A large segment of this week’s Parshah is spent on the listings of the offerings. The first and most common sacrifice brought down is the daily offerings; once in the morning and once in the afternoon. There is one verse regarding the daily sacrifice that many commentators are bothered by. It says, “It is the continual offering that was performed at Mount Sinai”. Seeing as no sacrifice was brought on Mount Sinai, what then does the verse mean?
Firstly let us explain briefly the idea behind bringing temple offerings. On the eighth day of the inauguration of the Tabernacle, Moshe instructs the Jews to bring an offering. The Jews gather together to bring their offering and Moshe says, “This is the thing that Hashem has commanded you to do; then the glory of Hashem will appear to you”.
Asks the Malbim [1809-1879] that there appears to be no added instruction in these words whatsoever? Moreover it is the unwritten ‘added instruction’ that actually causes the Glory of Hashem to come down to this world. Explains the Malbim, quoting the Medresh, it is not the mere act of slaughtering an animal that achieves any presence of Hashem down on this world. It is the thoughts behind the offering that is so integral in bringing Hashem down to ‘accept’ the offering. The thought process should go something like this; “after my sin, in order to rectify the animalistic side of me that caused the sin, I really deserve to be slaughtered on the Altar. My act of offering up an animal is just symbolic of the animal inside me, who led me after my desires. Through this offering process I can bring myself back closer to Hashem”.
This is why the root of the word for an offering, ‘korban’ is the word ‘korav’ – “to draw close”. Through the process of bringing a sacrifice we achieve a new closeness to Hashem, more often than not, we forge an even stronger bond than was before the sin. Our animalistic side has in fact caused us to reach our new level.
The Altar can therefore be seen as the focal point in the world where we take the most animalistic being in creation – the animal itself! But we use it to achieve closeness to Hashem. This very act of elevating the mundane is what we do when we harness the animal inside us; when we eat to live, not live to eat for example. But when there is a break down of this process we fix it by bringing an offering.
The verse we brought above just repeats the command to bring the offering to jolt us into thinking about the real mechanics behind the offering.
Rav Hirsch [1808-1888] explains that this very idea is expressed after the Revelation on Mount Sinai when the Jews were told not to make images of anything that is with Hashem. Rather we are to make “an earthly altar” (an altar whose inside was filled with earth). We are supposed to bring our earthly side up towards Hashem not vice-versa. The Altar was not allowed to be raised off the ground even one handbreadth. Normally up to three handbreadths off the ground is still considered to be on the ground. But here there is a special emphasis of being connected to the ground. The work of man – in the imagery of the vision of Yaakov’s dream – is to be “a ladder standing on the ground, but its top reaching into the sky”. Only this way can we achieve “Angels of Hashem going up and down [the ladder]”.
The earthly altar paralleled Mount Sinai itself. The prophet Yechezkel refers to the altar as “Har-E-L” – literally the “Mount of Hashem”. The verse calls the flat top of the Altar, “Ari-E-L” – literally “lion of Hashem”. Because here, atop the Altar, the fire of Hashem pounces much like a lion pouncing on its prey. This is exactly what happened at Mount Sinai, the Glory of Hashem came down to this world, as the verse says, “and the vision of the Glory of Hashem was like fire consuming at the top of the mountain, before the eyes of the Jews”. Heavens touched earth! When we bring an offering, and elevate the mundane – we recreate the Mount Sinai experience. Every process of the offering, EVEN the eating of the meat after the actual sacrifice, could only be done as long as the Altar wasn’t in any way invalidated. This alludes to the importance of the process all being connected to the ground – the earthly Altar.
I was shown a poem which was written by Rav Hutner [1906-1980] which he composed on seeing the Alps, which aptly expresses the above ideas. The original poem was in Yiddish here is my free translation:
The soul from the heaven but the body from the soil,
Thus man is made, and so becomes his toil.
Lofty is the heaven, lowly is the ground,
Is how our thoughts were always bound.
But to the mountains we travelled,
Now our views became unravelled.
Look how the earth reaches a peak,
Then the heavens come down and meet.
The lowliness we thought of our body,
Is now but a story so shoddy.
Exactly from this earth we make our summit tall,
Only then can the heavens begin their fall!
As Rav Hirsch writes, “Hence, it is not to the heaven, but the earth, raised up towards Hashem, which is to be in our minds when we wish to step near to Hashem. It is on it, an earthly altar, that we have to dedicate… our active life, and …. our passive life to the endeavour to get nearer to Hashem, whether we feel our position in life to be the most one of sheep, or in the consciousness of the most free independence as cattle”. With this Rav Hirsch suggests the reference to Mount Sinai with regard to the daily offering, to answer our original question.
Good Shabbos,
Yaakov
