Purpose of Qorbanos, part II

"This is what is meant by the verse (Tehillim 89:7), "For who in the heavens can equal God, can compare with God among the divine beings?" Said the A-lmighty, "If I wanted a sacrifice, wouldn't I simply ask Michael, who is right here next to Me, to offer to Me a sacrifice? From whom do I want a sacrifice? From Israel!"
- Tanchuma, beginning of Parashas Tzav

The Kotzker Rebbe explains this medrash. Hashem does not desire the qorban itself. Mal'achim could make a far more perfect offering with no adulteration of intent. Rather, the qorban is in the decision to give. Hashem gave us the power to decide, and our handing back that which is truly ours is what brings us close to Him.

Barukh shekivanti!

Who knows four?

(You may want to see also previous divrei Torah for Pesach: 1 (TA) 2 (TA) 3 (TA))

The number four appears in the seider so frequently that its presence is often commented upon:

• The four cups of wine -- and the four terms of redemption and the four mentions of the word "cup" when the butler discusses his dream with Yoseif, the sources of this law
  
• The four questions
• The four "barukh"s in "Barukh haMaqom"
• The four sons
• The four names of the holiday: Pesach, Chag haMatzos, Chag haAviv and Zeman Cheiruseinu
• The four matzos

"The four matzos"? Don't we in fact have three (or, as R' Moshe Feinstein and R' JB Soloveitchik did, following the Vilna Gaon, have two) matzos?

What I mean by that are the four meanings we associate with the mitzvah of matzah:

1- We start with "Ha lachma anya -- this is the poor man's bread which our forefathers ate in the land of Egypt..." The bread of servitude. "Lechem oni -- bread of poverty."
2- Then we ask questions, and teach Maggid embodying the other idea of "'lechem oni', she'onim alav devarim harbei -- that we answer upon it many things."
3- We have the matzah upon which one must eat the qorban pesach. Historically, this concept of matzah was given third, before the actual redemption.
4- The matzah also represents the haste of the exodus itself. Rabban Gamliel's is the matzah that we eat "because the dough lacked [the time] to leaven before the King of Emperors. the Holy One blessed be He, revealed Himself to them and redeemed them."

(1) Poverty and suffering, transformed through (2) Torah study and (3) mitzvah observance, becomes (4) redemption. The story of Mitrayim and Yetzi'as Mitzrayim is that exile and troubles exist for the sole purpose of turning them into opportunities for growth and redemption.

That too is how the four cups divide the seider:
1- First cup:
Qadeish: necessary before drinking wine
Urchatz: necessary before...
Karpas: Vegetables, as in "the cucumbers we had in Egypt" that the exodus generation complained of missing in the desert, dipped in salt water resembling tears
Yachatz: breaking the middle matzah, because poor people need to save for later, and saying "Ha lachmah anya"

The first cup is dominated by symbols of life in Mitzrayim. Then we fill the second cup...

2- Second cup:
Maggid: telling over the story. The matzah of teaching.

3- Third cup:
Motzi, Matzah, Maror, Koreich, Shulchan Areich, Tzafun, Bareich: these steps will (G-d willing, soon) be the actual eating of the qorban pesach "on matzos and maror". The matzah of the mitzvah.

4- Fourth cup:
Hallel, Nirtzah: Praising G-d. The post-redemption Jew.

In the song "Echad mi yodei'ah?" each verse combines the answers of the previous verses. So that when you get to "Who knows four?" the answer is "Four are the mothers, three are the fathers, two are the luchos haberis, one is G-d..."

I would like to suggest that the answer doesn't end after the word "imahos" (mothers), but includes the whole sequence.

G-d is one.

Man is created in His Image, which means we exist to similarly be free-willed creative beings, but also we exist as recipients of His good. Therefore man lives in two worlds: G-d's and the one we share with our fellow man. And these are expressed in the two tablets: one containing mitzvos between us and Hashem, the other between people.

This balancing act requires that we have three loci in our soul: our existence in this world, our existence in heaven, and the world within our minds, where we choose between them. The chesed of Avraham, the avodah of Yitzchaq, and the torah study of Yaaqov. Three are the fathers.

As actors, we act in three planes. However, in receiving from G-d, we realize we receive on planes beyond three -- reception is perceived in fours. Rosh haShanah, when we act to repent and earn our redemption, we have a three-part Mussaf (Malkhos, Zichronos, Shoferos). Pesach, the gifted redemption, is in four.

