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parshas Vayikra 5771: Out of the Question
By Rabbi Joshua (unquestionably known as The Hoffer) Hoffman
This week's parsha begins the presentation of the laws concerning the
bringing of various offerings (korbanos) in the mishkan. The Ramban, in his
introduction to the book of Vayikra, tells us that the primary theme
of almost the entire book is the service done there and, later in our
history, in the Beis HaMikdash. In his commentary to parshas Terumah, the
Ramban said that the purpose of the mishkan was to perpetuate the experience of
the divine presence dwelling on Mt. Sinai, in a more hidden way but on a
more permanent basis, by providing a place for the divine presence to rest
among the people. This being the case, we would expect that the laws of korbanos
would begin with those that a person must bring as a result of some sin he
committed, since sin is a major impediment to perpetuating God's presence among
the people. It is therefore surprising to find that our parsha begins with the
laws of korban nedavah, voluntary offerings, that are not generated by sin,
although they do serve to atone for certain sins, as mentioned by Rashi, that
do not generate an obligation to bring an offering. Rabbi Menachem Leibtag, in
his introductory shiur to parshas Vayikra, issued by the Gush Etzion Virtual
Beis Midrash, although without explaining why, explains that it would have been
intuitive to begin these laws with the laws of the obligatory korban which is
brought for the purpose of purifying the person from sin. Why, then did the
parsha begin with the laws of voluntary korbanos? Rabbi Leibtag proceeds to
give an outline of all of the laws brought in parshas Vayikra, and explains why
each one is mentioned in its particular order. The interested reader is encouraged
to read the entire shiur. I would like to suggest a different answer, focusing
on the first korban mentioned, the voluntary olah brought from an animal
(beheimah).
Rabbi Menachem Kasher, in an appendix to his Torah Shleimah to parshas Vayikra,
writes that the primary goal of korbanos is to bring one to love
of God. By bringing the korban to the altar and offering it up to God,
one is symbolically saying that he is ready to give his whole life over to God,
which is a profound expression of love. This is especially true of the olah
sacrifice, which is totally burned on the altar. Why, however, is it a
voluntary olah that is mentioned first in the laws of the olah? Rav Yisroel
Kanievsky, zt'l, known as the Steipler Gaon, writes, in his Birchas Peretz
(parshas Vayikra), that for people who have difficulty in attaining love of God
through the Rambam's method of contemplating God's greatness, or the method of
the Chovos HaLevavos, by contemplating God's goodness and the many acts of
kindness He does for us constantly, is advised to act beyond the letter of the
law when doing mitzvos. By doing more than is required, his outer actions will
have an effect on his inner emotions, as the Sefer HaChinuch says in regard to
mitzvos in general, and he will eventually come to love God through these acts
of giving.
Actually, although Rav Kanievsky zt’l does not mention this, the Sifrei says
that one can attain love of God through learning His Torah. The Rambam, as
well, mentions this method. According to both Rav Shneur Zalman of Liadi, in
his work, Tanya, and Rav Chaim of Volozhin, in his Nefesh Ha Chaim, doing more
than what is required in regard to learning is also a means of intensifying
one's relationship with God. In this way, they explain the Talmudic statement
that one cannot compare a person who reviews his lesson one-hundred times to
one who reviews it one hundred one times. This figure, they say was chosen
because in the Babylonian yeshivos, since each student needed to review his
lesson a different number of times before he was proficient in it, a rule was
made that everyone must review the lesson one hundred times, because even the
weakest student would understand it after that many reviews. A person who
reviewed one hundred times may have been a top student, but he was merely
fulfilling the standard requirement. A student who reviewed one hundred one
times, however, was going beyond the requirements, and thereby displayed a love
for Torah, and this love would lead to a love of God. We can therefore understand
why it was the voluntary olah which is mentioned first among the various
offerings brought in the mishkan, since, on the one hand, the requirement to
burn it completely served as a symbol of the main message of korbanos, one's
love for God to the extent of offering himself up to him, and, on the other
hand, its status of being a voluntary korban helped intensify that love.
