin which resulted from the original pollutant of the serpent. At the end of Parshat Tzav the Torah mentions the sanctity of Aaron and his sons and how they were sanctified. The Torah (8,6) writes there: “Moses offered Aaron and his sons (as a sacrifice.”). The Torah had also commanded Moses to do just that in Exodus 28,1. The meaning of these verses is that Aaron as well as his sons themselves served as sacrifices, i.e. the mystical dimension of Adam, as we have explained this at the very beginning of the Book of Leviticus. By the act of Moses “sacrificing” them to G-d they ceased being “strangers,” mundane, and became sanctified. At that time the status of Aaron and his sons was similar to that of Isaac after Abraham had offered him to G-d and Isaac had agreed. All our traditional sources describe Yitzchak as having been an “an unblemished burnt-offering to G-d.” The book B’asara Ma’amarot
specifically describes Aaron and his sons as having been sacrificed as
offerings to G-d, and personifying the instruction in 1,2: “For when a man from
amongst you will offer”. The author
quotes 8,6 as his proof. He further
states that the burning of the souls of the two sons of Aaron, Nadav and Avihu,
is to be understood like the burning of the flesh parts of an animal offering
on the altar after the blood had been sprinkled, etc. He finds his proof for this in the similarity of the wording used
by the Torah which is identical with wording used in connection with animal
offerings. On the one hand the Torah
(10,2) writes: “And a fire went out…and consumed them,” whereas a little while
later the Torah speaks of the remaining two sons of Aaron, Eleazar and Ittamar,
as “the leftovers,” an expression used for parts of a sacrifice which were not
consumed within the prescribed time. The meaning of the word: “B’kirvatam”
in 16,1 would describe what happened when Isaac was being offered, i.e. that
the fire in the pan for burning had already been lit. [Metaphorically speaking,
since Isaac was not an incense offering. Ed.] [This even though through
Heavenly intervention the sacrifice was not actually consumed. Ed.] The Torah states in 9,22: “Aaron descended
after offering the sin offering.” [The
author may mean that the word “m’asot” here refers to something that had
not been completed. Ed.] I believe we
can use this explanation to answer a difficulty which arises from Exodus 29,33:
“These things shall be eaten only by those for whom expiation has been made
with them when they were ordained and consecrated; they may not be eaten by a
layman for they are holy.” The meaning of the verse is that the owners of the
animals receive their expiation through the priests’ eating. The difficulty is
that Aaron and his sons consumed these parts while being owners, whereas Moses
was the priest performing the sacrificial service described in the relevant
section of the Torah. We can only
answer this by viewing Aaron and his sons as being both priests and owners at
one and the same time. They had become
priests by the very fact that Moses “sacrificed them,” i.e. coming close to
G-d. They became similar to the
archangel Michael who, in his capacity as Celestial High Priest, offers the
souls of the righteous as a sacrifice.
We find an allusion to this comparison between the task of Aaron and
that of the archangel Michael in (9,4)
“For today G-d appeared to you—nirah aleichem,” where we have the
letters of the names of Aaron and Michael side by side in the last two words of
the verse. In comparison to Moses,
Aaron and his two sons were indeed the owners of the sacrifices, seeing that
Moses at that time occupied a position even higher than that of the High
Priest. The reason for this was that
Moses had never been a mundane person, and did not have to be raised to his
spiritually elevated position as did his brother Aaron. We have explained that he was holy from the
moment he left his mother’s womb and how the whole house was filled with light
at that time. To repeat, in respect to
the days of induction to priesthood
Aaron and his sons were both owners and priests. Because this is so, the religious ruling
for all future generations evolved that by the priests eating the parts of the
sacrifice allotted to them the owners obtain forgiveness. Let us know return to our statement that
Parshat Vayikra and Parshat Tzav speak about people offering the sacrifices as
well as about the objects of these sacrifices.
Among the latter there are some which serve as atonement for their
owners, such as the sin offering, guilt offering. There is the set sin offering (kavuah), the purpose of
which is to obtain forgiveness for a kind of sin which has become second nature
to us due to the pollutant from the serpent.
There are also sin-offerings for various leaders of the community and
the community as a whole respectively.
In each of these instances different elements are at the root of the sin
committed. This is why separate
sacrifices are needed to secure atonement and absolution of the residual
pollutant of the serpent. There is even
a type of sacrifice called asham taluy, a sin-offering of a suspended
nature, which must be offered when the owner is in doubt whether he has become
guilty of a certain transgression.
One’s duties were clear as the light of the sun, and being in doubt
whether one had behaved in a circumspect manner or not is the kind of doubt
that should never have arisen. When a person has trespassed against
property belonging to the Temple treasury he must not only make restitution and
bring a sacrifice but must also add 20% to the value of the property against
which he has committed such trespass. It is a precondition to the achievement
of perfect harmony in the world that there has to be a perfect union in the
spiritual world of the ten emanations.
This union must be able to “flow” from the “top” downwards as well as in
reverse from the “bottom” upwards. The
“top” is the emanation keter (crown), whereas the “bottom” is the emanation
malchut (kingship). The mystical
dimension the emanations is Yud, ten. When
we spell Yud as a word, i.e. Yud + Vav + Dalet = 20. This is the mystical dimension of, original light and reflected
light, a concept familiar to the Kabbalists.
The former originates in the emanation keter, whereas the latter
originates in the emanation malchut.
Between them these two emanations represent 20% of all the
emanations. If someone has made profane
use of property designated as sacred he therefore has to atone for this by
adding 20% to the value of the property involved. This is to encourage him to become penitent and thereby achieve
atonement for his negligence. |
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Ascent of Safed
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