The meaning of four is therefore build on that of three, which in turn comes from two and The One.

The work of the seider is therefore to make the transition from being a oni, a creature batted around by the winds of fate, living in "Mitzrayim" between two narrows, between "the pan and the fire". And through thought and deed we accept our redemption, becoming a servant of G-d.

Something to think about tonight, during bedikas chameitz: Chameitz then is the ignoring of this gift of redemption. Standing back when the opportunity is there. The passivity of letting the dough rise. Falling short on one's Torah study and mitzvah observance; perhaps one even takes these tools in hand, but doesn't use them redemptively. This is the chameitz of which the Ari haQadosh writes, "Anyone who removes all chameitz from their house is guaranteed to have a year without sin."

Chag kasher vesamei'ach! (belashon "lo zu af zu")

A quick but beautiful thought on tefillah

From a more neglected (compared to Adam I vs Adam II) part of The Lonely Man of Faith by R' JB Soloveitchik zt"l (pg 58). R' Soloveitchik describes the perspective of Anshei Kenesses haGedolah:

At a later date, when the mysterious men of this wondrous assembly witnessed the bright summer day of the prophetic community, full of color and sound, turning to a bleak autumnal night of dreadful silence, unillumined by the vision of God or made homely by His voice, they refused to acquiesce in this cruel historical reality and would not let the ancient dialogue between God and men come to an end.

Tum'ah and Taharah, part II

Rav Y Henken replied to my previous entry on this subject (repeated here for the benefit of Google). He wrote:

See in my "New Interpretations on rhe Parsha" (Ktav) and also Shu"t Bnei Banim vol. 4 maamar 22.

Q. Why is a woman in childbirth considered to be ritually impure?

A. That is a difficult question. Vayikra is full of laws of tumah and taharah. One of the six orders of the Mishnah is devoted to them. But there is little discussion of the meaning behind ritual impurity, and why it should be forbidden in the Temple.

To be sure, tumah is often connected with death and decay, and as such can be seen as antithetical to the idea of haShem, the living G-d. This would explain why the most potent source of tumah is the human corpse, and why various types of animal carcasses transmit impurity. Similarly, leprosy and certain diseases of the reproductive tract that cause tumah are forms of decay. The menstruant woman is impure because menstruation marks the waste of the ovum, the loss of a potential life.

The rock on which this explanation founders, however, is childbirth. Why is a woman impure after childbirth? Nothing seems further from death and decay than bringing a child into the world. Even if birth involves an element of illness for the mother, why should that outweigh the emergence of a new being?

The answer, it seems to me, is that not only death and decay are opposed to the idea of G-d, but birth as well. HaShem does not die, but neither is He born. The flux of human life, birth and death together, is antithetical to G-d's immutable and eternal nature. Tumah represents the waxing as well as the waning of life and has no place in the Sanctuary, the abode of the Eternal. For that reason a woman in childbirth is impure, for nothing is less G-d-like than the cycle of generation.

This can explain several of the laws of purity and sacrifices. Why is a woman impure for one week if a boy is born, but two weeks if she gives birth to a girl? Because the female is the more visible link in the reproductive chain.

Why is it forbidden to add leavening and honey to meal-offerings (Vayikra 2:11)? Because these substances accelerate the formation of chametz: chametz waxes and swells more than matzo but quickly goes stale, whereas matzo can keep indefinitely. Chametz therefore symbolizes mortal existence, and has no place in the sacrifices.

Finally, why is chametz forbidden on Pesach? Because Pesach is the holiday of belief in G-d, we must avoid leaven, which symbolically contradicts His unchanging nature.

Notes

1. Commentators are cautious in ascribing reasons for tumah and its categories; for example, see Sefer HaChinuch, no. 159 (Chavel ed. no. 152). In Moreh Nevuchim 3:47, Rambam wrote that impurity exists simply in order to make the Sanctuary off-limits to most people.

2. For a summary of the types of impurity see Otzar Yisrael, s.v. tum'ah vetaharah, and Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. ritual impurity.

3. See Ramban, commentary to Vayikra 12:1.

4. Contrast this both with Christianity and the cult of the chief Canaanite deity, Baal, who was believed to die each year during the dry season and to be reborn with the first rains.