There is, however, another law of korbanos, mentioned in regards to the
voluntary olah, but applicable to all sacrifices, that may be even more
important than those we have mentioned. The Torah says, in regard to the
voluntary olah "Adam ki yakriv mikem korban La hashem" if a 'man'
(adam) brings an offering to God...” (Vayikra, 1:2). There are, in Hebrew, four
different terms for man- ish, enosh, gever and adam. Why is the word adam used
here? Rashi cites the Talmud as saying that just as Adam did not bring a
sacrifice from anything stolen, since God had given him jurisdiction over
everything in the world, so, too, we should not bring a sacrifice from anything
stolen, or which is ownerless (hefker). Rabbi Moshe Sternbach, in his Ta'am Va
Da'as, writes that we have other sources from which we learn that a stolen or
ownerless korban is invalid. Therefore, he asks, why do we need a separate
source from the use of the term adam? He answers that we do not learn anything
about what the status of the korban must be from this term, but we do
learn a great deal about what the character of the person who brings the
korban must be. Just as Adam was completely removed from any notion of
stealing because it was simply not possible for him to steal, so too must
a person who wants to bring a korban to God purify his character to such an
extent that the notion of stealing simply does not register in his mind.
We may add, based on our suggestion that the voluntary olah is perhaps the best
way to attain or express love of God, the Torah, by teaching us this lesson
from Adam in the section that discusses the laws of the korban olah, is telling
us that before we work on expressing our love of God, we must make sure that we
love our fellow man, to the extent that we cannot even conceive of the notion
of taking anything from him that does not belong to us. Rav Yehudah Amital,
zt'l, as brought in the work Commitment and Complexity, a compendium of
excerpts from his printed works, (See also his work, "Ve Ha'arets
Nasan Livnei Adam") said that among Jews in Eastern Europe,
there was a popular expression, based on something found in the siddur,
to be said before the formal morning prayer of Shacharis begins. The
statement referred to reads, 'leolam yehi adam yerei shamayim besiser
uvegalui - a person should always fear Heaven, in private and in public. The
popular saying was, 'leolam yehei adam' - one should always be a mensch a human
being, first, and then he can work on his fear of Heaven. This is in line with
Rav Kook's teaching that there are two types of ethics - human ethics and
divine ethics. Human ethics - mussar enoshi - consists of the kind of moral
deportment that every decent human being knows must be displayed, what we would
call a 'gut feeling of what is right.' Mussar Eloki goes beyond that level, in
service of the divine. Rav Kook says that anything done on the second level
that contradicts the first level is not a legitimate candidate for
inclusion in a religion. It is noteworthy that the saying mentioned by Rav
Amital uses the term 'adam,' just as the term is used in connection with the
voluntary olah in the beginning of parshas Vayikra. The message is the same. If
we want to attempt to develop our love of God, we must first make sure that we
develop proper relationships with our fellow human beings, cultivating the
inner sense of morality that was exemplified by the original Adam, who could
not even conceive of stealing from another human being.
I heard from Rav Reuven Feinstein, s”hlita, son of the great Rav Moshe
Feinstein, zt'l, whose twenty-fifth Yahrzheit occurs this coming week, that the
faculty of the elementary school division of his yeshiva, Tiferes Yerushalayim,
once met with him and suggested, in reaction to what had been implemented in a,
popular day school, that the school change the text studied by students
who were just beginning to study Talmud from the second chapter of
Bava Metziah - Eilu Metzios - which deals with the laws regarding finding and
returning lost objects, to the first chapter of Berachos, which deals with our
daily obligations to God, such as the recital of kerias Shema. Rav Moshe told
the faculty that it was a long-followed tradition to begin studying Talmud with
Eilu Metzios, and Tiferes Yerushalayim would continue in that tradition.
His son related, however, that later Rav Moshe told him another reason
for young students to start studies with Eilu Metzios. Talmudic
studies He said that when a student first studies the Talmud, he does not
learn a great number of pages over the course of the year. Rather he learns a
limited amount, but constantly reviews it, in order to learn Aramaic vocabulary,
and general skills necessary to study the Talmud on one's own. What emerges
from a study of Eilu Metzios, then, is that the student has it constantly
drilled into his head that he must never take for himself anything that does
not belong to him. Apparently, Rav Moshe believed that learning that lesson at
an early age is more important than studying the religious obligations that are
discussed in the beginning of berachos. This approach was consistent with
Rav Moshe's personality. With all of his greatness in Torah, he was recognized
by all who knew him as a man of sterling character, caring about the needs of
even the simplest person who approached him in order to speak with him.
The message of the Torah's mentioning the voluntary olah at the very beginning
of the book that is dedicated to perpetuating God's presence among us is that
we should all strive to attain a similar approach to life, each on our own
level.
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