The Israel Koschitzky Virtual Beit Midrash Parshat HaShavua Yeshivat Har Etzion

SEFER VAYIKRA By Rav Elchanan Samet

PARASHAT VAYIKRA - SHABBAT ZAKHOR The Mitzva to Destroy Amalek And Our Moral Qualms I. THE NATURE OF THE MITZVA Following Yehoshuas defeat of Amalek in Refidim, the Torah narrates (Shemot 17:1416): And God said to Moshe: Write this for a remembrance in a book, and repeat it in Yehoshuas ears, that I will surely wipe out the memory of Amalek from under the heavens. And Moshe built an altar... and he said, For God has sworn by His throne that He will be at war with Amalek from generation to generation. Later, we are given a commandment to wage this war (Devarim 25:19): You shall wipe out the memory of Amalek from under the heavens; you shall not forget. Shaul, the first king of Israel, was specifically commanded by Shemuel the prophet (Shemuel I 15:3) to fulfill this mitzva: ... And now, go and smite Amalek and destroy everything that is theirs; do not have mercy on them, but kill every man and woman, child and infant, ox, sheep, camel and donkey. This mitzva applies to all generations, and is listed as one of the 613 commandments (e.g. positive mitzva #188 in Rambams Sefer Ha-Mitzvot, and mitzva #604 in Sefer Ha-Chinukh). The mitzva is not applicable today, since the nation of Amalek no longer exists. Yet this does not exempt us from the obligation to study and understand it. Prima facie, this seems to be a commandment of genocide, which understandably arouses in us a great deal of discomfort. In general, we give no expression to our inner sense of moral unease. But to ignore a psychological fact, to deny what we are feeling, is unhealthy. It is better to formulate the question directly and to attempt openly and honestly to deal with it. Then I shall not be ashamed, when I look at all Your commandments. (Tehillim 119:6) The prevalent solution to this problem is treat the mitzva as a war of ideas, rather than the extermination of a specific nation. According to this approach, Amalek is no more than a symbol, such that the war with Amalek is merely a metaphor for the eternal battle to defeat evil or heresy. However, while there is indeed great symbolic meaning to the war with Amalek, we cannot ignore its literal and concrete meaning. Amalek was a real nation that we were (and are) commanded to destroy. II. HISTORICAL BACKDROP Let us examine the broad biblical context of this mitzva. In biblical terms, the war with Amalek is defined as a war of cherem, of destruction or extermination, as king Shaul was commanded: Go and smite Amalek and DESTROY EVERYTHING (ve-hacharamtem) that is theirs... A war of cherem was always carried out with religious motives, and in a case where
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everything had to be destroyed, the enemy nation was all put to death and no booty was taken. The taking of booty in such a war was considered a most serious sin. We encounter several wars of cherem in the Tanakh: the war with Arad (Bamidbar 21:1-3), the war of Yericho (Yehoshua 6:17-21), and even the mitzva of to wipe out the ir ha-nidachat an Israelite city that has been corrupted to serve idols (Devarim 13:13-19). The idea of a war of cherem is not unique to Israel, but was rather an accepted norm among ancient nations. Thus we learn, for example, from the Mesha Stone (lines 11-18) that King Meshas war with the Israelite cities of Atarot and Nevo was a war of cherem. Not only do the facts described there match the rules of a war of cherem, but with regard to Nevo it is stated explicitly (line 17) that it was exterminated. In general, the mitzva of cherem was aimed at a certain city (as in the examples cited above), and therefore its period of validity was restricted: once the city was exterminated, the war of cherem against it was over. In a few instances, one thing was left for all generations from the war of cherem: the burnt mound of the city. This was the case with the ir hanidachat (Devarim 13:17): And it shall be a ruin forever; it shall not be rebuilt, and also in the case of Yericho (Yehoshua 6:26), And Yehoshua swore at that time saying, Cursed is the man before God who will rise up and rebuild this city, Yericho. In only two instances, the war of cherem applies to NATIONS, and there it is a mitzva for all generations, requiring war against those nations so long as they exist. This is so with regard to the war against the seven nations of Canaan (which is only partially a war of cherem), and with regard to the war against Amalek. The war with Amalek is one of complete cherem, but since Amalek is a nomadic nation, their destruction is not like the destruction of a city: it is not a one-time act, but rather an ongoing battle from generation to generation. [As mentioned, every war of cherem commanded in the Torah has a religious reason, and this may change from one instance to another. Accordingly, the scope of the destruction and other details may vary. Thus, the reason for the war against Amalek differs from the reasons for these other wars of cherem. However, an examination of reason for Gods war against Amalek - what was so serious about Amaleks act of waging war against Israel when they came out of Egypt? - lies beyond the scope of the present discussion.] Thus, the war against Amalek is not such an outstanding exception against the backdrop of accepted wartime practices prevalent in the ancient world. This does not completely ease our discomfort, but it is important to realize that the mitzvot of the Torah, although valid and relevant for all generations, are also related to the era in which they were given. In a world where a war of cherem is an accepted moral norm, Israel also occasionally engages in such a war for religious reasons. And He who brought the world to a point where humanity has come to negate the legitimacy of such wars, also brought about a situation in which there never was, nor will there ever be, a (real example of an) ir ha-nidachat (Sanhedrin 61a), and in which the war against Amalek has no one left to whom it applies, such that all that is left for us is to study the mitzva in theory and thereby gain reward. III. RAMBAMS OPINION In his discussion of this mitzva (Hilkhot Melakhim 6:1-4), the Rambam introduces an important qualification: the first step to be taken in the war against Amalek is to offer them peace! If they accept (which entails accepting the Seven Noachide Laws and paying a tax to the Israelites), it is forbidden to violate the treaty with them and to deceive them! How does this fit in with the commandment, You shall wipe out the memory of Amalek from under the heavens? The Rambam explains that the mitzva of destroying Amalek (and the Seven
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Canaanite Nations) refers only to those who do not accept the option of peace. The Kesef Mishneh further elucidates, For if they accept upon themselves the Seven Laws, then they are no longer considered as belonging to the category of the Seven Nations or to Amalek, and they are like any upright gentiles. How did the Rambam reach this conclusion (to which no explicit dissent is found among any of the commentators)? The mitzva of wiping out Amalek does appear to be an absolute command with no possibility of compromise. But the mitzva of offering the option of peaceful surrender prior to waging war (Devarim 20:10) also appears unequivocal - it does not differentiate between different types of wars. As the Rambam writes, War is not waged against ANYONE IN THE WORLD unless the possibility of a peaceful surrender is first offered. This contradiction can be answered in one of two ways: we may limit the mitzva to proclaim peace and say that it does not apply in the case of Amalek, or we may say that the mitzva of war against Amalek applies only after the offer of peace has been rejected. As concerns the war against Amalek, there is no direct proof as to which of the above possibilities is correct. But with regard to a similar contradiction between the mitzva of proclaiming peace and thmitzva of cherem against the seven nations of Canaan there are proofs, both in Sefer Yehoshua and in the teachings of Chazal, that the proclamation of peace applies even here. Thus, it becomes apparent that the mitzva of proclaiming peace is indeed an absolute command that makes no distinction between one type of war and another. The significance of the above has far-reaching implications for our question. The intention behind the mitzva of wiping out Amalek is not to persecute a nation to the point of total extermination, in such a way that the nation is left with no escape from its fate. On the contrary, this nation is exhorted to make peace with Israel. It is only when the offer of peace is rejected, and a war rages between this nation and Israel, that the laws of total cherem apply to them. Indeed, the thought that the Torah desires the extermination of a nation under all circumstances is an anachronistic idea influenced by modern racism that developed in Europe during the last two centuries. The Giver of the Torah is the Creator of man, and He is the father of all nations. Why would He desire the extinction of a nation that He Himself created? The background to the mitzva of the war against Amalek is completely ethical-religious in nature, and very far from any racist intent. Amalek committed a most heinous sin in waging war against Israel as they came out of Egypt. When a nation sins, the responsibility for the sin is borne not only by the generation that committed the sin, but also by the generations that follow. The same applies to Israel: Our forefathers sinned, and they are no more; and we suffer for their sins (Eikha 4:7). Because of Amaleks terrible sin against God and against Israel, Gods nation was commanded to exact revenge from Amalek and to punish them for their sin, not allowing the passage of time to dull their memory of the deed and of the need to repay it. But the ethical system we are discussing, in which there is sin and punishment, contains by its very definition and by its very nature the means for a sinner to part with his sin. The assumption underlying this mitzva is that Amalek is a bitter enemy of Israel, and that he will continue to be such, and therefore the war against Amalek is a war of cherem. But if the nation of Amalek wishes to end their hostility towards Israel and agree to coexist peacefully, then they are abandoning the sin of their forefathers, and their punishment is likewise then cancelled; they are like any upright gentiles. This moral background to the mitzva of wiping out Amalek is explicit in the verses that overflow with moral pathos (Devarim 25:17-18):
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Remember what Amalek did to you on the way when you came out of Egypt; how he came upon you on the way and attacked your rear, all that were following feebly behind you, when you were weary and faint... Clearly, the Rambam arrived at his formulation based on the same moral perception of the mitzva. IV. SHAUL AND AMALEK We find only one explicit description in Tanakh of the fulfillment of the mitzva of war against Amalek, in Shemuel I chapter 15 - the obvious choice for this weeks haftara. A detailed narrative such as this about the fulfillment of the mitzva would seem to provide the opportunity to put to the test the Rambams innovative explanation. Let us first list the questions that we shall need to investigate: 1) Can any proof be brought for the nature of the relations between Amalek and Israel in Shauls generation? Is Amalek a peaceful nation against whom war is suddenly declared for some ancient reason, or is Amalek still - after all this time - Israels bitter enemy, with the sins of their fathers adding to their own sins in the present? 2) Either way, is there any proof of a proclamation of peace that precedes Shauls war against Amalek? Slightly before the main account of Shauls battle with Amalek, we read (14:47-48): And Shaul consolidated the kingdom over Israel and waged war against his enemies all around... And he made an army and smote Amalek, and delivered Israel from the hand of he that spoiled them. The commentators are divided as to whether the description of the attack against Amalek in this verse, included in the summary of Shauls battles, refers to his battle with Amalek described later in chapter 15, or whether it refers to previous battles with Amalek that preceded this particular one that is described in detail. In the opinion of the Radak, This is what God referred to when He commanded him (15:3), Go and smite Amalek. But in the opinion of the Abarbanel, The text here is not referring to the war that he waged against Amalek at Shemuels command, as suggested by the Radak in his commentary, but rather to previous battles on other occasions. If we accept the Abarbanels opinion, this verse proves that Amalek was Israels enemy even before Shaul was commanded to wage a decisive war against them. But even according to the Radak and his followers, this verse has significance for our question: Shauls victory over Amalek, described in chapter 15, is described in this verse as THE DELIVERANCE OF ISRAEL from the hand of he that spoiled them. (We know that Amaleks regular practice was to instigate trouble against the Israelite inhabitants of the Negev see Shoftim 6:3-5 and Shemuel I 30). The command to Shaul to smite Amalek is repeated twice in our narrative: once at the beginning of the story (verses 1-3) with the original command to Shaul, and then again in verse 18, as part of Shemuels rebuke of Shaul for not having fulfilled completely what he had been commanded to do. Let us compare these two sources: Verse 3: Go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that is his.
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Verse 18: Go and utterly destroy THOSE SINNERS, Amalek, and fight against them until they are finished. What is the meaning of the words added in verse 18, those sinners? In the original command, the reason for attacking Amalek involved only the past (15:2), I remember what Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for them on the way when they came up out of Egypt. What does it matter whether Amalek in the present generation is a nation of sinners or a righteous nation? Again, we have proof that Amalek is being judged not only for the sins of their forefathers, but also for their own sins in that generation. Shemuel, in his words of rebuke, wishes to highlight specifically this aspect of Amalek (well-known to Shaul, and therefore there had been no need to state it explicitly in the original command) in order to emphasize the gravity of Shauls sin. Before Shemuel executes Agag, the king of Amalek, he explains his action as repaying Agag measure for measure: Shemuel said, As your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women. This teaches us two lessons: firstly, that Agag made many women childless by killing their sons; apparently, the reference is to the murder of Israelites, for which the prophet now seeks revenge. Secondly, the reason that Shemuel chooses to declare to Agag for his execution is not based on the deeds committed by Agags ancestors against Israel, but rather on the deeds that he himself has perpetrated. This is reminiscent of Shemuels emphasis in his rebuke to Shaul that the command to attack Amalek arose from the fact that they were sinners in that very generation. All that we have said thus far comes together to create a clear picture: Amalek is Israels sworn enemy FROM THE TIME OF THE EXODUS ONWARDS, and for this he is judged. If he would change his ways and make peace with Israel, the punishment for both his deeds and those of his forefathers would be removed. Was this possibility suggested to him? In verses 4-6, we find a description of Shauls preparations for the war with Amalek, while the war itself is described very briefly in verse 7: Shaul gathered the nation and counted them in Telaim... And Shaul came to a city of Amalek and CONTENDED WITH THEM in the valley. And Shaul said to the Kenites, Go, depart, go down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you together with him... And Shaul smote Amalek... Whatis the meaning of the words and he contended with them in the valley in verse 6? Many commentators interpret this to mean, And he fought in the valley. This is a problematic interpretation, both literally riv (va-yarev) in Tanakh usually refers to words, not actions and also from the point of view of the order. Only in verse 7 is Shauls battle described, and if it began already in verse 5, then what would be the point of his appeal to the Kenites once the battle had already started? Some answers to these questions have been proposed (see Radak), but the interpretation that seems to stay closest to the literal meaning of the text is that of the Malbim: Since it is not customary for kings to declare war without some specific reason, as it is written (Shoftim 11:12), What have you to do with me, that you have
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come to me to wage war against my land? - therefore Shaul sought some dispute in the valley that was in front of the cities of Amalek... such that that became the justification for the war. What was the content of that verbal dispute between Shaul and Amalek in the valley? The Malbim ventures, Shaul declared that the valley belonged to him, and Amalek disputed this. He even concludes with the following judgment concerning Shaul: This also teaches us that he did not fulfill the mitzva properly, for he should not have sought any [other] reason but rather [should have attacked] just because God so commanded... not some other dispute that had nothing to do with God. But if we bear in mind the words of the Rambam, that war is not waged against ANYONE IN THE WORLD until he is first offered the possibility of peace, regardless of whether it is a voluntary war or an obligatory one even if it is a war against Amalek we will easily conclude that the dispute with Amalek was really the required proclamation of peace (i.e., an ultimatum by the attacker to surrender peacefully on the terms offered and thus to avoid war). Since Amalek refused to accept this proclamation, due to of their sworn hatred of Israel (because of which the negotiations with them are called a riv), Shaul launched his attack. Thus we conclude that at least from this perspective - Shaul did, in fact, fulfill the mitzva as required.