5. By contrast, the preservative salt is required for all sacrifices (Vayikra 2:13).

6. See below (in "New Interpretations on the Parsha") Pesach, pp. 190-192.

My own take, from an essay on parah adumah (which further elaborates on the theme):

What does it mean to be tamei or tahor? When the Torah discusses the subject, it uses the avoidance of tum'ah as a goal in an of itself, not as something that needs further justification. The explanation Hashem gives us for certain animals being non-kosher is merely "tamei hu lakhem -- it is tamei to you." (Vayikra 11:4) Elsewhere, we find tahor used to mean pure; for example, pure gold is repeatedly called "zahav tahor." (e.g. Shemos 25:31) But what is it that is pure, and from what kind of adulteration is it pure?

The Ramchal defines the personal attribute called taharah:

Taharah is the correction of the heart and thoughts... Its essence is that man shouldn't leave room for the inclination in his actions. Rather all his actions should be on the side of wisdom and awe [for the Almighty], and not on the side of sin and desire. This is even in those things which are of the body and physical.
- Mesilas Yesharim Ch. 16

To the Ramchal, taharah is purity of the "heart and thoughts". The the tahor man has "no room for the physical." It is the purity of the deciding mind from the physical creature.

To cast the words of the Ramchal into the terms we discussed in the introduction, taharah and tum'ah focus on the relation ship between the physical and the mind. Taharah is the purity of the mind from physical prejudices. Tum'ah is its adulteration, so that the decision making process can not be freed of the physical urges.

This is mussar's description of a personality trait called "taharah." The halachah's concept seems to derive directly from it. Rav SR Hirsch describes the tum'ah of a dead body.

A dead human body tends to bring home to one's mind a fact which is able to give support to that pernicious misconception which is called tum'ah. For, in fact, there lies before us actual evidence that Man must -- willy-nilly -- submit to the power of physical forces. That in this corpse that lies before us, it is not the real human being, that the real human being, the actual Man, which the powers of physical force can not touch, had departed from here before the body -- merely its earthly envelope -- could fall under the withering law of earthly Nature; more, that as long as the real Man, with his free-willed self-determining G-dly nature was present in the body, the body itself was freed from forced obedience to the purely physical demands, and was elevated into the sphere of moral freedom in all its powers of action and also of enjoyment, when the free-willed ruling of the higher part of Man decided to achieve the moral mission of his life;
- Commentary on Lev. 11:47

R. SR Hirsch portrays the tamei object as one that causes the illusion that man is nothing more than a physical object, an animal, a helpless subject to physical forces and physical desires. In reality,

death only begins with death, but that in life, thinking striving and accomplishing Man can master, rule, and use even his own sensuous body with all its all its innate forces, urges, and powers, with G-d-like free self-decision, within the limits of, and for accomplishment of, the duties set by the laws of morality; ...

"Thinking striving and accomplishing Man," the conscious man, should use the "sensuous body with all its innate forces, urges, and powers," the physical man, as a tool for doing good. The object which halachah calls tamei is that thing which will cause mussar's tum'ah to awaken itself within the mind. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The mind that is prejudiced by physical needs and urges can not fully choose its own destiny.

Note that tum'ah robs oneself of bechirah by being convinced -- adulterating bechirah, if you will -- of the idea that man is merely a subject, not an object. In the terms of the Gra's Peirush al Kama Agados -- purity of the ru'ach (soul as wind, as actor) from the nefesh (the animal soul).

The notion of subject vs object and its relationship to cheit's power to be metamei is also discussed by Rav YB Soloveitchik in a 1974 teshuvah derashah. See our R' Dr Arnold Lustiger's, "Before Hashem You Shall be Purified", Ohr Publishing, 1998.

The Rav starts with R"H 29a, where R' Nachman says that someone who is half slave, have freeman (e.g. a slave who was owned by two partners, and subsequently freed by one of them) can not fulfill the mitzvah of hearing shofar from his own blowing. As a non-Jewish slave becomes a Jew when freed, such a person is half Jewish. Unlike other mitzvos, where he can fulfill the mitzvah himself -- e.g. he can daven for himself, and need not rely on a fully Jewish chazan.

RYBS explains that blowing shofar is different because the mitzvah is not in the blowing, but in the hearing. The berachah reads "...who commanded us to hear the sound of the shofar." Inherent in the mitzvah is two kinds of individuals, the tokei'ah (the blower) and the shomei'ah (the listener), the nosei (mover) and the nisa (moved). An active subject and a passive object.

It's not halachah that splits the individual in this way, it's sin. Sin splits the personality into tamei and tahor components. The call of the shofar is the nosei awakening the nisa, calling across that chasm created by sin to restore unity, to bring us closer to the image of the Singular Nosei in Whose "Image" we were created.

