A.
Our parasha opens by
detailing a number of mitzvoth which a kohén is to observe in
order to preserve his unique sanctity amongst Israel, and summarises: וקדשתו כי
את לחם אלקיכם הוא מקריב קדש יהי' לך כי קדוש אני ד'
(“And you will sanctify him for he sacrifices your G-d’s bread; he will be holy
to you for I, Ha-Shem, am holy”: XXI, 8).
The sanctity of the kohén is so absolutely
essential to Israel’s well-being (indeed, to that of the world), that Hazal
explain the emphasis laid on by the initial verb in the verse וקדשתו בעל כרחו
(“‘And you will sanctify him’ [even] against his will”; יבמות
פ"ח:). Born into his
exalted status as a lineal descendant of Aharon, he can neither run from it nor
deny it. And yet, our verse strongly implies that his sanctity derives not from
some inherent, intrinsic quality inherited from his illustrious ancestor, but
rather from his function, כי את לחם אלקיכם הוא מקריב, “for your G-d’s bread he sacrifices.” It
is on this account that each individual member of the other tribes of Israel
(as evidenced by the second person singular pronouns in our verse) must נהוג בו קדושה,
“treat him in accordance with sanctity,” as Rashi summarises the Talmud’s
conclusion elsewhere (עיי' גיטין נ"ט:).
“G-d’s bread”?! The incorporeal, omniscient,
omnipotent Lord of the universe eats food?! What does this really mean?
B.
As has been noted many times by many different
authorities, the general purpose of qorbanoth is to establish and
maintain a qurva, a state of closeness, between Ha-Shem, his nation, and
the world. The last is crystal clear from what we read later on in the parasha,
in which we read that sacrificial animas must not have mumim, blemishes.
After providing a comprehensive list of conditions which qualify as mumim, it
states explicitly: ומיד בן נכר לא תקריבו את לחם אלקיכם מכל
אלה וגו' (“And from the hand
of a foreigner you will not sacrifice your G-d’s bread from all these
[categories of mumim]....”; XXII, 25). That is, foreigners, too, can
bring qorbanoth, but they must be of equal quality to those brought by
Israel.
Qorbanoth fall into five broad categories, of which three
have a component which is burnt upon the altar and a component eaten by someone
(either the kohanim or the qorban’s owners, depending on the
class of qorban), and two are burnt up completely on the altar, nothing
being eaten. These latter two are the ‘ola or ishe, so-called
because it is entirely “raised” up on the altar (‘ola) and burnt there (ishe,
from ésh, fire), and the qëtoreth, incense.
Concerning the ‘ola/ishe, G-d tells Moshe: צו את בני ישראל ואמרת אלהם את קרבני לחמי לאשי ריח נחחי תשמרו
להקריב לי במועדו (“Command the
bënei Yisra’él and say to them, My qorban, My bread for My ishim,
My savory aroma [réah nihohi] you will
diligently sacrifice to Me at its appointed time”; Numbers XXVIII, 2). There is
that wording again: G-d eats food?! He has a héh, a
palate, with which to savour things?!
We begin to gain a glimmer of understanding from a
comment made by the Ra’avad on the Séfer Yëtzira. In discussing
the metaphysical ramifications of the neural pathways connecting the human
brain with the constituent limbs and organs of the human body, the Ra’avad writes
concerning the nose: הנה החי' משלחת צנור להביא בו ריח
ניחח לד', כי הריח מתערב באויר והחיות מכח החי' רצוא ושוב ומתערב בחיות כח הקטורת
ונקשר ברוח אלקים חיים המרחף על פני המים כו' ואם ירח מוטב ואם לאו יח"ר לד',
לפיכך הקטורת מבטלת האף
(“Behold, the hayya [the animating angel, in this case of the
sense of smell; cf. e.g. Ezekiel I, 5ff., in which the prophet uses this term for
an angelic being] sends a conduit to bring by means of it a réah nihoah
la-Shem, for the réah is mixed with the air, and the vitality
[hiyyuth] from the hayya’s potential runs back and
forth [along the conduit] and is mixed with the hiyyuth of the
potential of the qëtoreth, and is bound to the spirit [ruah]
of the living G-d which ‘hovers over the face of the waters’ [cf. Genesis
I, 2]... and if one smells [yérah] [the incense], it is made good,
and if not, Ha-Shem becomes wrathful [yihar la-Shem]; therefore,
the qëtoreth nullifies wrath”).
C.
It has been noted several times in these pages
that underlying every object and phenomenon in this world is a metaphysical
reality captured in the letters of the word or phrase in the Holy Language
which expresses that phenomenon; and the same group of letters retains a
relationship even when their order is varied. It is in this way that tzaddiqim
are sometimes able to effect the rectification of an evil decree, by
bringing about a change in the order of the letters which in turn effects a
change in the mëtzi’uth, the perceived reality.