PARASHAT VAYIKRA Sin Offering and Guilt Offering - For Which Sins? A. FOUR TYPES OF OFFERINGS In the vidui (confession) that we recite several times on Yom Kippur, we include, among others, the following categories: For sins that obligate us to bring a burnt offering (olah), And for sins that obligate us to bring a sin offering (chatat), And for sins that obligate us to bring an ascending and descending offering (oleh ve-yored), And for sins that obligate us to bring a certain or contingent guilt offering (asham vadai ve-talui) We are not always fully aware of which sins are referred to in each of these categories, and what is the nature of the offerings mentioned here. The background to an understanding of this section of the vidui is found almost entirely in our parasha. B. FOR SINS THAT OBLIGATE US TO BRING A SIN OFFERING For which sins are we obligated to bring a sin offering (chatat)? The answer to this is given four times in our parasha (4:1, 13, 22, 27). All four sources mention three elements which define the sin requiring a sin offering: i. The sin is performed unintentionally. A person who sins knowingly cannot achieve atonement through a sin offering, and he is not permitted to bring one. ii. The sin involves an act. A sin that does not involve an action does not require a sin offering. iii. The sin is committed against any of Gods mitzvot, things that should not be done - i.e., the person has transgressed a negative command. A sin offering is not brought for failing to fulfill a positive command. Rashi (4:2) clarifies that the sin offering is not brought for all prohibitions, but only for the most serious: Our Sages taught: A sin offering is brought only for a matter whose punishment, if committed intentionally, would be karet. It would seem that what underlies this limitation by Chazal is their perception of the atonement achieved by the sin offering. The sin offering is meant to purify the relationship between God and the person who has unintentionally committed a sin so grave that, had it been committed with intention, it would constitute grounds for the most serious punishment that exists between man and God. This punishment is karet, excision, a punishment that is applied by God. Sins that involve only punishment at the hands of the court, with no karet, are apparently an offense principally against society, and therefore the obligation of
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atonement through a sin offering does not apply to a person who commits them unintentionally. [The Sifra here (Chova, 1:7) derives this limitation from a comparison with the slightly different type of sin offering discussed in Bemidbar 15:22-31. The wording of the latter is strikingly similar to that here, though it discusses a different sin, namely, unintentional idolatry, and therefore entails a higher standard of sacrifice. It also explicitly mentions the limitation to that which entails karet when performed intentionally, and states (Bemidbar 15:29), One teaching shall be for you, for one who commits a sin unintentionally, from which we learn that this limitation applies to all sin offerings.] C. FOR SINS THAT OBLIGATE US TO BRING AN ASCENDING AND DESCENDING OFFERING Unlike the broad and somewhat opaque definition of the sins for which a sin offering must be brought, the Torah defines clearly the three sins for which an ascending and descending offering is required. 1. Oath of testimony (5:1) And if a soul ... was a witness, having seen or been aware, and then he fails to testify - he bears his sin. The sin addressed in this verse is called by Chazal shevuat ha-edut (the oath of testimony). It is discussed in the Mishna and in the Gemara in the fourth chapter of Shevuot. The Rambam explains (Hilkhot Shevuot 1:12): What is shevuat ha-edut? If witnesses have testimony to offer in a monetary case, and the person to whom the money is owed demands that they testify on his behalf, and they deny their knowledge and do not testify, swearing instead that they have no knowledge to testify on his behalf - this is called shevuat haedut. And such an oath (i.e., that they are unable to testify) requires an ascending and descending offering, whether they committed this knowingly or unintentionally. As it is written, And if a soul sins, and heard a voice beseeching him, and he was a witness. The Torah does not say, and he was unaware - to obligate equally the person who commits this knowingly and one who does so unintentionally. 2. Defiling the Mikdash and its sacred items (5:2-3) Or a soul that touches anything that is impure and it is hidden from him, such that he is impure, and guilty, or if he touches the impurity of man - of any type of impurity that pertains to man - and it is hidden from him, and he discovers it, and is guilty. The sin discussed here is committed unintentionally - it is hidden from him, but what is the actual sin? Is one to be sanctioned merely for touching something impure? The Rambam (Hilkhot Shegagot chapter 10) lists those who are required to bring an ascending and descending offering: All of these sacrifices (ascending and descending) are discussed explicitly in the Torah, and it is clear who is obligated to bring them, except for someone who is impure and who enters the Mikdash by mistake, or who ate from
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sacrifices (by mistake) By tradition we have learned that this person, who is required to bring an offering for having been impure, is SOMEONE WHO BECAME IMPURE AND ENTERED THE MIKDASH OR ATE OF SACRIFICES, UNKNOWINGLY. Even though this is a tradition directly from Har Sinai, it is as if it is written explicitly, for the Torah does explicitly apply the penalty of karet to someone who is impure and who ate from sacrifices (Vayikra 7:20), or someone who is impure and entered the Mikdash (Bamidbar 19:20)... Since the Torah prescribes karet for defiling the Mikdash and sacred items, it specifies the sacrifice to be brought when transgressed unintentionally. While the Rambam says that the verse is vague and we learn its true meaning only by tradition, the Ramban (Vayikra 5:2) believes that the halakha can be derived from the literal meaning of the text itself. He builds his argument that the Torah here is brief in discussing the obvious on two proofs - one external, the other internal. The external proof is our knowledge from elsewhere that there is no prohibition against touching something that is impure, and therefore it is impossible that the sacrifice in verse 2 is for doing so. The internal proof is the comparison between the verses under discussion here (2-3) and the verse that follows, dealing with the third sin for which an ascending and descending offering is brought: Or if a person swears, declaring verbally and it is hidden from him, and he discovers it, and is guilty. What sin has this person committed? Although the text could be read to indicate that merely forgetting about an oath is culpable, it is obvious that one is culpable only if he forgets it AND VIOLATES IT. So too, one is culpable for becoming impure only if he subsequently enters the Mikdash or defiles a sacred item. 3. Violated oath (5:4) Or if a person swears, declaring verbally to do either evil or good whatever he shall declare with his oath, and it is hidden from him, and he discovers it and is guilty. The sin discussed here is called by Chazal shevuat ha-bitui: a person makes an oath of a certain kind, and then unintentionally violates his oath. The Rambam (Hilkhot Shevuot 1:1-3) defines the act thus: Shevuat bitui is divided into four parts: two for the future and two for the past. For instance, if a person swears that he did or did not do something, or that he will or will not do something. Why do these three specific sins (oath of testimony, defiling the Mikdash, and violating an oath) require atonement through an ascending and descending offering? The commentoffer no convincing e, and the reasons they offer are contradictory. (See Daat Mikra, Vayikra, pp. 82-4, for some of these explanations.) We shall therefore leave this question as it stands. A different question pertains to the order of the sins requiring this sacrifice: why does the Torah separate the shevuat ha-edut (verse 1) and the shevuat ha-bitui (verse 4), placing the person who is impure in between them (verses 2-3), although he seemingly has nothing in common with the oaths that precede and follow him? It seems that the order here is determined not by the legal character of the sins involved, but rather the nature of the atonement effected by the sacrifice in each instance. What is unique to the instance of shevuat ha-edut is that the sacrifice atones even in a case where the person committed the sin knowingly. By contrast, in the cases of defiling the Mikdash and shevuat ha-bitui, the sacrifice atones for one who committed the sin unintentionally - like
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most sacrifices of atonement. This is expressed stylistically in the three-fold repetition of the words, and it is hidden from him in the two latter sins (this expression does not appear regarding the shevuat ha-edut). The order in which the Torah presents these sins therefore highlights this unique aspect of the shevuat ha-edut, to which we may not have paid any attention had it appeared at the end of the list, after shevuat ha-bitui. D. FOR SINS THAT OBLIGATE US TO BRING A CERTAIN OR CONTINGENT GUILT OFFERING Our parasha makes mention of three sins for which the Torah requires a guilt offering (asham). The first and the third are sins that the sinner is definitely aware that he has transgressed, and therefore the guilt offering that he brings is called a certain guilt offering. The middle sin involves some doubt - the person is unsure whether he transgressed or not and the offering is therefore called a contingent guilt offering - it protects him temporarily from punishment at the hands of heaven, until he clarifies whether he actually committed the sin, in which case he must bring the appropriate sacrifice. Let us examine these three sins briefly: 1. Guilt offering for appropriation of holy things (meila): (5:14-16) And God spoke to Moshe, saying: A person who commits a trespass and sins unintentionally regarding the holy things of God, he shall bring his guilt offering And he shall pay for what he sinned concerning the holy things, and he shall add a fifth, and give it to the kohen. And the kohen shall atone for him with the ram of the guilt offering, and he shall be forgiven. The transgression referred to here is unintentional appropriation of sanctified things. The Rambam (Hilkhot Meila ch. 1) teaches: It is forbidden for a layman to have benefit from the holy things of God If he derived such benefit unintentionally, he pays the amount that he benefited plus a fifth, and brings a ram worth two selaim (at least), offering it as a guilt offering, and it atones for him. This is called a guilt offering of appropriation ... Payment of the capital plus a fifth when he brings the sacrifice is a positive commandment. 2. A contingent guilt offering This guilt offering is related to the individual sin offering. Let us compare them: Individual sin offering - 4:27-35: And if an individual, of the common people, sins unintentionally by committing one of Gods mitzvot - things that should not be done - and is guilty, or the sin he committed becomes known to him, then he shall bring as his offering a female goat kid And the kohen shall atone for him, for his sin that he committed
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and he shall be forgiven. Contingent guilt offering - 5:17-18: And if an individual sins and commits any of Gods mitzvot - things that should not be done and he did not know, and he was guilty - then he shall bear his sin. And he shall bring an unblemished ram And the kohen shall atone for him, for his unintentional sin that he committed For he did not know - and he shall be forgiven. A superficial glance would seem to give the impression that these two sacrifices are required in the same circumstances: a sin committed unintentionally, and the performance of an act that transgresses any of the negative mitzvot. Why, then, does the sinner in chapter 4 bring as a sin offering a female goat kid, while the sinner in chapter 5 brings an unblemished ram as a guilt offering? A closer look reveals that the circumstances in which the two sacrifices are brought are distinguished in one central aspect: in chapter 4, the obligation to bring the sacrifice applies if his sin that he committed BECOMES KNOWN to him, while in chapter 5 we read the opposite: HE DID NOT KNOW, and is guilty, and he bears his sin. If the sinner does not know that he sinned, how can he bring a sacrifice? Rashi (5:17) answers: This matter refers to someone who is in doubt as to whether he has committed something that is punishable by karet; he is uncertain as to whether he transgressed or not. For instance, someone who had both permitted and forbidden animal fats (shuman and chelev) before him, and he believed that both were permissible to him, and he ate of one of them. Thereafter he was told, One was chelev, and he is unsure whether it was of the chelev that he ate. For this he brings a contingent guilt offering, and this protects him for so long as he is not certain that he sinned. And if it becomes known to him after some time, he brings a sin offering. 3. Guilt offering for theft (5:20-26) And God spoke to Moshe, saying: If a person sins, and trespasses against God, and lies to his neighbor concerning a deposit left with him, or a loan, or something that was stolen from him, or in having wronged his neighbor; or if he found a lost item and lied concerning it, and made a false oath Then if he sins and is guilty, he shall return the stolen thing which he stole and he shall pay both the capital and an additional fifth And his guilt offering shall he bring to God and he shall be forgiven The Mishna (Shevuot 5:2) describes thus the circumstances requiring a guilt offering for theft:

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An oath as to a deposit - how does he become obligated to bring a guilt offering? He says to him: Give me my deposit, which I have in your possession. The other one answers [falsely], I swear that you do not have it in my possession. In this instance he is obligated [to atone for his sin by bringing a guilt offering after returning that which he must return]. [To the list of sins for which the Torah requires a guilt offering, we must add one who has relations with a shifcha charufa, a Canaanite woman slave who has been designated to another man. This law appears later in Sefer Vayikra - 19:20-22.] Why is it specifically these instances that require a guilt offering, and is there any common denominator that would explain why their atonement is through the same sacrifice, or does each sin have its own special reason for requiring the guilt offering? Here, too, the commentators offer no convincing answer, and we leave the question as it stands. But concerning two of the sins (the first and the third), the style of the Torah and its halakhic content demonstrate that some common denominator does exist:

Guilt offering for appropriation (14-16): (14) And God spoke to Moshe, saying: (15) A person who appropriates property (timol maal), thereby sinning unintentionally - from Gods holy things (16) and he shall pay for what he sinned from the holy things and he shall add a fifth to it and shall give it to the kohen. Guilt offering for stealing (20-26): (20) And God spoke to Moshe, saying: (21) If a person sins and trespasses against God (maalah maal) (24) He shall pay both the capital and an additional fifth to the owner he shall give it This similarity shows that the guilt offering atones specifically for the sin of trespassing against Gods property (meila). It also teaches us that if a person denies his neighbors monetary claim against him and makes a false oath in this regard, although this is a sin between man and his fellow man, there is aspect that resembles appropriation of Gods
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prop. (The extra fifth is a standard law when appropriating something designated to God - see Vayikra 27.) This parallel between the first and the third sins highlights the question of their order: why does the Torah separate appropriation of Gods property from the other sin comparable to it denial and false oath concerning a monetary claim? Why place the contingent guilt offering between them, although its seems to have nothing in common with the sins that precede and follow it? Again, it is not the legal nature of these sins that determines their order, but rather the nature of the atonement achieved by the sacrifice in each instance. Atonement for the sin of swearing falsely as to the deposit, through the guilt offering, is achieved even in the case of one who commits this sin knowingly. In this sense, the false oath as to the deposit is similar to the shevuat ha-edut, and our path for deriving the law is similar in both cases: in both cases we are not told it is hidden from him, nor is there any mention of it being unintentional. The other two sins for which the guilt offering atones - appropriation of Gods holy things and a questionable transgression of a sin involving karet - are atoned for only where the transgression is unintentional, as stated explicitly in both cases. From this perspective, the oath concerning the deposit should rightly be separated from the two other sins - and this is achieved by means of the intentional separation between the two appropriations both by a different law and by a new speech of God to Moshe. Thus the two parashiot - the ascending and descending offering and the guilt offering have a relationship of chiastic correspondence, as two equal halves (each consisting of thirteen verses) of the same unit: Ascending and Descending: Even if committed knowingly 1. Shevuat ha-edut unintentional 2. Defiling the Mikdash and its sacrifices 3. Shevuat bitui Guilt offering: unintentional 1. Appropriation of Gods holy things 2. Contingent guilt offering even if committed knowingly 3. Appropriation of Gods property by falsely swearing about a deposit
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PARASHAT TZAV Haftora for Shabbat Parashat Para (Yechezkel 36:16-38) And I shall sprinkle over you purifying water, and you shall be pure a. On the third Shabbat (of the four special parashot, we read the parasha of) Para Aduma, and the haftara is and I shall sprinkle over you... Just as the Torah readings for the special four parashiot were established by the Tanaim (Mishna Megilla chapter 4, 44), so were their haftarot, as we learn from the beraita in Massekhet Megilla 30a: On the third (Shabbat we read) Para Aduma (Bamidbar 19), and the haftara is And I shall sprinkle over you... (Yechezkel 36:25). It is obvious that the beraita is not indicating the beginning of the haftara, for the verse quoted from the haftara is found in the middle of the reading. According to all customs the haftara begins at the beginning of this prophecy (36:16): And Gods word came to me, saying.... The beraita intends rather to emphasize the verse where the parallel between the parasha and the haftara is located, the verse that provides the reason for the choice of this prophecy as the haftara for this Shabbat: the sprinkling of the purification waters in the haftara is a metaphor taken from the laws given in the parasha of the Para Aduma (red heifer) for the purification of someone who has become ritually impure through contact with a corpse. The waters of purification are the living waters that are mixed with the ashes of the burned red heifer, and these are referred to in the parasha as the waters of impurity (mei nidda - 19:13 and other verses there). The sprinkling of these waters on the third and seventh days after the individual has become ritually impure is a precondition for his purification. Twice in parashat Para the Torah uses the root z-r-k (throw) with reference to this water: (19:13) Whoever touches a dead body... and does not purify himself, he defiles the sanctuary of God... for THE WATERS OF IMPURITY WERE NOT SPRINKLED (ZARAK) OVER HIM, and again in verse 20. The choice of the image of sprinkling waters of purification (or waters of impurity) as a metaphor for Gods purification of His nation that has been redeemed from all your impurities and from all your idolatry, is most surprising: this action is associated exclusively with the situation of someone who touches a dead body of a human being who has died (19:13). Why is it specifically the purification of someone who has become ritually impure through contact with a corpse that is chosen as the metaphor for the spiritual purification of the sinful nation of Israel? In this very prophecy the impurity of Israels sin is illustrated by another, seemingly more appropriate image: (36:17) The house of Israel dwelled in their land and defiled it by their ways and by their actions; their way was before Me like the impurity of a nidda. The Abarbanel proposes the following explanation for the change in the metaphor for impurity between the beginning of the prophecy and its continuation: And I shall sprinkle purifying waters over you for just as a woman who is nidda will, in order to be able to resume intimacy with her husband, immerse herself in living waters in order to become purified from her impurity, so Israel will remove their sins from upon themselves, in order that they may be pure and cleansed of them. God compares teshuva (repentance) to this when He says, and I shall sprinkle over you... for teshuva cannot be complete without Divine assistance influencing the sinner to return to Him, as it is written (Eikha 5:21), Return us, God, to You, and we shall return.
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Apparently, the possibility of transition from one metaphor (the impurity of nidda) to another (the impurity of one who has had contact with the dead) arises from the fact that ultimately the impurity being discussed in the prophecy is only a metaphor, and therefore there is freedom to choose the details of the metaphor in accordance with the requirements of the prophecy its referent. There is no need to stick to one single halakhic issue of impurity and purification. Perhaps we can suggest another significance for the metaphor of purification through the sprinkling of purifying waters over Israel as they return to their land. The purification is indeed from all your impurities and from all your idolatry, but attention should be paid to the verses that immediately follow: (26-27) And I shall give you a new heart, and a new spirit shall I place within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I shall place My spirit within you and shall ensure that you will walk in My statutes.... The purification of Israel from the impurity of their sins involves something like the resuscitation of a body that had no living, beating heart in it. This description is similar to the next one, in the following prophecy (chapter 37), concerning the dry bones: (37:12-14) Behold, I shall open your graves and bring you up from your graves, O My nation, and I will bring you to the land of Israel. And I will place My spirit within you and you will live, and I will place you in your land.... The return of Israel from exile to their own land is like the revival of the dead; it is the revival of a nation that was dead in exile. In chapter 37 it is the physical aspect of this symbolic revival that is emphasized, while in our prophecy the focus is on the spiritual aspect the spiritual, moral and religious revival. We may now explain the transition from the metaphor of the impurity of the nidda for Bnei Yisrael who dwell in their land and defile it, to the metaphor of purification from the impurity of contact with death for Bnei Yisrael who return to their land. This transition hints at the idea that the return to the land will involve not only a return of repentance for the sins of the past, but also a renewal and revival, both spiritual and moral, of a nation that was lifeless and without a heart in exile, and therefore requires purification from the impurity of death. b. Four Expressions of Redemption An analysis of the crux of this prophecy of Yechezkel, read as the haftara on Shabbat Para, reveals that it is based on Gods declaration at the beginning of parashat Vaera (Shmot 6:28). Let us review a list of the parallels between them: Shmot 6: (6) Therefore say to Bnei YISRAEL, I AM GOD And I will bring you out from under the suffering of Egypt And I will deliver you from their enslavement And I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments
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(7) d. And I will take you TO ME FOR A NATION, AND I WILL BE TO YOU A GOD, AND YOU WILL KNOW THAT I AM GOD. Yechezkel 36: (22) Therefore say to the house of YISRAEL... and the nations will know that I AM GOD And I will take you from among the nations And I will gather you up from all the lands And I will bring you to your land (25) d. And I will sprinkle over you waters of purification, and you will be purified (26) And I will give you a new heart (27) And I will place My spirit within you (28) And you will dwell in the land that I have to your forefathers AND YOU WILL BE TO ME A NATION AND I WILL BE FOR YOU A GOD (38) AND THEY WILL KNOW THAT I AM GOD. Aside from the discrete linguistic parallels, the use of four expressions of redemption is obvious in both places. These four expressions are set out in a pattern of three and four; i.e., the first three are almost repetitions of one another with little progress from one to the next, while the fourth represents a climax in relation to the preceding three, in terms of both length and content. The first three expressions in each case are very short which emphasizes the repetition while the fourth expression occupies the whole of verse 7 in Shmot and several verses in Yechezkel. In terms of content, the first three expressions in each instance describe the process Israels physical , while the fourth expresses the spiritual climax of the process of redemption, represented by the mutual closeness between the nation and their God. c. Redemption from Egypt vs. the Final Redemption Let us begin with a clarification of the second question, regarding the differences between the prophecy and the declaration in the Torah, limiting our discussion to a comparison between the four expressions of redemption in the two places. The first expression in Yechezkel, And I will take you, opens with the same words as does the fourth expression in Shmot. But they do not refer to the same taking: in Yechezkel the taking is from among the nations i.e., taking Israel out from among the gentile nations in whose midst they live. In Egypt Bnei Yisrael were enslaved by one nation that kept them by force; therefore all of the first three expressions in Shmot are devoted to overcoming this situation. In the exile of which Yechezkel speaks, Bnei Yisrael are not enslaved by one specific nation; rather, God has punished them with dispersion: (19) And I will disperse you among the nations and you will be scattered in the lands. The first two expressions of redemption therefore come to reverse this state of affairs: And I will take you from among the nations, and I will gather you up from all the lands.
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The third expression in Yechezkel completes this process with And I will bring you to your land. In Shmot we find a similar stage in the redemption of Israel, described with similar wording: And I will bring you to the land, only there this stage is outside the framework of the four expressions; it occupies its own independent and important place. The fourth stage in the process of Israels redemption in Sefer Shmot is And I will take you to Me for a nation and I will be to you for a God a clear reference to the Sinaitic experience, the ultimate purpose of the Exodus from Egypt that took place in the desert prior to their entry into the land. The plans for the redemption in Yechezkel do not follow this pattern. The fourth expression is not And I will take you to Me for a nation because Israel, even in exile, is still Gods nation and has been such, ever since He took them to Himself at Sinai. The exile was a result of their sins, by which they defiled their land and themselves. In order to correct their situation, it is not sufficient that they be gathered up from the different lands and be brought back to their own land; they need to be purified from the impurity of their sins that caused the exile. Therefore, the climax of the correction is to be found in the fourth expression - And I will sprinkle over you waters of purification, and you will be purified from all your sins, and I will cause you to walk in My statutes. The renewal of the covenant between the nation and God in the wake of the purification from their sins will not take place in the wilderness of the nations (see Yechezkel 20:35-38), but rather in the land of their forefathers from which they were exiled and to which they have been returned: And you will return to the land that I gave to your forefathers, and you will be to Me for a nation and I will be to you for a God. Thus, although the same literary pattern serves in both places to describe the process of Israels redemption, the unique character of each redemption dictates the way in which that literary pattern is used. (This literary phenomenon of four expressions of redemption built on a pattern of three and four is found in other places in Sefer Yechezkel in the context of a description of the process of redemption. See, for example, 11:17-20 where the similarity to the prophecy in chapter 36 is particularly striking.) d. It is not for your sakes that I do this, O house of Israel, but for the sake of My holy name (verse 32) Our other question now becomes even more pressing: Since the future redemption described in Yechezkel does not follow the same stages as the redemption from Egypt, why does Yechezkels prophecy need the prototype of the redemption from Egypt as described at the beginning of parashat Vaera? The answer to this lies in the common principle expressed both in the declaration in Shmot and the prophecy under discussion in Yechezkel. Gods notification to Moshe regarding Israels redemption from Egypt was explained not as a reward for Israels righteousness and good deeds, nor was it Gods response to their suffering that cried out to the heavens (unlike Gods speech at the burning bush Shmot 3 I have surely seen the suffering of My nation, and I know their pain). There is only one explanation provided in this speech: the need to fulfill the covenant that God made with the forefathers with regard to the inheritance of the land (and it is only on the strength of this covenant and its remembrance that I have heard the sighing of Bnei Yisrael). This reason is expressed three times with the phrase I am God. It is as though Gods name would not be complete, as it were, if He does not fulfill His covenant and redeem Israel from Egypt. A similar reason, in principle, for Gods plan to redeem Israel from Egypt is to be found in Yechezkels prophecy: it is not Israels righteousness that will bring about the redemption, for
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they are told be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O Israel (verse 32). Even the suffering of exile is not the cause, for it is not mentioned at all in the prophecy. Only one reason is provided: the very presence of Israel in exile causes a chillul God (desecration of Gods name), for they say of them, These are the nation of God, and they have gone out of His land. The literal explanation for this is according to the Abarbanel, It was not that Bnei Yisrael actually profaned Gods name (i.e., through their deeds in exile), but rather by the fact of their exile and their troubles, being Gods nation this was what profaned His name among the nations. This being so, the motive for redeeming Israel is (21) And I was concerned for My holy name. In our prophecy, too, this idea is condensed into the expression I am God. Unlike Sefer Shmot, however, where we are told And YOU WILL KNOW that I am God, Yechezkel says AND THE NATIONS WILL KNOW that I am God when I am sanctified through you before their eyes. Only at the conclusion of the prophecy, when the description of the process of Israels redemption is complete and they dwell once again in their land, cleansed of all sin and numerous as a flock like the sheep for sacrifices, like the flock of Jerusalem at her appointed times only then they will know everyone that I am God.