The message of the shofar is that all is not lost. That no matter how much ruach one is mitamei, the core remains. Teshuvah is always possible. "For on this day, He will place kaparah atonement upon you, to make you tahor from all your sins; before Hashem you will become tahor.

If taharah is purity from the idea that man is merely a physical being, an object that is "forced [into] obedience to the purely physical demands", than kaparah is the containment of that idea. Placing a kapores, a lid, upon the nefesh, man's mammalian nature. Through kaparah one cordons off the animal within oneself, but did not yet address the damage to one's decision-making due to habit.

Tum'ah and Taharah

[From this week's Shabat B'Shabbato by Machon Zomet. I found this devar Torah to be particularly Aspaqlaria-esque. See also my take on tum'ah from Mesukim MiDevash on Chukas.]

POINT OF VIEW
Ritual Impurity and Purity
Prof. Shalom Rozenberg

I will take this opportunity to discuss the significance of ritual purity and impurity in Jewish thought. To do this, I will relate the matter to the three basic concepts of the Torah: creation, revelation, and redemption.

Creation lowered nature and the entire universe from the realm of absolute authority. According to the approach of the idol worshippers, both mankind and the deities are powerless against the arbitrary fate which controls all of nature and mocks it. The belief in a Divine power established an alternative approach to the concept of creation. According to this approach, the Almighty is not part of the world and is not under its control. He created it. And this leads us to revelation, the giving of the Torah.

Archimedes was showing great wisdom when he claimed that according to the laws of physics if he had a balance point outside of the earth and a long enough lever he could move the earth from its position. When the Almighty said to Moshe, "here is a place, with me" [Shemot 33:21], he gave man just such an Archimedean point. Resting on this point with the use of the lever of prophesy, it is possible to move the world from the point of view of ethics. According to the approach of the idol worshippers, mankind should learn ethics from nature, where the law of the jungle is the supreme rule. The Torah has given us a different perspective, that of the Almighty. We must be critical of nature and sometimes struggle against its indifference to suffering. The Torah "preceded" the world and takes priority over it.

The next step is redemption. Nature is not moral and it is not a proper model. The command "Do not kill" that descends from heaven will in the future bring peace to the entire world, including the animal kingdom. The ruthless wars of the jungle will in the future come to an end. Redemption issimilar to returning to the Garden of Eden, a world of peace, as is written by Yeshayahu: "A new baby will play at the hole of a serpent, and a weaned child will move his hand toward a snake's nest" [11:8]. Even the serpent, the symbol of evil, will make peace with mankind and will have respect for the weak and vulnerable. The world can be different, without sickness or death, a place where "death will be eliminated forever, and G-d will erase the tears from every face" [Yeshayahu 25:8].

Death and the Temple

This ideal world is reflected in the Temple. Ritual impurity represents tragic reality, described in the Torah as expulsion from the Garden of Eden. At the center of the tragedy is the concept of death. This serious impurity is related specifically to man, because of his greatness and glory. Man is "gavra," a person, subjective and active. Death transforms him into "cheftza," an inanimate object. This steep descent is symbolized by the concept of "tum'a," ritual impurity.

A dead body is indeed at the highest level of "tum'a," but there are other phenomena that are symbols of death, such as tzara'at -- leprosy -- and zav -- an impure flow -- in addition to blood flow of a woman and the sperm of a man. These are not absolute death but only partial. Tzra'at is a symbol of the death of organs of the body. The blood of nida and wasted sperm are death of a potential life. The main details of the laws of ritual impurity stem from these principles.

How does one become impure? One becomes impure when he becomes involved with death. The type of involvement is set by the normal life style. The greatest expression of social living with another person is dwelling together in the same tent or house. A person becomes impure when he is in a "tent" together with a dead body. Material objects mainly become impure through their normal use, every object in its own way, leading to the acts of touching and carrying. In general, it can be said that when death, total or partial, interferes in the normal sequence of human life, ritual impurity occurs.

Purification, on the other hand, is linked to a return to the original world, before the sin. This primal world is characterized by water in different forms: it is always water that was not drawn by man, and in some cases it is the fresh water of a spring. It is as if we return to the water which covered all the earth before the dry land was revealed, before man was created. This water is a symbol of renewed birth, of rejuvenation that G-d provides for man. The Temple is a model of the Garden of Eden, a model of the world of the future, and this explains the connection between the laws of ritual impurity and the Temple. Death is not allowed to enter into the Temple. It is forbidden for a chain of events that included death to leave any impression on the Temple. Death must remain outside the Temple.