A case in point is cited by the Birkath Tov in
discussing parashath Noah. The decree of the Mabbul, which
would wipe the earth clean of life, save those creatures rescued by Noah
in the teiva and those in the sea, constituted a time of tzara,
of woe. The word tzara is spelt tzadi-réysh-hé; as the Rebbe
explains, Noah was obligated to meet the crisis by entering into ha-maqom
ha-tzar -- “the narrow place” of the teiva -- there to daven and
perform his appointed ‘avoda of caring for the animals, in order to
bring about a change such that, once again, G-d ratza, “favored” His
creation. Each of these words -- tzara, ha-tzar, ratza -- is spelt with
some permutation of the same three letters.
The Ra’avad’s comment is predicated upon a
similar relationship between the words yérah -- “he smells,
scents” -- and yihar -- “he becomes wrathful”, both permutations
of the same set of letters. Just as mitigating the tzara of the Mabbul
required human action on the part of Noah, so does the mitigation of
Divine wrath resulting from rebellious, libelous, embarrassing speech, for
which the kappara, the “atonement”, requires the burning of qëtoreth,
as we see, e.g., in the incident recorded in Numbers XVII, 6-15, in which
Aharon is able to bring a halt to a plague brought on by rebellious murmuring
in the wake of G-d’s decisive quelling of Qorah’s revolt.
A common expression for wrath is the phrase haron
af, in which the first word is a noun derived ultimately from the primal
root heth-vav-réysh, connoting paleness emptiness, desolation and
(in its reduplicated form, hirhér) “provoke”; the second
word means “nose.” The expression is particularly often employed for Divine
wrath; to cite only some of the more obvious examples from the written Torah,
cf. e.g., Exodus IV, 14; Numbers XI, 10; XII, 9; XXII, 22; XXV, 3-4; XXXII, 10, 13-14;
Deuteronomy XXIX, 26.
What has a
nose to do with wrathfulness? The prescribed mitigation of the problem, as we
see, involves the burning of incense, as Moshe was instructed: והקטיר עליו אהרן קטרת סמים בבקר בבקר בהיטיבו את הנרת יקטירנו: ובהעלת
אהרן את הנרת בין הערבים יקטירנה קטרת תמיד לפני ד' לדרתיכם: (“And
Aaron will burn upon [the altar] a qëtoreth of ingredients each and
every morning; when he is preparing the lights he will burn it. And when Aharon raises up the lights at
twilight he will burn it, a constant qëtoreth before Ha-Shem for your
generations”; Exodus XXX, 7-8).
And as the Ra’avad has pointed out, the
conduit through which the réah nihoah of the
incense reaches Ha-Shem, begins with the noses of Israel; we must be there to
inhale the aroma, whose sensation passes through to the nëshama, and up
the chain of the nëshama’s vast metaphysical structure to the kissé
ha-kavod whence it was quarried (עיי' סנהדרין
נ"א: ובירושלמי שם פ"י ה"ב, ועוד).
If such an arrangement, under which our
participation in the service of the qorbanoth, is so with the sense of smell, it is surely
equally so with the other senses (such as taste), as the Ra’avad goes on
to detail. And all of these sacred functions require the këhunna. For
this reason, the sanctity of the kohén is crucial to Israel’s survival
and well-being.
D.
And Israel herself came into being, as G-d
admonished us at Sinai, to be His ממלכת כהנים וגוי קדוש (“kingdom of kohanim and holy
nation”; Exodus XIX, 6). What the kohanim are to Israel, Israel is to the
world. If the kohanim live under extra restrictions, not incumbent upon
the ordinary Israelite, as the price of their exalted status, so does Israel
live within the scope of the Torah’s 613 mitzvoth, whilst he nation of
the world have the original seven commanded to Noah. And, as may be
inferred from the fact that Exodus XIX, 6 directly precedes the account of Mattan
Torah, it is similarly true that Israel’s sanctity has less to do with any
traits inherited from the Patriarchs than it has with the ‘avoda enshrined
in the Torah’s mitzvoth; nonetheless, if it is true that the kohén is
sanctified “even against his will”, so is to true that Israel can neither
escape nor deny the exalted status granted us at Sinai. The world will not
allow it, as our history so clearly shows.
So it behooves us to accept that status joyously
and gratefully, to strive continually to advance in sanctity, that our nëshamoth
will rise ever higher in the heichaloth ha-qëdusha (as the Hesed
lë-Avraham has it), counting up the days on our way to accepting the Torah
anew, and with it, our mission in the world.
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