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PARASHAT TZAV The Mystery of the Intertwined Meal Offerings A. CONTRADICTIONS WITHIN THE PARASHA Among the laws of sacrifices listed in chapters 6-7 in our parasha, directly after the teaching of the mincha (meal offering) (6:6-11) and closely connected with it, we find a command concerning a special mincha offering, whose laws appear nowhere else in the Torah: (6:12) And God spoke to Moshe, saying: (13) This is the offering of Aharon and his sons, which they shall offer to God on the day of his anointment: a tenth of an efa of fine flour for a permanent meal offering; half of it in the morning and half of it at night. (14) It shall be made in a pan with oil, you shall bring it when it is well soaked; the baked pieces of the meal offering shall you offer as a sweet savor to God. (15) And the kohen who is anointed in his place, from among his sons, shall also offer it; it is an eternal statute to God, it shall be entirely burnt. Who is commanded to bring this obligatory mincha offering, when is it to be brought, and what is the reason for it? The answers to these questions depend, to a great extent, on the interpretation of verse 13. Even at first glance we note that contradictory answers may be derived. The first words, This is the offering of Aharon and his sons, teach us that ALL kohanim are obligated to bring this sacrifice. But the verse then makes a transition from the plural to the singular: which THEY shall offer to God on the day of HIS anointment. Such transitions are not rare in the Torah; we may interpret it as intending that each one of the kohanim should offer this sacrifice on the day of his anointment - i.e., on the day on which he is appointed for service. At this stage, then, it would seem that all our questions have been solved: it is a one-time inaugural offering, applying both to Aharon (the Kohen Gadol) and his sons (the other kohanim) on the day upon which their service begins. However, the verse goes on to tell us that this mincha of a tenth of an efa is a PERMANENT (tamid) mincha, half of it [is to be offered] in the morning, and half of it in the evening. This being so, the sacrifice is in fact a daily one, similar to the daily burnt offering (olat tamid) and the incense, both of which are offered twice daily, in the morning and in the evening. The nature of this sacrifice, then, is quite different from what it appeared to be at first. Moreover, further on - in verse 15 - we are told that this mincha applies only to the anointed Kohen who will succeed Aharon, i.e. the Kohen Gadol; hence, it does not apply to every kohen. We are faced, then, with contradictions within the parasha, and the nature of the mincha described here is opaque. B. TWO MENACHOT IN A SINGLE UTTERANCE? The natural place for us to seek an explanation is in the Halakha: we would expect Halakha to provide a single instruction, according to which we could explain the parasha as a whole and attempt to solve the contradictions. But this is not the case. In the Rambams Sefer
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Avoda, we find two different instructions (whose source is to be found in Chazal) in two different places. In Hilkhot Kelei ha-Mikdash 5:16, we are told: A kohen does not begin to serve - nor does a Kohen Gadol begin to serve - until he brings his own tenth of an efa and offers it of his own hand, as it is written (6:13), This is the offering of Aharon and his sons, which they shall offer to God on the day of his anointment. In Hilkhot Temidin u-Musafin 3:18, the Rambam writes: The chavitin (pan-fried meal offerings) of the Kohen Gadol - it is a positive mitzva that they be offered daily, half in the morning with the tamid sacrifice of the morning, and half at twilight with the tamid sacrifice of twilight. And their kneading and baking supersede the Shabbat and any impurity, like any sacrifice whose time of offering is fixed. (A description of the chavitin of the Kohen Gadol is to be found in Hilkhot Maaseh haKorbanot 13:2-4.) Two different sacrifices arise from this brief parasha. Both are mincha offerings brought by an individual, and the Rambam lists both of them in a single halakha (Hilkhot Maaseh haKorbanot 12:4): And there are nine mincha offerings brought by individuals; all are offered upon the altar, and these are they (3) The mincha offered by every kohen when he first enters service; he offers it by his own hand, this is called the MINCHAT CHINUKH (inaugural meal-offering). (4) The mincha offered by the Kohen Gadol each day; this is called CHAVITIN. Aside from the two different names given to these two types of mincha, three differences are immediately apparent: a. Who brings it? The minchat chinukh is brought by all kohanim, while the chavitin is brought only by the Kohen Gadol. b. When is it brought? The minchat chinukh is brought once in the lifetime of each kohen; the chavitin is offered by the Kohen Gadol daily. c. How is it brought? The minchat chinukh consists of a tenth of an efa, all of which is offered together, while the minchat chavitin is brought half in the morning and half in the evening. We now face some difficult questions. Is this an example of God spoke one thing, I heard two (Tehillim 62:12) - were the minchat chinukh and minchat chavitin uttered together? How can two different sacrifices be based on a single mitzva? What is the halakhic relationship between these two mincha offerings, and what is the relationship between our original literal understanding of the verses and each one of them? Can both be derived from the literal text? If so - how, and what is the meaning of having these verses instructing, in a single command, to bring two such different offerings? And if
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the literal text teaches us about only one of the mincha offerings, what is the source and status of the other? We shall review the approaches of various commentators to this parasha, and the answers to which each exegetical approach leads. We shall also clarify the difficulties with which each approach must deal, and finally we shall attempt to propose an approach that both resolves the literal text and the teachings of Chazal as expressed in the midrashei halakha and in the Rambam. C. RASHBAM & IBN EZRA: THE PARASHA ADDRESSES ONE MINCHA The two great literal commentators, Rashbam and Ibn Ezra, follow the same path in their explanation of the parasha: Rashbam (13): This is the offering of Aharon and his sons - according to the literal text, the sons of Aharon are the Kohanim Gedolim who will succeed him. And the Sages DERIVED the law that every regular kohen, when performing his first sacrificial service, must be inducted with such a mincha. Ibn Ezra (13): This is the sacrifice of Aharon - or of one of his sons REPLACING HIM. On the day of his anointment - when the anointing oil is poured over his head. According to both commentators, the expression Aharon and his sons refers to Aharon and all the KOHANIM GEDOLIM who are destined to succeed him - for all are direct descendants of Aharon. Thus our parasha does not mention any sacrifice obligating regular kohanim. But there would still seem to be a contradiction between the definition of the sacrifice that each Kohen Gadol is required to bring on the day of his anointment - which sounds like a one-time sacrifice - and the definition of this same sacrifice further on in the verse as a daily mincha. The Ibn Ezra goes on to explain: On the day (be-yom) of his anointment - Many have proposed that the letter bet here (ON the day) is instead of a mem (mi-yom, FROM the day), and that the Torah means that FROM (starting with) the day of his anointment he is obligated to bring his mincha offering daily. The same explanation is offered by Rav Saadia Gaon, and the Chizkuni too adopts the Ibn Ezras approach. Apparently, the Rashbams intention was the same, for he expresses his view that the inaugural mincha of the regular kohen (athat of the Kohen Gadol) has its source in rabbinical derivation, rather than being instructed explicitly in the text. According to this explanation, the literal text of our parasha contains no source for the minchat chinukh; the whole description deals exclusively with the minchat chavitin - a daily offering - that applies to Aharon and the Kohanim Gedolim who will succeed him. This explanation gives rise to several questions and difficulties; we shall address only two of them.

