A.
Our parasha details the categories of qorbanoth which would be brought in the newly-erected Mishkan, and subsequently in the Béyth ha-Miqdash. Loosely translated “sacrifices,” from the Latin word sacrificere, “to make holy,” qorban hints at its true meaning when one realizes that its root also yields such words as qarov, “close, near.” The purpose of a qorban, then, is to bring one closer to Ha-Shem, and maintain that closeness, once it has been established.
One of these categories is the qorban mincha, an offering primarily of flour mixed with oil. The passage dealing with this qorban opens: ונפש כי תקריב קרבן מנחה וגו' (“And a nefesh, for it will bring a qorban mincha....”; II, 1). Nefesh refers to the life-force which animates the body, conveying its needs and wants. The usage is unusual; one expects instead adam or ish (cf. e.g. I,2, שפתי חכמים שם וע"ע תורה תמימה לפ"ב א', זי' ג'). This prompts the Ha‘améq Davar to offer in explanation: לשון נפש מלמדנו דמנחה בא לרצות על הנפש כו' אכן לא נתבאר על איזה דבר הוא בא ונראה מסוגי' דקראי שבא להשיג כפרה וריצוי על השחתת הנפש במדות. ומש"ה אמר דוד לשאול "אם ד' הסיתך בי ירח מנחה", פי' הסותך בי ע"י מחלה של עצבון וכעס ירח מנחה להסיר מחלה זו ממך וגו' (“The term nefesh teaches us that a mincha comes to appease on behalf of a nefesh.... So what it comes for is not specified, and it seems from examination of Scripture that it comes to achieve atonement or appeasement for destruction of a nefesh through [bad] character traits. For this reason, David told Sha’ul, ‘If Ha-Shem has incited you against me, may He smell a mincha’ [I Samuel XXVI, 19], i.e., incited you against me through a sickness of melancholy and anger, may He smell a mincha to remove the sickness from you....”; ע"ע ויקרא רבה פ"ג סי' ה').
A bit later, our parasha admonishes: כל קרבן מנחתך במלח תמלח ולא תשבית מלח ברית אלקיך מעל מנחתך על כל קרבנך תקריב מלח (“Each qorban mincha of yours shall you salt with salt; and you will not withhold the salt of the covenant of your G-d [melach brith Eloqecha] from on your mincha; on every qorban of yours shall you sacrifice [taqriv] salt”; ibid., v. 13).
The Torah also refers to a “covenant of salt” in Numbers XVIII, 19, when G-d tells Aharon: כל תרומת הקדשים אשר ירימו בני ישראל לד' נתתי לך ולבניך ולבנותך אתך לחק עולם ברית מלח עולם הוא לפני ד' וגו' (“All the donations of sacrifices [qodashim, which is much closer to the actual meaning of the Latin word] which the bnei Yisra’él raise up to Ha-Shem I have given you, and your sons and daughters with you, for an eternal law; an eternal covenant of salt [brith melach ‘olam] before Ha-Shem....”). As Rashi ad loc. points out, salt is a preservative, and hence this appears to be a metaphor for the permanence and enduring quality of the brith.
Other commentators make the same point in connection with our verse (cf. e.g. the comments of Rabbi J.H. Hertz ז"ל, late chief rabbi of the British Empire, in his translation of the Torah), but Rashi chooses instead to comment as follows: שהברית כרותה למלח מששת ימי בראשית שהובטחו המים התחתונים ליקרב על המזבח במלח וניסוך המים בחג (“For the covenant was made with salt from the six days of Creation, for the lower waters were promised that they would be brought close [liqqarév] upon the altar through salt and the libation of water on Sukkoth”).
What did Rashi see in our verse that caused him to understand this brith melach differently from the brith melach of the kohanim?
B.
Accept, for the moment, that G-d made this promise to the “lower waters”: One may fairly ask, why the nissuch ha-mayim, the annual watery libation which provides the occasion for the simchath béyth ha-sho’éva during Sukkoth when there is a Béyth ha-Miqdash, does not suffice in itself to fulfill it. Why should we need salt?
The Maharal mi-Prag asks this question in his Gur Aryeh, and notes that every qorban in fact consists of two parts, a component of solid food (the meat of the animal, the flour) accompanied by a libation of wine. So, he suggests, the salt is intended to serve as the solid food component, and the libation of water serves as the liquid.
Why salt, in particular? Look at the volume of water which covers the earth; it is apparent that the volume of salty water dwarfs the volume of fresh water. If the “lower waters” are those covering the earth’s surface, their makeup is best represented by a solution of water and mineral salts which, separated, provide us with a solid and a liquid. Hence, the above correspondence.
Fair enough; but there is also a much deeper matter here, and in order to understand, we now need to examine the matter of the “lower waters” and the Divine promise made them.
C.
