A Thought On Parshas Tzav

A Thought On Parshas Tzav

"...v'chol minchas kohen kalil..."
"...and the entire meal offering brought by a kohen is incinerated..." (4:15)

Many people brought meal offerings - menachos - some of which we learned about last week in these Parsha thoughts. A portion of each mincha was given to the kohanim who participated in the sacrificial process.The rest was incinerated on the altar similar to other korbanos.

Sometimes the person bringing a mincha offering was himself a kohen. After all, no one is infallible and kohanim also had occasions which required atonement. What makes the mincha of the kohen different is that, as our verse explains, the entire portion of meal was burned on the altar. Nothing was eaten. Nothing was given to the kohen. What can we learn from this detail?

The Bechor Shor contrasts the minchas kohen with regular menachos. The latter involved a small portion burned as an offering with the remainder given to the kohanim to eat. We can understand that they were given this privilege of partaking of the mincha, in that they spent their lives in the service of HaShem. Just as one gives up or sacrifices a portion on the altar as a form of atonement, so too is the feeding of pious kohanim a form of offering in that it supports those devoted to avoda. However, when it is a kohen who needs to bring the offering, the Bechor Shor points out, how would his eating any of his sacrifice atone for anything? How would his "full stomach be considered a gift to HaShem"?

I sometimes reflect on some of the mitzvos which we do in the form of eating something: matza, wine, challa, Sukka treats, Chanuka and Purim traditional foods. If we enjoy eating them, are we really fulfilling a mitzva? Are we doing something to please HaShem or eating to please ourselves? To quote the Bechor Shor, is having a full stomach really some form of gift to HaShem? Rather, when we enjoy something in the service of HaShem, it has to be the enjoyment of fulfilling the mitzva which is paramount. We are allowed some subjective delight on the side (think hot cholent on a cold Shabbos day) but let's not fool ourselves into believing that we are atoning for anything if our main objective is to fill the stomach.

May this Shabbos haGadol fill your soul. D Fox

A Thought On Parshas VaYikra

A Thought On Parshas VaYikra

"...v'nefesh ki takriv korban mincha..."
"...and any soul who brings forth a meal offering..." (2:1)

In introducing the array of sacrificial offerings which were brought in the Holy Temple, the Torah discusses here the mincha or meal offerings, and the people ("souls") who brought them.

There are three properties which highlight these forms of offerings, which are not always found among the animal sacrifices. The mincha was kadosh kadoshim (the highest order of sanctity in the Temple); it could never be eaten by someone who was not a kohen; it was made of grain meal, a relatively inexpensive commodity, in contrast with a costly cow or lamb.

It follows, then, that the menachos (plural of mincha) were typically brought by the poor people. Whereas a wealthy man or woman might be able to afford a large animal to be brought as an offering, the destitute would at best be able to manage a small amount of grain. The grain would be brought for preparation, and a portion of it used as an offering. It was treated with great care and delicate sanctity, for it was classified at the highest strata of kedusha. Its remnants were bestowed only unto to kohanim, the priestly order who served in the Temple.

The Bechor Shor writes that the Torah relates here an enduring lesson. The Holy One, may He be blessed, is the great Majesty and Master of the Universe, yet He values the simple ones, the poor ones, who reach for Him. His Majesty includes the attribute of humility, which we must learn to emulate - by accepting the poor man's meal offering, it is as if He is "reaching down" to meet the lowly man who reaches up. HaShem values the service of the poor ones, and values their meager offerings.

The Bechor Shor adds that when Jews are commanded to offer charity to the poor, it is not because HaShem needs us to care for them. Were He only to want them cared for, He would shower them with wealth. Rather, we are granted the mitzva of being generous and showing kindness. We emulate His ways by reaching forth and reaching out when others reach up to us.

Good Shabbos. Chodesh Tov. D Fox

A Thought On Parshios VaYakhel-Pekudei

A Thought On Parshios VaYakhel-Pikudei

"...u'kvod HaShem malae es ha'mishkan..."
"...and the glory of G-d filled the shrine..." (40:35)

The theological difficulties with the above verse, at a literal level, are many. The notion, even the mental image, of HaShem's Presence filling up a material space, is problematic for us. Even when that room is the sacred mishkan, the shrine dedicated for the purpose of our communing with that sense of His Presence, it is challenging and even confusing to picture HaShem's intangible glory, the sense of His Divine Presence, taking on dimensional limits or contours which might occupy or fill a space.

This is why the Bechor Shor offers that the verse first must be transposed in order for us to better understand it. The verse should be translated as "and the shrine was filled with the glory of G-d." This means that upon entering the mishkan, one was overwhelmed with a sense of that Presence. That is an image which we can grasp. The Torah did not write it that way, but this is what we are meant to understand. Yet, had the verse been worded that way, it would imply that the mishkan actually constrained the Shechina, as if the Presence was secondary to the room which contained it.

By wording the scene as "the glory of HaShem filled the mishkan", we appreciate that it is HaShem Who is central and paramount, and it is the mishkan which was secondary, as if it was enveloped within that Divine Presence. The Presence is the subject, and the mishkan is the object, of the verse.