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a. This explanation in no way reconciles the laws derived by Chazal from our parasha with the literal text. Ibn Ezra fails altogether to address the question of the source of the minchat chinukh discussed by Chazal, while the Rashbam suffices with the conclusion that Chazal derived the existence of this mincha - meaning that he believes the minchat chinukh to be of rabbinic origin, and that Chazal based it upon the verses of our parasha through derash exegesis or derivation. But a glance at Chazals treatment of the matter gives a different impression: the Sifra and the Gemara (Menachot 51b) teaching the law of the minchat chinukh of both the regular kohen and the Kohen Gadol seem to be learning these laws directly from the text. b. The explanation offered by both of these commentators for the words Aharon and his sons is difficult to accept. A first argument against it is presented by Rabbi Naphtali Herz Wessely, author of the Biur on Sefer Vayikra, and subsequently by the Malbim. The latter writes: Wherever the Torah says, Aharon and his sons, the reference is not to those who will be anointed in his place; rather, it refers to the Kohen Gadol who will replace him as well as the regular kohanim who will replace his sons. A second argument presented by both of these commentators against the interpretation of the Rashbam and Ibn Ezra appears already in the Sifra and in Menachot (51b): His sons - this refers to the regular kohanim. Can this refer to all the regular kohanim, or only to the Kohanim Gedolim? When the Torah says (verse 15), and the anointed kohen in his place, from among his sons, the Kohen Gadol is already mentioned, so what do we learn from and his sons? The regular kohanim. For these reasons, we cannot accept that the Torah does not mention regular kohanim here, as Rashbam and Ibn Ezra claim. D. RAV HOFFMANN: NEVERTHELESS, THE PARASHA REFERS TO ONE MINCHA Rav David Zvi Hoffmann addresses our parasha in two different places in his commentary on Sefer Vayikra: in the introduction (pp. 26-33) and in parashat Tzav (pp. 1616). He basically arrives at the same conclusion as that of the Rashbam and Ibn Ezra: our parasha deals, according to the literal text, with the daily minchat chavitin offered by the Kohen Gadol, and has nothing to do with the minchat chinukh. He accepts in full the Ibn Ezras explanation of the expression be-yom himashecho as meaning FROM the day of his anointment. But Rav Hoffmann tries to solve the difficulties raised by the Biur and the Malbim on the interpretation of these Rishonim for the words the offering of Aharon and his sons, suggesting a different explanation: Why is this offering called the offering of Aharon and his sons if it is offered only by the Kohen Gadol? Because the Kohen Gadol offers this sacrifice daily not only on behalf of himself, but also on behalf of all the kohanim the Kohen Gadol acts here as a sort of agent of all the kohanim. (p. 164) Rav Hoffmann explains the significance of this minchat tamid brought daily by the Kohen Gadol on behalf of all his fellow kohanim:
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Careful scrutiny leads us to the conclusion that the verses in Vayikra 6:12-16 are closely related to the statute that precedes them (torat ha-mincha, 6:7-11) Just prior to the beginning of this parasha (6:11), we are told that God gives all the mincha offerings to the kohanim as an eternal statute; this expression can refer only to the statute of perpetual bread Thereafter the instruction is given that starting from the day of miluim (inauguration) of Aharon and his sons - the time when God gives them this bread as an eternal statute - they are also to separate a contribution to God every day, which represents (according to verse 15) an eternal statute to God. This contribution is offered by the Kohen Gadol on behalf of all the kohanim, every day. Through this separating and offering as an eternal statute to God for the eternal statute that they have received from Him, the kohanim acknowledge that they receive from God only in order to reciprocate His kindness, and that they are ready to serve Him in return for the many gifts that God has given them. (p. 32) What is Rav Hoffmanns view concerning the status of the minchat chinukh? We have therefore discovered that according to the simple, literal text, the minchat chinukh is not actually mentioned here explicitly and this being so, we are forced to assume that the mitzva obligating each kohen to bring a minchat chinukh is indeed a mitzva given to Moshe at Sinai, for although it does not appear here explicitly, it is hinted at. (p. 165) His view here is not essentially different from that of Rashbam, and our criticism of it remains valid: the treatment of the Sifra and the Talmud (as well as the Rambam) concerning the minchat chinukh does not make it look like a rabbinic law, nor like a halakha given to Moshe at Sinai (they give no hint of such an idea). Rather, it looks like a halakha learned directly from the text, not via any hint, but rather from the literal meaning. We may add two problems arising from Rav Hoffmanns explanation: a. Had the Torah taught, This is the offering of Aharon and his sons on the day of his anointment, we could have accepted his innovative explanation. But instead of the three dots here, what the verse actually says is that THEY shall offer to God. From this use of the plural, the Sifra and the beraita (Menachot 51b) learn that we must understand this differently than the way proposed by Rav Hoffmann: This is the offering of Aharon and his sons - Is it possible that Aharon and his sons all offered the same single sacrifice? [Obviously not, for] the verse teaches: which they shall offer to God - Aharon on his own, and his sons on their own. b. Interpreting the words, on the day of his anointment, as though the text had said, FROM the day of his anointment is itself forced, although examples of this phenomenon do exist in the Torah. But despite the linguistic difficulty, the question that arises here is why the Torah should give any emphasis to the fact that the obligation of the minchat chavitin applies from the day of the Kohen Gadols appointment. The very definition of this mincha as a minchat TAMID brought by the Kohen Gadol means, clearly, that it applies daily from the time that he begins to serve. The phrase which they shall offer to God on the day of his anointment therefore does not sit well with Rav Hoffmanns explanation. These words refer to a mincha that obligates ALL the kohanim - the sons of Aharon - on the day that each of them begins his service. This mincha is, obviously, the minchat chinukh.
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E. THE EXPLANATION OF HA-KETAV VE-HA-KABBALA We opened our discussion in section A. with a presentation of two contradictions in the literal text. (a) Is the Torah discussing a one-time minchat miluim - a mincha brought at the time of every kohens inauguration, or a daily minchat tamid? (b) Does the mincha discussed here apply to Aharon and his sons - all the kohanim - or only the anointed Kohen Gadol who will succeed Aharon? In section B., after bringing the laws of the two mincha offerings that Chazal learn from our parasha and summarizing the significant differences between them, we asked how two such different offerings could be learned from one brief section. Clearly, these two difficulties solve each other. It is the contradictions in the literal text that serve as the source for the two mincha offerings learned by Chazal, and each of these mincha offerings - the minchat chinukh and the minchat chavitin - matches one aspect of the ve. this fails to explain the contradiction in the verses: they seem to be speaking about a single mincha, while in fact they command two. How, then, are the verses to be read in such a way as to reflect this? Our second questions likewise remains unanswered: why does the Torah include two different mincha offerings in a single mitzva? Rav Yaakov Zvi Mecklenburg writes, in his commentary Ha-Ketav ve-ha-Kabbala on the beginning of our parasha: (13) This is the offering of Aharon and his sons - this offering of Aharon and his sons, offered for the first time on the day of their inauguration (for every kohen, whether a Kohen Gadol or a regular kohen, when anointed and inaugurated into his service, must first offer a mincha), THEN BECOMES A DAILY MINCHA. Then the Torah explains who it is who is obligated to bring the daily mincha, saying (15), the kohen who is anointed - for the Kohen Gadol alone offers it daily. But a regular kohen has no such obligation; it is only when he performs his first service that he must be inaugurated with such a mincha. And by the words on the day of his anointment the Torah means on the day that he is inaugurated into his service Accordingly, the introduction, This, the offering of Aharon and his sons, which they shall offer to God on the day of his anointment is the subject, and the object is a daily mincha. [In other words, the verse is to be interpreted: This, [namely,] the offering of Aharon and his sons ... on the day of his anointment... [is to be] a daily offering.] This, the offering may be explained as in (Yehoshua 9:12), This, our bread, which we took still hot as provisions, or (Tehillim 48:15), For this, our God, is our God forever. Thus, the literal text is clarified in accordance with the understanding of our Sages - that the Torah refers here to both the mincha of each kohen as he performs his first service, and to the daily mincha of the Kohen Gadol. And those who explain This IS the offering without making it refer to something, and which they shall offer as the object, have difficulty reconciling on the day of his anointment with a daily mincha, for it is contradictory.
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Therefore, they have to exchange the bet of be-yom to a mem - mi-yom, like the Ibn Ezra, or to add the letter vav in the word mincha tamid, like R. Naphtali Wessely. The advantage of Ha-Ketav ve-ha-Kabbalas explanation lies not only in a smooth reading of verse 13, without any need to add a vav or to change the bet into a mem. Its principal advantage is that according to it, OUR PARASHA DESCRIBES NOT TWO DIFFERENT MINCHA OFFERINGS BUT RATHER ONE SINGLE ONE. The text itself declares: this offering, representing an inaugural offering (minchat chinukh) for Aharon and his sons, will itself also become a daily offering (minchat tamid). This syntactical understanding of verse 13 therefore has far-reaching ramifications for our understanding of the parasha as a whole. The parasha in fact discusses one mincha, which is brought in two ways: as a one-time minchat chinukh brought by Aharon and his sons on the day of his anointment, and as a minchat tamid brought by Aharons successors - the Kohanim Gedolim. Rav Hoffmanns criticism of this approach arises from his perception (shared by other commentators) that our parasha discusses two DIFFERENT mincha offerings. This being the case, argues Rav Hoffmann, Aharons successors cannot be commanded to CONTINUE to offer the minchat chavitin so long as it has not yet been stipulated that this mitzva applies to Aharon himself. But according to the explanation of Ha-Ketav ve-ha-Kabbala, Aharons connection with the minchat tamid arises from his explicit obligation to bring this mincha in the form of a minchat chinukh. It is true that at the transitional stage of the verse, in which the minchat chinukh becomes a minchat tamid, we may make the mistake of attributing this minchat tamid also to the other kohanim - for they, too, are obligated to bring it in its original form, as a minchat chinukh, like Aharon himself. In order to avoid this confusion, verse 15 comes to limit the scope of those obligated to bring it: only the Kohen anointed in place of Aharon is to bring it. The meaning of the verse is therefore, The offering that Aharon and his sons shall offer as a minchat chinukh shall also be a minchat tamid, to be sacrificed half in the morning and the other half in the evening by the Kohen anointed to serve as Aharons successor. F. EACH DAY THEY SHOULD BE AS NEW IN YOUR EYES What is the significance of the innovation introduced here by Ha-Ketav ve-ha-Kabbala, that the two mincha offerings discussed in this parasha are actually one and the same? Are the laws of these two offerings and the circumstances in which they are brought not very different from each other? The answer to this question must be given in terms of the REASON FOR THIS MINCHA. The commentators tend to view specifically the minchat tamid as the principal and more important mincha addressed in the parasha (to the extent that some omit the existence of the minchat chinukh entirely from the parasha). This is understandable: the minchat tamid is indeed important, for it is one of the daily sacrifices offered in the Mikdash (related to the olat tamid, which is likewise offered in the morning and the evening), and it is brought by the Kohen Gadol. Most of the laws in the parasha likewise address the minchat tamid. But the reason for this mincha is not generally clarified by the commentaries. According to the explanation of Ha-Ketav ve-ha-Kabbala, the reason for the minchat tamid is explained by the Torah by its essential identification with the minchat chinukh. The minchat chinukh serves in our parasha only as an assumption (almost known in advance), rather than as a command, and the whole aim of the parasha is to direct this well-known minchat chinukh to a new horizon - to turn it into a minchat tamid which the Kohen Gadol is obligated to bring each and every day. This teaches us that the obligation of the Kohen Gadol
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to bring this mincha daily is in fact an obligation to renew daily his service in the Mikdash! Each day they should be as new in your eyes - this is the instruction that our parasha gives to the Kohen Gadol. The laws pertaining to the Kohen Gadol are different from those pertaining to regular kohanim in many spheres, but the theme of all of them is the same: to elevate the service of the Kohen Gadol and sanctify it, to preserve its freshness and vitality at all times and in all circumstances. Our parasha therefore reveals another sphere in which the Kohen Gadol is distinguished from the regular kohanim. Both the Kohen Gadol and the regular kohen are obligated to bring a minchat chinukh on the day they start their service. But for the regular kohen it is sufficient that he bring this offering once, and that is the inauguration of his service for the rest of his life. But the Kohen Gadol must see himself every day, morning and evening, as someone for whom the Divine service is something new, as though today is the first day of his service. Therefore the Torah commands him to bring a minchat chinukh tamid.