The mayim ha-tachtonim or “lower waters” were formed on the second day of Creation, when G-d separated them from the mayim ha-‘elyonim, the “upper waters”; that the mayim ha-‘elyonim constituted the main body of water and the tachtonim were a secondary development is implied by the name by which G-d designated the partition: Shamayim, i.e., “there” [sham] is the water [mayim]”, also translated “sky” (cf. Genesis I, 6-8).
The Maharal notes that this division and degradation, as it were, of the “lower waters” was unique in Creation: וזהו הפך סדר הבריאה והמציאות שהולך הכל להתעלות תמיד (“And this is the reverse of the order of Creation and the physical realm [metzi’uth] which constantly aspires to be elevated”), and goes on to explain: ולפיכך לא היו נבדלים מהם עד שהבטיח הש"י אותם להיות קרבים על המזבח שיקנו ההתעלות (“and therefore [the lower waters] would not be separated from [the upper] until Ha-Shem the Blessed promised that they would be maintained in a state of closeness [qrévim] upon the altar, in order to secure elevation”).
The physical universe, the metzi’uth, is the result of a sort of process of congealing or materialization, in which a metaphysical input passes through a very high number of progressive stages of “thickening,” as it were, to manifest the world which we find around us (the more literal definition of metzi’uth). The material world, though, can only exist because of the spiritual energy at its core. The situation is precisely analogous to, and replicated in, the union of physical and spiritual which is a human being, comprising the body and nefesh living and functioning through the presence of the neshama, the “soul.” This underlies the many places in which Chazal compare the world to a human being (עיי' נפש החיים שער ג' פ"ב ולשם שבו ואחלמה ח"א ש"ג פ"א ). That spiritual energy at the heart of every bit of the material cosmos never ceases to yearn for elevation, for a return to its more exalted source; hence, the mayim ha-tachtonim would only consent to be further debased and physically alienated if they were guaranteed a spiritual ascendancy, to be niqrav, “brought close” once again to their Source. This is what Rashi and the Maharal mean.
Through this promise was established a pattern replicated in the other qorbanoth, writes the Maharal, שלא בחר למזבח רק ממינים השפלים שאמרו למה בחר בתורים ובני היונים שאין בעופות יותר נרדפים מן מינים אלו, ואין בבהמות וחיות יותר נרדפים רק שור וכבס ועז ובחר הש"י בהם (“For [G-d] chose for the altar only from those species which are humble, as [Chazal] said, Why did He choose turtledoves and pigeons? Because there are none amongst the fowl more hunted than these species, and there are none amongst the beasts and wild animals more hunted than cattle, sheep, and goats, and Ha-Shem the Blessed chose them”; עיי' בבא קמא צ"ג. ).
The reason for this, he continues, is כי העולם הזה הוא עולם הגשמי ואשר יותר מושל בו ומצליח בו הוא מצד שהוא מתיחס אל עולם הזה ואשר הוא נרדף אין הגשמיות בו ולפיכך הוא נבחר להיות נקרב למעלה הנבדלת (“For this world is the material world, and those who are more dominant and successful in it are more attached to this world, and who is persecuted is not materialistic, and therefore is chosen [nivchar] to be brought close [niqrav] to a rarified height....”).
Hence, predatory creatures are kosher neither for sacrifice nor for consumption. To the extent, then, that the mayim ha-tachtonim were separated and alienated in this world from the ‘elyonim, they merited they merited being sanctified and brought close to Ha-Shem on the altar.
And the presence of solid mineral salts dissolved in the lower waters is proof of their humility.
D.
With this in mind, we turn to Rashi on II, 1: מי דרכו להתקרב מנחה? עני. אמר הקב"ה מעלה אני עליו כאלו הקריב נפשו (“Whose way is to bring a mincha? A poor man. Said the Holy One, Blessed is He, 'I consider it for him as though he has sacrificed his nefesh'”; ועיי' מנחות ק"ד:). A poor man cannot bring an animal sacrifice, with its direct symbolism of the nefesh; he is too humble.
We see from the foregoing why it is that Chazal so persistently emphasize the cultivation of ‘anivuth, “humility,” as the cure and preventative for such spiritual diseases as David perceived in Sha’ul. This quality applies to nations as well as to individuals, and the Maharal’s essay supra serves to explain much of the history of Klal Yisra’él, the ‘am ha-nivchar or “chosen people.”
Seemingly paradoxically, the holy Zohar proclaims: מאן עני? דא דוד מלכא (“Who is a poor man? This is King David”; ח"א קנ"ז. ); since a just and righteous king recognizes that he owns nothing in his own right; rather, all of “his” wealth is the property of the state, and ultimately of the people he rules.
It is instructive that, in this holiest of seasons rushing upon us, the Passover séder opens with the demonstration that we are about to eat lachma ‘anya, the “poor bread” which our enslaved ancestors ate in Egypt. Yet, at the same séder, we recline like bnei mlachim, princes.
Demonstrably the most harried and persecuted of people, Klal Yisra’él are capable of sanctification, and rising, to a rarified level indeed.
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