At the peak of Har Sinai, a once-in-an-eternity phenomenon of Shomayim kissing aretz took place. It was as if the mountain was enveloped and encased within a heavenly aura. This never happened again. Never again was there a moment when the sense of Heaven- meeting-earth occurred. The closest the universe ever came to an echo, a trace, of that event was in the mishkan. There was a sense of HaShem's Presence being somehow close, or present, there. It seemed to overtake or supercede the reality that there was a structure, a place, a material three-dimensional enclosure there. This is best captured by the verse saying that the G-d's glory filled that place. This is what dominated the senses, feelings and mental impression there. The meaning of our verse is that when one entered the mishkan, the five sensory modalities of sight, hearing, touch, taste and scent receded into the background of awareness; the dominant experience was that a sense of holiness pervaded consciousness.

Good Shabbos. D Fox

A Thought On Parshas Ki Tisa

A Thought On Parshas Ki Tisa

"...bsamim rosh..."
"...the finest fragrances..." (32:22)

I have always appreciated nice fragrances. Incense was very popular when I was growing up in the 60s. I inhaled but didn't smoke it. On Yom Kippur each year, I have a selected array of spices and herbs for people to recite brachos over and savor their varied scents. I have carefully avoided any effort to compound the incense described in our parsha as it has been identified by our sages; to do so would violate a serious prohibition, for that blend was solely for use in the holy Temple. One the other hand, I can still appreciate trying to find any of the eleven ingredients which our sages cite as comprising the sacred ketores. However, many of them have names which are difficult to translate with any certainty, and the best of our English translations and our traditional commentaries do not make the task any more precise. Ever since the art of compounding the incense was hidden, we Jews have more or less distanced ourselves from incense. This is mentioned in Shulchan Aruch in different contexts.

Nonetheless, I have continued to wonder about the incense. I have studied our ancient sources, as well as some of the writings of great mekubalim. This has focused more on the halachic structure and the mystical revelations associated with that incense. But my sensory thirst (yes, in some halachic circles, inhalation is referred to as drinking) has never been quenched. I have purchased saffron, balsam, frankincense, myrrh, and cinnamon, among other spices. The one that has always eluded me is nerd.

Now, I have been called many things, and the noun nerd is one of them, but here I refer to an ingredient of the Biblical ketores spelled (in the Holy Tongue) nun raish dalet. NRD, or naird. In fact, our sages take it a step further, for even though its Biblical name is nerd, we refer to it by its Mishnaic name, shiboles nerd. A shiboles is a stalk, ear or floral spike. Nerd is some type of flower. A number of translations use the word "spikenard" when they come to the words shiboles nerd, or just nerd. If a shiboles is a spike and a nerd is a nerd, then we can understand that the translation spikenard is only half a translation, leaving the second syllable in almost the original Hebrew.

Well, I can remember many years ago walking in to a parlor meeting for Rav Wasserman's yeshiva held in the home of the late Rabbi Akiva Shlussel z'l. I breathed in a strong scent wafting from a flower arrangement and asked someone what it was. No one knew. Some time later, I was browsing in the spice section of a health food store and sampled jasmine. It was something like that other fragrance, but not quite the same. So, I found out which store that flower arrangement had come from and asked the florist what flower smelled like jasmine but without the bitter undercurrent. He directed me to a tuberose.

Well, for years afterwards, I would try to get a nice tuberose stalk for my Shabbos flowers. Maybe no one else appreciated it (I once asked Mrs. Debbie Rechnitz if she liked the scent and she said "It reminds me of the perfume that old Russian ladies wear.") Some time later, I switched flower stalls and to my relief, the South American vendor who spoke little English also sold tuberose. One Friday, I asked him what it is called in Spanish. He said "nardo."

I froze. Nardos. Nerd. The stalk of the tuberose. Shiboles. A stalk or spike. Nerd, Nardos. Could tuberoses be nardos, and could spikenard be a spike of nerd? I began imagining that I had finally located one of the long lost fragrances which has been disguised as something unknown called spikenard. For years, I would tell myself that my tuberose was a good scent to inhale on Shabbos, as a mild commemoration of the incense. I said a bracha and I would inhale the tuberose.

This week, so many decades since the 60s and so long since I have been daydreaming about my imagined connection between tuberose and the Biblical nerd, I sat down to learn my weekly parsha with the Bechor Shor. When he comes to shiboles nerd, he casually translates into French "narda." Narda. Nardos. Nardas. Nerd. Perhaps I am not such a nerd after all. Could the Bechor Shor have also concluded that nerd was the tuberose?

But I looked further. It seems that spikenard is thought to be a flower native to the Himalayas and is part of the Valerian family. Lavender is known in Greek as naardus, after a Syrian city called Naarda. Now, lavender in French is called aspic. Interestingly, the Bechor Shor offers that Shiboles Nerd may also be aspic, or lavender. However, I did some more research. It seems that the French word for lavender is indeed aspic, but the word aspic itself means a spike, which is more or less the shape of a lavender. I believe that what the Bechor Shor intends, then, is that Shiboles Nerd translates into two French words. Nerd, of course, translates into narda. Shiboles translates into aspic. This would mean that the Bechor Shor also believes that Shiboles Nerd is spike-nard. That would mean it isn't lavender at all, but it is the Himalayan flower which is called spikenard. The bottom line, however, is that no one says that it is tuberose. No one says that nerd is identical with nardo. However, I did verify that in Spanish, tuberose is nardo. And I verified that in Spanish and in French, spikenard is nardo or nard. So, the Bechor Shor has it right. It might be lavender but it is probably spikenard. And I like tuberose.

A sweet Shabbos and a rosy Purim. D Fox