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PARASHAT SHEMINI Laws of Animals: The Impure and the Pure that can and cannot be eaten (chapter 11) A. Structure of the Chapter and its Difficulties At the end of our parasha, in chapter 11, pesukim 1-47, we find a lengthy unit devoted to the laws of the various animals in two different spheres: eating and tuma - the fact that the carcasses of some of them render anyone who touches them ritually impure. The chapter begins with a general introduction: (1-2) And Hashem spoke to Moshe and to Aharon, saying to them, Speak to Bnei Yisrael saying.... It ends with a conclusion touching both spheres: (46-47) This is the law of the animals and of the birds and of every living creature that moves in the water and of every creature that creeps upon the earth; To make a distinction BETWEEN THE IMPURE AND THE PURE, BETWEEN THE ANIMAL THAT MAY BE EATEN AND THE ANIMAL THAT YOU SHALL NOT EAT. The chapter is divided into two equal halves at the point where we find the transition from the subject of food to that of impurity. The first half (pesukim 1-23) discusses which animals we are permitted to eat and which are forbidden. It begins with the words, These are the animals that you may eat.... The second half (pesukim 24-47) concerns those animals whose carcasses render one impure. It begins (24), And for these you shall be impure.... Each half is comprised of four units, with each unit devoted to a different group of animals with some common characteristic (fish, birds, flying creatures, creeping creatures etc.), and to the laws pertaining to those animals regarding permissibility to eat them or their characteristic of impurity. The following table represents the structure: A. (1-23) Laws of Animals for Food (1-2a) General introduction (2b-8) Signs of pure animals and a list of 4 impure animals (9-12) Signs of fish that are permitted (13-19) List of forbidden birds (20-23) Prohibition of flying insects and permissibility of 4 specific ones. B. (24-47) Laws of Impurity (24-28) Impurity of the carcass of an animal that does not have signs of kashrut (29-38) Impurity of the carcass of 8 creeping creatures and the things that become impure from them
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(39-40) Impurity of the carcass of an animal that is permissible to eat (41-45) Prohibition of eating any creeping creature (46-47) General conclusion Our first glance at the composition of the second half gives rise to a question concerning the unifying theme of the subjects under discussion: the fourth unit (41-45) deals with the prohibition of EATING every creeping creature that creeps upon the earth. This being the case, it would seem to belong to A., which deals with the laws of which animals can and cannot be eaten, rather than to B., which deals with the laws of impurity. Is there anywhere in A. an exception to the general discussion of the laws of permitted animals? Indeed such an instance does exist, but it is so brief that we hardly notice. In the first unit, when the Torah summarizes the prohibition against four animals that bear only one sign of kashrut, we are told: (8) You shall not eat of their flesh AND YOU SHALL NOT TOUCH THEIR CARCASSES; they are impure for you. The emphasized words patently belong to the laws pertaining to the impurity of the carcasses of these animals the subject of the second half. This is not the only problem that arises from a study of the order of the subjects discussed in the two halves, but the dual problem concerning the confusion of subjects is perhaps the most obvious question, and it has great significance for the clarification of our next question. A. Is there any real connection between the two subjects discussed in our chapter, or are they contained within the same literary unit only because both deal with laws pertaining to animals? A comparison of the two halves of our chapter reveals that the two categories are not identical - only the first unit of A., dealing with the large mammals those that are permissible to eat as well as those that are forbidden is dealt with in B.. The first unit of B. deals with the impurity of the carcasses of those animals that are devoid of signs of kashrut, and the third unit deals with the impurity of the carcasses of the animals that you may eat. In contrast, the three types of animal discussed in the continuation of A. the fish and insects of the sea, birds, and flying creatures have no law of impurity upon contact, neither those that are permitted nor those that are prohibited. We find a similar phenomenon in relation to the creeping creatures of the earth. This is the biggest group of the types of animals that are not to be eaten: Whatever walks on its belly and whatever walks on four (legs) or whatever has many legs (pasuk 42). But only eight of them, as listed in pesukim 29-30, bring impurity upon contact with their carcasses, while all the other thousands of species of creepy crawlies are forbidden as food, but do not render one impure after their death. It is clear that the prohibition of eating does not necessarily cause impurity, while permissibility of a species does not prevent impurity. But it is true that no animal transfers impurity after death in a situation where it would previously have been
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permissible to eat it, for a kosher animal that died by some process other than ritual slaughter (neveila) is forbidden as food because it is a carcass. B. Let us now examine the terms used in our chapter to describe the status of the animals. In B., the first three units, dealing with the laws of animals that render one impure after their death, are governed by a single term: impure (tamei). This word is repeated there 18 times, with regard to both the animals themselves (they are impure for you) and the people or objects that have contact with them (he shall be impure until the evening). In A., in contrast, the animals that are forbidden as food are indicated by two different terms: impure (tamei) and abomination (sheketz). It would seem that these two terms express the same thing: the rejection and loathing of the animal that is forbidden as food. If this is so, the two terms should be interchangeable. Indeed, there are instances in the Torah where something that in our chapter is called sheketz is elsewhere called tamei. But the use of these two terms in our chapter seems precise and intentional, and attention should be paid to it specifically because the word tamei appears in two different contexts. In A. the word tamei appears only in the first unit, where it is repeated 5 times with reference to four forbidden animals: once for each animal mentioned individually, and a fifth time for the group collectively. No other term is used for forbidden animals in this unit. But with reference to forbidden fish and other sea creatures the text uses only the term sheketz (as a noun or as a verb) 4 times, with reference to forbidden birds another twice (in the opening pasuk 13), and with reference to flying insects twice more (at the beginning of the unit and at its conclusion). THE WORD TAMEI DOES NOT APPEAR EVEN ONCE IN THE COURSE OF THESE THREE UNITS. Is it coincidental that only the species mentioned in the first unit of A. as impure (tamei) are themselves or others like them mentioned in B. as rendering impure (metamei) through contact or transfer, while the species that in the continuation of A. are defined as sheketz are not mentioned at all in B. because they do not render one impure after their death? The connection between the impurity of those species, both with regard to their consumption and with regard to contact with them, is made explicit in the pasuk that summarizes the prohibition of the four impure animals mentioned above: (8) You shall not eat of their flesh nor shall you touch their carcasses; THEY ARE IMPURE FOR YOU. It is clear that the fact that they are impure for you has two ramifications: thprohibition of eating their flesh, as well as impurity arising from contact with them. This phrase, it is (they are) impure for you, appearing 5 times in this unit, also appears in B.:
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(26) They are impure for you, anyone who touches them will be rendered impure. (27) They are impure for you, anyone who touches their carcasses will be impure until the evening. It appears again in pesukim 28 and 31. We are forced to conclude that the connection between the two subjects of discussion in our chapter is the opposite of what we suggested above: it is not the prohibition of eating that causes the impurity, but rather the impurity of those species that represents the reason for the prohibition against eating them! The prohibition of eating these species results from the fact that they are IMPURE BY DEFINITION (according to the laws of impurity by contact), and the Torah prohibits the CONSUMPTION of something that is tamei (even though one is not forbidden to become ritually impure through contact with it). Thus it may be that the prohibition of eating a carcass (neveila - Devarim 14:21), too, may arise from the definition of the carcass as something that is impure and therefore as something that is not suitable as food for a holy nation. C. Thus we find that the prohibition of eating various species of animals can be based on one of two reasons, depending on the essence of those species: forbidden fish and other sea creatures, the forbidden birds and flying insects are all prohibited because they are defined as sheketz (an abomination). R. Yosef Bekhor Shor explains their prohibition as follows: It may be compared to a man who tells his servant, You are around me all the time, so do not defile yourself with loathsome and defiled foods... A person who is defiled is not worthy of standing before the Holy One. The term sheketz indeed expresses loathing and disgust, as expressed in Chazals definition of these animals: They cut short a persons soul. Chazal likewise prohibited other things that they considered abominable: Rav Ahai said, He who waits to ease his bowels transgresses the prohibition of You shall not make your souls abominable (Vayikra 20:25). Rav Bibi bar Abaye said, He who drinks from the vessel used to draw blood transgresses the prohibition of You shall not make your souls abominable. (Makkot 16b) But as regards the large animals that are forbidden as food, such as the camel, the rabbit, the pig and the horse and other mammals, some of which are kept by man for produce while others live in nature and man hunts them for these man does not feel disgust and loathing as he does for the sheketz that is prohibited by the Torah. The reason for the prohibition is explicit in our chapter - they are impure for you. The phrase that is repeated over and over, it is impure for you, represents here the REASON for the prohibition of eating these animals rather than the definition of the prohibition. The concluding pasuk may be interpreted as follows: You shall not eat of their flesh BECAUSE you may not touch their carcasses, for they are impure for you, and it is not proper for you to eat food that renders you impure upon contact with it.
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D. This gives us the key to solving a question that greatly troubled the early commentators. The Torah lists only four prohibited animals. At the beginning of the chapter we are told, all with split hoofs and that chew the cud among the animals YOU SHALL EAT. I understand (from this) that anything that does not chew the cud or have split feet is forbidden, and a prohibition that derives from a positive command has the status of a positive commandment. Thus concludes the Rambam in his Laws of Forbidden Foods, chapter 2 law 1 based on the Sifra to our pasuk. He continues, again following the Sifra: And regarding the camel, the pig, the rabbit and the hare we are told, But this you shall not eat of those that chew the cud or those that have split feet this is teaching us a negative mitzva, even though (these animals each) have one of the signs. HOW MUCH MORE, IN THE CASE OF THE OTHER IMPURE ANIMALS THAT HAVE NEITHER SIGN AT ALL, (DO WE LEARN) THAT THE PROHIBITION OF EATING THEM IS BASED ON A NEGATIVE COMMAND, over and above the positive mitzva that arises from the general rule that of these you shall eat. The Ramban (11,3) maintains that the derivation of the Rambam, based on deduction, would not suffice for a punishment for other non-kosher animals, and he therefore proposes a different source. If we look at the unit that opens the SECOND half of the chapter we find that the animals mentioned as rendering impure upon contact or transfer are the following: (26) The carcass of any animal that has a split hoof but is not clovenfooted is impure to you; anyone who touches them will become impure. (27) And whatever walks on its paws, of all the animals that walk on four legs, these are impure to you... From the point of view of a categorization of mammals, this unit completes the unit with which the first half began; there we learned about animals that had both signs of kashrut (and they correspond to the seven animals listed in Devarim 14:4-5) as well as the four animals that bear only one sign. In the opening unit of B., pasuk 26 discusses animals that have one imperfect sign: animals that have only a partially split hoof, such that it is not properly divided into two the horse, the donkey and their like while pasuk 27 deals with the rest of the mammals that have no sign of kashrut at all they walk on paws - the cat, the dog, the bear, the lion, the leopard, the monkey etc. The combination of both units gives us the complete set of all tall land mammals. But then we are told explicitly with regard to those animals that bear only one sign of kashrut that they are impure to you (8), and with regard to those that have one imperfect sign that they are impure to you (26), and again with regard to those that have no sign at all, walking as they do on paws, that they are impure to you (27). According to what we have said above, this phrase indicates the same thing in each of these three instances: they are impure when dead and they render one impure upon contact with their carcasses. But, again according to what we have said above, this has one additional result: all are forbidden as food precisely because they are impure species! If this is so then there are explicit pesukim
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according to which we may prohibit all of these impure hayot and include all of them in a single category: they are impure to you. F. Up until this point, we have ignored the sheratzim (rodents and insects) and the expressions with which the Torah describes the prohibition against their consumption towards the end of our chapter. In this context, we do not find the distinction between sheketz and tamei that we encountered in the first half the chapter: All the things that swarm upon the earth are an abomination [sheketz]; they shall not be eaten. Anything that crawls on its belly... or anything that has many legs... you shall not eat, for they are an abomination. You shall not draw abomination upon yourselves through anything that swarms; you shall not make yourselves impure therewith [titamu] and thus become impure [vnitmetem]... you shall sanctify yourselves and be holy... you shall not make yourselves impure through any swarming thing that moves upon the earth. (4144) These verses employ the term sheketz (abomination) three times, the same number of times as the term tamai in its various forms appear. Why? The group of animals classified as sheretz has the unique characteristic of consisting of some creatures who transmit ritual impurity through contact with their corpses, as well as those who do not. All animals (behemot and chayot) transmit impurity, while all birds and foul do not. Only the sheretz group consists of both types. It would thus seem that two different reasons for the prohibition against eating shekatzim exist. More specifically, there are two underlying reasons for the prohibition against eating the sheratzim that transmit impurity (29-31), thus accounting for the double expression: .. for they are an abomination. You shall not draw an abomination upon yourselves ... you shall not make yourselves impure [titamu] therewith and thus become impure. These creatures contain both the element of sheketz - which warrant a prohibition against their consumption - and a component of tuma, which renders one impure upon contact with their carcasses. One question, however arises. The subcategory of creatures that transmit impurity is infinitely smaller than it counterpart - the group of sheratzim that do not. After all, only eight creatures transmit impurity, while all other insects in the world do not. Why, then, does the Torah equate the two components - mentioning both tuma and sheketz three times when the component of tuma applies to only eight out of all the insects on earth! The answer to this question relates to the underlying reason behind the tuma ascribed to these insects and the designation of specifically these eight species. Certainly, the creatures death and subsequent contact with them cause ritual impurity. But only the death of those creatures who live near and among human beings and whom man deems important can transmit tuma. Creatures whose lives are considered of lesser value or who reside far away from human residence or activity (such as fish and birds), do not generate impurity upon their demise. The death of the human being generates the most severe form of tuma; a persons death is the strongest source of ritual impurity. Next come the large, land-dwelling mammals, with whom man shares the earth (Tehillim 104:20-23). Even among the small, swarming
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creatures there exist some significant creatures. They live among or near the human being and have earned their place in his awareness. Man hunts them regularly for their flesh and skin (see mishna Shabbat 14:1). Given the particular prominence of these eight species, our statistical question regarding the disproportionate attention afforded to them can be answered. In fact, the prohibition against eating sheratzim was issued primarily regarding these eight, which apparently were more commonly eaten by humans (see Yeshayahu 66:17). We can now explain the problem presented at the beginning of the shiur - why do verses 4145, prohibiting the EATING of sheretz, come out at the end of the second section. This section, as we have seen, includes a compound prohibition, based both on sheketz and on tuma. This distinction is only comprehensible after we have learnt that eight species engender tuma, while the other species in this category do not. Therefore, only after concluding the section of tuma does the Torah return to complete the eating prohibition of this category. One could suggest another reason as well. Our section begins with the words, This is the animal that you may eat. Unlike the other categories, the sheretz has no permitted species. Therefore it is not included in the opening of which you may eat, but is added as an appendix at the end.

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PARASHAT SHEMINI The Explicit and Non-Explicit Dietary Laws A. THE SEQUENCE OF DIETARY LAWS IN OUR PARASHA Chapter 11 of Vayikra, which concludes our parasha, deals entirely with the laws of animals on two levels: which animals are forbidden or permitted for consumption, and the carcasses of which animals render one tamei (ritually impure) upon contact. I devoted my shiur to Parashat Shemini in 5760 to an analysis of the structure of this chapter and the relationship between its two topics, the laws of consumption and the laws of tuma. In the present discussion, I will concentrate on the laws of consumption presented in this chapter and consider both that which the Torah mentions explicitly and that which the Torah chooses to omit. The various species of creatures whose consumption the Torah prohibits or permits are divided into five categories, addressed by the Torah in five separate sections:

1. Verses 2b-8: Behemot and chayot (land mammals) possessing the simanim
(signs) of kashrut, which may be eaten, and a list of the four forbidden animals which have but one of the signs. 2. Verses 9-12: Fish possessing the signs of kashrut, which may be eaten, and the prohibition against all sea creatures that lack these signs. 3. Verses 13-19: The list of the twenty birds forbidden for consumption. 4. Verses 20-23: The prohibition against eating all sheretz ha-of (winged swarming creatures), besides the four mentioned. The fifth section comes at the end of the chapter, after the Torah outlines all the laws of tuma relevant to the various creatures whose carcasses generate tuma:

5. Verses 41-45: The prohibition against eating all sheretz ha-aretz (swarming insects),
including all its various types. We thus have before us a description of the entire animal kingdom, divided into five categories. By what principles of categorization did the Torah divide the animal kingdom? At its core, this categorization is a practical one; it classifies the creatures based on where they live, the factor that determines the nature of mans encounter with them. This classification does not always correspond with the method of classification generally employed by modern zoology. Thus, for example, the final creature mentioned in the list of forbidden birds is the bat a flying mammal. How does our chapter arrange these five groups of creatures? The standard employed is the quantitative relationship within each category of animals between the species permissible for consumption and those forbidden to eat. The first half of the chapter (verses 2-23) begins, These are the creatures THAT YOU MAY EAT. Meaning, the Torah here comes to teach us which animals are permitted for consumption within each category presented in this chapter. The prohibition against eating the other creatures of every category is taught (either explicitly or by implication) parenthetically, alongside the permissible animals.

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I suggest that the Torah arranges the various sections in accordance with the proportion that exists within each between the permitted and forbidden creatures. The larger the group of permissible animals in a category, the earlier that categorys discussion appears in the chapter. It must be noted, however, that this proportion is not mathematical or statistical, but rather depends on the manner in which it is presented in the verses within each section. A survey of the five sections will help clarify this point: 1. The first section deals with the group of animals that have split hooves and chew their cud. This entire group is permitted for consumption, with the exception of the four animals that lack one of these criteria, which the verses list by name. 2. The second section deals with water animals. Here the Torah mentions not one creature by name, giving only the necessary criteria for a fishs permissibility the presence of fins and scales. This description gives the impression of an equation of sorts: many water creatures possess these features, whereas many others do not. 3. The third section lists the names of the twenty forbidden birds, and mentions by name not one permitted bird. We are thus left with the impression that a sizeable portion of all birds are forbidden for consumption. 4. The fourth section initially prohibits all winged insects, before proceeding to list the four permissible ones, which the Torah mentions by name and features. The structure of this section is thus inverse to that of the first section, where all creatures with certain criteria are permitted with the exception of four, which differ from the others with regard to one of the criteria. Here, the Torah forbids all creatures classified as sheretz ha-of, with the exception of the four species which possess different features than the others. 5. The fifth section categorically forbids the entire group of sheretz ha-aretz, without exception. This final section does not really belong under the title, These are the creatures that you may eat, since no creature in this category may be eaten. For this reason, perhaps, the Torah places this section at the end of the chapter, as an addendum of sorts to the main body of this discussion. B. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CRITERIA FOR THE KASHRUT OF ANIMALS In the first category, beheimot and chayot, the Torah establishes two criteria that determine the animals permissibility: split hooves and the chewing of the cud. Wherein lies the significance of these two signs, and do they have any relationship to one another? In Masekhet Chullin (59a), the Gemara connects these two signs not only to one another, but to other criteria as well: Any animal that does not have teeth on top we know that it chews its cud and has split hooves, and is permissible. Later (59b), the Gemara cites a baraita in the name of Rabbi Dosa: If it has horns, one need not check its hooves [to see if they are split]. It thus emerges that FOUR features characterize kosher animals, two of which are mentioned in the Torah, and two added by the Sages, and all four are somehow related to one another: split hooves, chewing of the cud, the absence of upper teeth, and horns.