We must be careful not to judge ritual impurity according to the common categories of nature. In some ways, it can be compared more to a legal concept than to a dangerous negative energy. But it is really much more than that. Tum'a is a phenomenon that ideally should not have appeared in the world at all. In some ways, the laws of ritual impurity are a protest against cosmic reality. Morality cannot be derived from nature. Morality stems from revelation, from the Divine point of view. Nature must be redeemed, and ritual impurity should disappear from the world. It is wrong to accept the unredeemed reality as it is and to surrender to it. Nature as it exists is not a judge but rather should itself be judged.

And this leads us to the existential principle so well expressed by the Chassidic approach: "As long as the candle continues to burn, it can be repaired." And the world is in need of repair. This is also a principle that we can learn from the laws of ritual impurity and purity.

[This is actually a mussar vort. Rav Yisrael Salanter passed a shoemaker working late at night. He asked the shoemaker why he was working so late, and the response was as above. Rav Yisrael learned from this that the job of personal repair is lifelong. The soul is compared to a candle, "neir Hashem nishmas adam -- the candle [lamp] of Hashem is the soul of man." (Mishlei 20:27). As long as the candle continues to burn, it is still possible to make repairs. (Dov Katz, Tenu'as haMussar) -mi]

A use for every middah

The Semak (mitzvah 8) writes that we should be careful with other people's kavod (honor), but not our own.

The Orekhos Tzaddiqim ("sha'ar haAhavah") similarly writes that you should try to give others hana'ah (enjoyment), but try not to take hana'ah from others. (I don't quite understand this. Perhaps the author is distinguishing "taking" from "receiving what's freely given".)

And so, many middos that seem negative have positive uses, when we apply them to others. This duality is typified by a saying by R' Yisrael Salanter:

A pious Jew is not one who worries about his fellow man's soul and his own stomach; a pious Jew worries about his own soul and his fellow man's stomach.

(Along these lines, I used to be one of those people who would wish others "Have a meaningful fast" instead of the usual "Have an easy fast". After all, isn't the point of a fast to experince a small measure of distress to motivate seeking meaning? But when learning this line, I thought perhaps there's a good reason for the tradition.)

When the Brisker Rav taught this idea, a student challenged him with some middos that seem the antithesis of Jewish worship.

Apiqursus (heresy). How can it be used positively? As we've been saying -- for me and mine, I can have bitochon (trust [in the A-lmighty]) that everything that happens is as it should be. On another's account, one needs to be an "apiqoreis" and not rely on Hashem's help.

Krumkeit (warped reasoning). The person who thinks farkumkt has the ability to fulfill "dan likaf zekhus", judging others favorably, no matter how open-and-shut the story seems to the rest of us. Somehow, we only employ it for self-justification, and hold others to a higher standard.

And in fact, every middah has its positive use. This is why the Torah says (Devarim 6:5, in "Shema") that you should love Hashem "with all your heart" and chazal explain "with both of your inclinations". The major "trick" in middos improvement is not the elimination or creation of a middah, but learning how and when it should be applied.

This explains why they're called "middos". "Tiqun hamiddos", improving one's character, is more literally translated "fixing the measures". The work is on their dimensions.

The Rambam (Hilkhos Dei'os 1:4) describes the ideal balance of middos as being the shevil hazahav, the golden mean. He writes (tr. Immanuel O'Levy), "The way of the upright is [to adopt] the intermediate characteristic of each and every temperament that people have. This is the characteristic that is equidistant from the two extremes of the temperament of which it is a characteristic, and is not closer to either of the extremes." Too much anger is cruel to others, too little, and one lacks the motivation to correct wrongs.

There are two ways to view being in the middle. The first is a more naive and natural reading of the Rambam, in that neither middah exceeds the middle mark, on some hypothetical scale, the person is in the middle. However, contradictory middos are not mutually exclusive. Someone could feel ambivalence, and be simultaneously happy and sad. There therefore isn't really a single scale with a person at some point between the extremes. You need to specify the amount of each extreme, e.g. of taking enjoyment and asceticism, individually.

The shevil hazahav is therefore having equal quantities of each, and knowing which to use when. Finding tif'eres, harmony. A skilled carpenter is one who has mastered the use of both hammer and screwdriver, and knows which joins are best made with nails, and which with screws.

"Bekhol levavekha -- with all your heart". Every middah can be used to express our love for Hashem. Each in its proper place.