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What is the developmental relationship between these four characteristics of the kosher animals? Animals with these features are completely vegetarian, feeding strictly off grass. With regard to all their bodily systems, they differ drastically from animals of prey. Let us first explain the relationship between the cud-chewing and the absence of upper teeth. These two features both involve the digestive system. The grass and plants off which these animals feed contain large quantities of cellulose, which is hard for the body to digest. Even among the vegetarian animals, not all of them can digest grass. Animals that chew their cud have the most effective system for the digestion of materials such as grass and straw. Their stomachs consist of four compartments in which the process of digestion (meaning, the softening and breaking-down of the food) occurs in stages. While grazing in the field, the animal must swallow a large amount of grass in a short period of time and leave quickly, as the open field is a dangerous place and invites animals of prey. Using its tongue, the animal quickly picks up a bundle of grass and swallows it with hardly any chewing. The upper cartilage, with has no incisors, helps the animal quickly soften the food before swallowing. As stated, this takes place without chewing, which would take a considerable amount of time. At this point the animal leaves the pasture to a safer location, where, in the tranquil security of its concealed area, it brings the food from the stomach to its mouth, chews it, and swallows it again for the continuation of the digestion process in the second stomach, and so forth. This vegetarian lifestyle requires the animal to wander over vast distances to gather a sufficient quantity of fodder. At times,the animal must embark on long excursioor run for an extended period of time to escape from its foes. The hoof the horn-like sheath covering the toe, several centimeters thick allows for easier foot travel over long distances. A hoof split into two (= two toes, each with a hoof) gives the animal greater flexibility in climbing and gripping onto otherwise slippery rocks. It turns out, then, that both the digestive mechanism as well as the travel patterns of these animals suit their culinary needs and need to flee from threatening creatures of prey. However, these very mechanisms deny them two important means of defense used by other animals: they lack fangs to bite attackers, and nails to scratch them. They have therefore been granted a unique, alternate means of defense horns, which they use to gore their enemies. It would therefore appear that the permissibility of these animals relates to their lifestyle. The features described by the Torah (in addition to those mentioned by Chazal) testify to the fact that these animals are completely vegetarian, as distant as could be from the lifestyle of beasts of prey. The same applies to the kashrut of birds. The vast majority of the forbidden birds listed in our parasha are birds of prey. Indeed, the Gemara comments in Masekhet Chullin (59a), The signs of [kosher] birds were not stated, but the Sages said: Every bird of prey is forbidden. C. THE TORAH PROHIBITION OF CANNIBALISM What is the status of human flesh with respect to its consumption? Such a question obviously arouses justifiable unease; it is hard to imagine a situation where this issue becomes practically relevant. Sure enough, nowhere does the Talmud address this question. But this is a fundamental question that a discussion about the nature of the Torahs dietary laws and their scope cannot ignore. Indeed, the Rambam does address this question, in spite of the dearth of earlier source material on the subject. He writes (Hilkhot Maakhalot Asurot 2:3):
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The human being, though it is said about him (Bereishit 2:7), Man became a living beast [possibly implying that he is technically considered an animal], is not included with the species of hoofed animals. He is therefore not included in the prohibition, and so someone who eats the meat of a person or his fat, from either a live or dead [person], does not receive lashes. Halakha teaches that the human being cannot be classified together with the camel, hare, rabbit or swine, nor with any other creatures that lack the required criteria. The prohibition against partaking of their meat therefore does not apply to cannibalism. Excluding the human being from the animals that lack signs of kashrut can yield a paradoxical result: specifically the unique stature of the human being serves as the reason why no Torah law forbids the consumption of his flesh. But the Rambam, followed by several other Rishonim, was not prepared to accept this conclusion, and he therefore struggled to find a basis for prohibiting the consumption of human flesh even on the level of Torah law. In the aforementioned halakha, he adds: But it [human flesh] is prohibited based on an asei (positive commandment), for the verse (Devarim 14:4) enumerates seven species of animals, and about them it says (in Vayikra 11:2), These are the animals that you may eat, implying that anything else we should not eat. And a prohibition resulting from an asei [lav ha-ba mi-khlal asei] is an asei. It should be noted that this position of the Rambam has no explicit source in Chazal, and appears to be an independent extrapolation of the Rambam from the biblical verses. According to the Rambam, this prohibition has nothing at all to do with the lack of the prerequisite criteria; after all, the verse he cites (These are the animals) comes before the Torahs introduction of the simanim. Rather, the prohibition results from the exclusion of human flesh from the general group of creatures whose meat the Torah permitted. The Rambam thereby appears to circumvent the problem. The prohibition against cannibalism does not evolve from the human beings lack of the required indicators of kashrut, but rather from a technical reason because the Torah did not include the human being in its list of permissible creatures. Many Rishonim disagreed with the Rambam and raised difficulties with his position. Only a few Rishonim accept his stance and attempt to resolve these questions. D. THE ABSENCE OF AN EXPLICIT PROHIBITION AGAINST CANNIBALISM How, then, can we explain this astonishing phenomenon, that the Torah issues no explicit prohibition against the consumption of human flesh? This problem becomes particularly difficult in light of the painstaking detail with which the Torah specifies the laws concerning the various creatures on the basis of its classification of the animal kingdom. It details the different criteria required for the various groups of animals and lists by name dozens of creatures. Particularly the human being itself, the subject of all these instructions, does it ignore! Twice in his beautiful work, The Vision of Vegetarianism and Peace, Rav Kook ztl mentions the attitude of humanity towards cannibalism. At the end of paragraph 6 (page 12), he writes that as a result of the permission granted to Noach after the flood to partake of
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animal meat, proper man reacts with natural disgust to the notion of eating human flesh, and in paragraph 4 (page 9) he writes that because of this natural revulsion, The Torah therefore had no need to write an explicit prohibition in this regard, for a person does not need a warning with regard to that towards which he has already acquired a natural sense, which is as good as explicit. He seems to mean not only that the Torah felt no need to issue such a prohibition, but that such an explicit warning would be inappropriate. In my shiur on Parashat Kedoshim in 5760, I asked why Chazal rejected the literal meaning of the verse, Do not put a stumbling block before a blind man (Vayikra 19:14), and adopted instead a metaphoric interpretation. The literal meaning of the prohibition refers to abuse for abuses sake, capitalizing on the handicap of a helpless invalid a blind man who cannot see. I answered that it is implausible that the Torah would issue a prohibition against such sadistic conduct. The Torah works under certain basic assumptions concerning the moral level of its intended audience, and it therefore does not forbid behavior that falls short of this minimal ethical standard. An explicit prohibition outlawing such conduct assumes the possibility of its occurrence on the part of the Torahs audience, which would constitute a harmful expression of mistrust. The same applies to our issue. The Torah does not presume that its intended audience needs to hear a warning against cannibalism. An explicit prohibition of this kind would be damaging in two respects. First, as mentioned, it would demonstrate a degree of mistrust in the audience to which the Torahs commands are directed. Secondly, it would suggest an equation of sorts between the prohibition against eating human flesh and that against eating non-kosher animals. This would blur the essential distinction between man and beast. Although the absence of an explicit prohibition against cannibalism leaves such behavior formally permissible, in light of the considerations discussed, as well as, perhaps, additional factors, it is preferable for the Torah to refrain from such an explicit reference. Instead, the Torah relies on a deeply ingrained taboo among civilized human society, for that towards which man has already acquired a natural sense is as good as explicit.

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PARASHAT TAZRIA Childbirth - Tuma and Circumcision on the Eighth Day (12:1-8)

I.

Childbirth - Tuma - the First Parasha of Tuma In chapter 11, at the end of Parashat Shemini, we began the laws of impurity and purification of Sefer Vayikra. These continue throughout the Parashot of Tazria and Metzora, up until the end of chapter 15. But the cause of the impurity in chapter 11 is different from that of the following chapters (12-15) - the former deals with impurity arising from a persons contact with a carcass of an impure animal, such that the impurity is contracted from an outside source, while starting from chapter 12 the Torah addresses those forms of impurity whose source is internal and the ways in which he may purify himself: 1. Impurity of the yoledet (woman following childbirth) (chapter 12) 2. Impurity of the metzora (person afflicted with tzaraat) (chapters 13-14) 3. Impurity of the zav and a man who has had a seminal emission, as well as that of a menstrual woman and a zava (chapter 15). This order of subjects makes us wonder which system of classification the Torah uses to list these types of impurities. Why is the impurity of the woman following childbirth mentioned first? R. David Hoffman addresses this question in his commentary on Sefer Vayikra, in his brief introduction to these chapters: The following chapters deal with all those instances in which the impurity issues from within the persons body. The most serious of all types of impurity is that of tzaraat (which is the only instance where the impure individual is sent out of all three camps of Israel), and it would seem that the list of types of impurity should have commenced with this one. But in fact it is not at all clear that the order of impurities proceeds from the most serious to the least serious, because in chapter 15, which deals with four types of impurity, the order does not follow this principle. If we nevertheless accept R. Hoffmans basic assumption, we may answer his question by noting that there is one aspect of the tumat yoledet that is more serious than that of the metzora, the zav and the zava. How long must a woman who has given birth wait, from the moment when the reason for her impurity has ceased, until she is permitted to enter the Mikdash and offer her sacrifice? This womans impurity lasts seven days if she has borne a son, and fourteen days if she has borne a daughter. During this time she is considered like a nidda (menstrual woman) (12:3 and 12:5). But thereafter even though she continues in the blood of her purification i.e., the blood that she sees thereafter is considered ritually pure and she is permitted to her husband she is nevertheless prevented from entering the Mikdash or from eating from sacrifices for a period of 33 days following a son or 66 days following a daughter. At the end of this period she offers her sacrifice, and only thereafter is she permitted to enter the Mikdash and to eat of the sacrifices.

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The waiting period for a metzora who is cured of his tzaraat and of the zav and zava whose issues have ceased is only seven days, and on the eighth day they bring a sacrifice that permits them thereafter to eat of the kodshim. Thus from the perspective of the dimension of time, there is a stringency in the instance of the yoledet that does not apply to the other types of impurity, and it is possible that this is the reason for its mention before any of the other types. R. Hoffman suggests a different answer: Because a person causes impurity in his mother the moment he emerges into the world, and therefore the Torah sees fit to start the list with the type of impurity that a person causes immediately with his birth. A different solution may be offered. Most of the impurities discussed thereafter are those that arise from a pathological state. This is true of the metzora, the zav and the zava. Even menstruation, which at the time of her menstruation is a normal phenomenon, is termed in several places sickness (12:2, 20:18 etc.). The reason for the impurity of the yoledet, on the other hand, is an extremely happy occasion. If yoledet were to be listed among the impurities of the metzora and the zav, or after these, it might somehow imply that birth, too, is an unhealthy and abnormal state. The Torah would not wish to create such an impression, and so the Parasha of the yoledet is given before we hear of other types of impurity that arise from some pathological condition of the human body. >From the fact that the Parasha of the yoledet appears first we learn that a persons life cycle is a constant oscillation between impurity and purity; an inevitable pendulum. Without entering into a discussion of the reasons for impurity in general and that of the yoledet in particular, we may conclude that the identity of impurity with evil is simplistic and completely inaccurate. II. Time of Circumcision Our Parasha begins with the laws pertaining to a woman who has given birth to a son: (12:2) A woman who has conceived and gives birth to a male shall be impure for seven days; like in the days of her menstrual sickness shall she be impure. (3) And on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.... (4) And she shall continue in the blood of her purification for thirty-three days; she shall touch no sanctified thing, nor shall she come to the Mikdash until the days of her purification are complete. These verses serve as the source for the halakha (Shabbat 135a) regarding the proper time for circumcision: Rav Assi said: Anyone whose mother is impure following the birth shall be circumcised on the eighth day. Anyone whose mother is not impure following the birth, and a nonJewish woman who gave birth is not circumcised on the eighth day. As it is written, A woman who conceives and gives birth to a male, she shall be impure... and on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.
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Abaye said to him: The early generations prove this theory incorrect (Rashi: this refers to the generations from Avraham until the giving of the Torah, for the commandment of circumcision (on the eighth day) had been given (to Avraham) but these generations did not yet practice the laws of impurity). Their mothers were not impure following the birth, but they were nevertheless circumcised on the eighth day! He answered him: The Torah was given and the halakha was changed. What is the basis for Rav Assis conclusion? At first we might think that Rav Assi deduced this from the fact that pasuk 3, concerning circumcision, seems redundant. We already know the law of circumcision from Parashat Lekh-Lekha, where it was given to Avraham. But this is not so. This question is posed by the Gemara in Massekhet Sanhedrin 59b, and it concludes that the pasuk in our Parasha is nevertheless necessary: Why was circumcision, which was already taught previously (Bereishit 17:9) You shall keep My covenant, repeated at Sinai And on the eighth day... shall be circumcised? This was in order to permit circumcision on Shabbat, for it says here on the eighth day even if it is Shabbat. It is difficult to conclude that Rav Assi deduced his law from the juxtaposition of the pasuk concerning circumcision and the law concerning the impurity of the yoledet, for if this was the case then his conclusion should have gone a step further: that only someone whose mother became impure by the birth is obligated to be circumcised at all, while someone whose mother did not become ritually impure by the birth does not require circumcision. Of course such a conclusion is unacceptable. III. Let us attempt to understand what underlies Rav Assis words. The seeming redundancy of the pasuk commanding circumcision does not disturb him, but its position does; after all, there is no thematic connection between the impurity of a woman following childbirth and the commandment concerning c! Why, then, does the Torah insert this pasuk in the middle of the laws pertaining to the yoledet, interrupting the connection between the law of her impurity for seven days and the law of her period of purification that follows? The obvious connection between the pesukim is the order of family events - following the seven days of impurity of the yoledet, the eighth day arrives and it is time for the circumcision of her son. But this is not a satisfactory answer. Surely the Torah does not mean by the order of this Parasha to provide a practical timetable for the new mother! It is also worth noting that the obligation of circumcision is not placed on the mother at all, but rather on the father. This the Talmud Yerushalmi, Massekhet Kiddushin chapter 1, law 7 (5a) learns from our very pasuk. We can therefore summarize our question as follows: the Parasha of the yoledet (chapter 12) has a well-defined subject the laws of the impurity and purification of the woman following childbirth, as part of the laws concerning other types of impurity and purification that are discussed later on in the Parashot of Tazria and Metzora. Why is mention made of the obligation of circumcision, representing a departure from the subject of the Parasha?
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IV. Rav Assis answer to this question is that the connection between the impurity of the yoledet and the law of circumcision on the eighth day is not a technical connection that arises incidentally from the chronological order of events, but rather a substantial connection between those events that is based on cause and effect. Logically, the circumcision should take place as close as possible to the birth on the first day. But this is inappropriate, since the mother of the infant is impure for seven days following the birth. Therefore, only at the conclusion of her impurity on the eighth day only then shall the flesh of his foreskin be circumcised. Thus the law that the impurity of the woman who has borne a son lasts seven days is what determines the date of the circumcision of her son, and therefore the Torah stipulates right here the time of circumcision on the eighth day as an integral part of the laws pertaining to the impurity and purification of the yoledet. This connection between the date of the circumcision on the eighth day and the impurity of the yoledet for seven days is explained in Massekhet Nidda (31b): The students of R. Shimon ben Yohai asked him, Why did the Torah command that circumcision should take place on the eighth day? (He answered,) So that it should not happen that everyone is happy while the father and mother are grieved (Rashi: for they are still forbidden to have sexual relations). Rav Assi, who might have been familiar with this sourcce, simply deduced his halakhic conclusion from this explanation by R. Shimon bar Yohai to our pasuk: if that is indeed the reason for the eighth day as the time for circumcision, and it is for this reason that the Torah inserts this pasuk in the midst of the Parasha concerning the impurity of the yoledet and her purification, then the conclusion must be that anyone whose mother is impure following the birth is circumcised on the eighth day, while anyone whose mother is not impure following the birth is not circumcised on the eighth day. V. The problem that disturbed Rav Assi (and Rav Shimon bar Yohai) could in fact have been solved the opposite way, such that Rav Assis innovation would have dissolved, since circumcision, ever since the command to Abraham, is performed on the eighth day, making tuma dependent on circumcision rather than circumcision dependent on tuma. THEREFORE it was established that a woman who bears a son is impure for only seven days, and not for fourteen days like one who bears a daughter. This is indeed the interpretation of R. Hoffman: The reason that the birth of a daughter involves double the number (of days of impurity) might be because the Torah lessened her days of impurity to seven following the birth of a son in order that the yoledet may be purified on the eighth day, which is the day of the circumcision. Moreover, perhaps the action of circumcision has some effect on the purification, shortening the period required for complete purification (i.e., permissibility to enter the Mikdash) by half. This idea is the opposite of what R. Shimon bar Yohai taught, but it also answers the previous question posed by his students on the same occasion:
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Why does the Torah say (that a yoledet is impure) seven days for a male and fourteen days for a female? R. Shimon bar Yohai obviously could not answer them in accordance with the idea suggested by R. Hoffman, because his basic assumption was the exact opposite.

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PARASHAT TAZRIA The Sequence of the Tzaraat Laws A. THE SEQUENCE OF LAWS IN PARASHIYOT TAZRIA-METZORA Parashiyot Tazria-Metzora constitute a single literary unit addressing one topic: the laws of tuma and tahara (ritual impurity and purity). Although these laws have already begun to come under discussion in chapter 11, at the end of Parashat Shemini, there the Torah discusses the laws concerning the status of the carcasses of various creatures which transmit tuma through contact. In these parashiyot, however (chapters 12-15), the Torah discusses tuma that originates from a living human being. Under various circumstances in a persons life, he (and only he, as opposed to all other creatures) can contract different forms of tuma, each requiring its own process of tahara, purification. These parashiyot deal with three main categories tuma, presenting specific laws applicable to each. The division of chapters corresponds to this division between the three categories of tuma:

1. Chapter 12 (8 verses): the tuma of a childbearing woman, and her tahara process. 2. Chapters 13-14 (116 verses): the tuma of the metzora (leper) and his tahara process. 3. Chapter 15 (33 verses): sex-related tuma - the tuma resulting from bodily emissions
(seminal and menstrual). According to what sequence were these sections of tuma in Parashiyot Tazria-Metzora arranged? Rav David Zvi Hoffmann works under the assumption that it would have been appropriate to arrange the laws in accordance with the severity of the various forms of tuma. This assumption led him to ask: The most stringent of these forms of tuma [discussed in these parashiyot] is the tuma of tzaraat [which requires the individual who had contracted the tuma to leave all three camps]. Therefore, the series of tumot should have begun with this tuma! (p. 249) In my shiur on this parasha in 5760, I suggested two answers to this question:

1. The verses do not emphasize the particular stringency of tzaraat of which Rav
Hoffmann speaks. We find in the text a reference of only several words to this stringent quality: He shall dwell in solitude; his residence shall be outside the camp (13:40). The point that earns particular emphasis in the text throughout the discussion of the various forms of tuma is the length of the purification period required. In this respect, the tuma of a childbearing woman is more stringent than that of the metzora or those who experience an emission. After the termination of her impure days (which last seven days for a son, and fourteen for a daughter), the childbearing woman must wait thirty-three days (for a son) or sixty-six days (for a daughter). Only after this period may she bring her purification offering, which allows her entry into the Mikdash. The others, by contrast, wait only seven days and bring their offering on the eighth. 2. Most of the forms of tuma addressed here result from physical illness, whereas the tuma of a childbearing woman is generated by a very joyous event - the birth of a child. By first presenting the laws of the childbearing woman even before we have heard of the other forms of tuma, which generally evolve from a malfunction of the
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human body, the Torah intends to avoid the mistaken impression that childbirth, like the other causes of tuma, is to be seen as an unwanted situation. B. THE STRUCTURE OF THE TZARAAT SECTION (CHAPTERS 13-14) Now let us turn our attention to the structure of the section dealing with tzaraat (13:1-14:57), which, as we would expect, constitutes an independent unit within the broader complex of the tuma and tahara discussion. Our parashiyot devote the bulk of their attention to this form of tuma, and this section is almost three times the length of those dealing with the other forms of tuma. The sequence of presentation within this section is as follows: 13:1-44: The different forms of tzaraat based on the infections appearance and location on the body; the process of determining the status of the infection. 13:45-46: The laws of the metzoras conduct during his period of tuma. 13:47-59: The laws of tzaraat on a garment. 14:1-9: The process of purification to allow the metzora reentry into the camp after having been cured. 14:10-20: The metzoras sacrifices brought on the eighth day of his purification process. 14:21-32: The sacrifices bought by a poor metzora who cannot afford the standard offerings. 14:33-53: The laws of tzaraat on a house. 14:54-57: Conclusion of all tzaraat laws. The obvious question that arises from even a preliminary survey of this structure is why the Torah places the section of tzaraat on a house (14:33-53) at the end of this unit, rather than together with its discussion of the tzaraat of clothing (13:47-59), where it seemingly should appear. A closer look at the structure of the tzaraat section may help us answer this question. Like many other halakhic sections revolving around a single topic, the tzaraat section divides into two roughly equal halves - a division which, in our context, corresponds to the division of chapters. The first half - chapter 13 - deals primarily with the laws of the IMPURITY of tzaraat, and covers fifty-nine verses. The bulk of the second half, chapter 14, is devoted to the laws of the PURIFICATION process from tumat tzaraat. This second half begins with a new dibbur from God: The Lord spoke to Moshe, saying: This shall be the procedure for the metzora on the day of his purification (14:1-2), and it spans fifty-seven verses. These two halves of the tzaraat section deal mainly with the laws of tuma and tahara relevant to a person stricken with bodily tzaraat. At the end of each half, however, there appears a section, an appendix of sorts, to that half, which addresses the manifestation of tzaraat on an inanimate object - garments or houses, respectively. Thus, the first half (chapter 13) describes the different forms of bodily tzaraat (verses 1-44) and the laws relevant to the metzora (verses 45-46), and then concludes with the laws of tzaraat on a garment (verses 57-59). Correspondingly, the second half (chapter 14) outlines the procedure
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for a metzoras purification from bodily tzaraat (verses 1-32), and then proceeds to the guidelines concerning a house stricken with tzaraat (verses 33-53). But the description of this structure (which, as stated, is typical of halakhic sections in the Chumash) does not provide a complete solution to our question. For we must still ask, why did the Torah choose to present the section of garment tzaraat as an appendix to the first half, and the laws of house tzaraat as an appendix to the second half, and not vice versa? Moreover, why does the Torah separate these two appendices, which have a clear connection to one another, in the first place? Why does it not present them together, either at the conclusion of the first half, or at the conclusion of the second half? A comparison between these two appendices reveals a discernible difference between the laws outlined in each. The section dealing with the tzaraat of clothing does not contain any process of purification for a garment afflicted with tzaraat. A garment declared definitively stricken with tzaraat is burned; if the signs of tzaraat disappear after the garments cleansing, it shall be cleansed again and is then pure (verse 58). A tzaraatstricken house, by contrast, requires a process of purification very similar to that undergone by a metzora after having been cured from his bodily tzaraat (compare verses 48-53 with 28). These two processes consist of the same basic components: two birds, a branch of cedar wood, hyssop and crimson. This difference between the two appendices accounts for their respective locations. Garment tzaraat belongs to the laws of tuma addressed in chapter 13, while it has no connection to chapter 14, which deals with the processof purification from tzaraat. Tzaraat o, by contrast, could not have appeared at the end of chapter 13, because its laws include the process of the houses purification. This procedure cannot be presented before the procedure for the purification of the metzora himself, which opens the second half, because, presumably, the laws of the houses purification evolve from the laws of the persons purification, and not vice versa. We should note in this context that the appendix to the second half actually constitutes, to a large extent, an independent unit, detached from the preceding section through a new dibbur: The Lord spoke to Moshe and Aharon, saying: When you enter the land of Canaan that I give you as a possession, and I inflict an eruptive plague upon a house in the land you possess (14:33-34). The appendix to the first half, however, does not contain a new dibbur, but is rather joined to the first half without any interruption (see 13:47). Why, then, does the appendix to the second half begin with a new dibbur? The reason for this special introduction is obvious. These halakhot relevant to the tzaraat of houses do not apply at the time when they are conveyed, when Benei Yisrael encamp at the foot of Mount Sinai. This section of laws applies only in the future; it informs Benei Yisrael of what they could expect after their entry into and settlement of the land. Clearly, then, the discussion of the tzaraat of homes had to appear at the very end of the entire tzaraat section. C. WHAT IS TZARAAT? What is the reason behind tumat tzaraat? Before we discuss this question, we must first address a more basic question: what is tzaraat? The Rambam, towards the end of Hilkhot Tumat Tzaraat (16:10), notes the fundamental problem in the inclusion of different phenomena under the shared title of tzaraat:

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Tzaraat is a shared name that includes many matters that do not resemble one another. For the whitening of human skin is called tzaraat, the loss of some hair of the head or beard is called tzaraat, and the discoloration of garments or houses is called tzaraat It appears from this passage that the Rambam saw even bodily tzaraat not as a single phenomenon, but as a shared name for different phenomena. For several generations, researchers have tried to identify the bodily tzaraat described in chapter 13 with various diseases familiar to us nowadays, but no scholar has succeeded in pointing to a disorder that parallels in all its features the tzaraat described by the Torah. It appears from the Torahs description that tzaraat was a skin disorder (though even on this point we find a lack of unanimity among the scholars). Since no skin disorder known to us nowadays corresponds precisely with the Torahs description, it seems reasonable to assume that the illness of which the Torah speaks has since disappeared from the world. The claim of a change in nature to explain inconsistencies and contradictions between the natural world familiar to us and the descriptions of the natural world in ancient sources in the Torah and in our oral tradition - ought to be employed as rarely as possible. Nevertheless, with regard to illness in the ancient world and our times, this is not the case. Various illnesses have changed forms over the course of many generations, and others have entirely or almost entirely disappeared. On the other hand, new diseases have appeared which the ancients never knew. It should not surprise us, therefore, if the tzaraat described by the Torah no longer exists. If this is the case, then we cannot pose any definitive theory as to the nature of this illness, given the fact that the Torah deals not with the essence of tzaraat, but rather with its diagnosis. It is therefore difficult to speculate as to why the Torah singled out tzaraat from among all other disorders as a source of a stringent form of tuma that falls upon the patient, to the point where he must leave all three camps and sit alone like a mourner outside the camp. Nevertheless, we cannot exempt ourselves from attempting to explain what we can, based on what we know of tzaraat from the Tanakh itself and even from other sources. D. PREVENTATIVE MEDICINE? Various commentators, both traditional and modern, assumed that tzaraat was a dangerous, contagious disease, and on this basis they explained the laws of tuma and isolation associated with tzaraat as a means to protect society from infection. We will not elaborate on this position, but merely point out that many commentators adopted it. The problem with this assumption (namely, that tzaraat is a dangerous, contagious disease) is that it has absolutely no support from the text, neither in our parashiyot nor elsewhere in Tanakh where we find mention of tzaraat. Nowhere do we read in Tanakh of a person dying from tzaraat or even of the possibility of such an occurrence. Particularly enlightening is the story of Naaman in Melakhim II (chapter 5). The story begins by describing him as commander of the army of the king of Aram a great warrior, a metzora. Despite his tzaraat, he functions as an active military commander, who fights and travels with his entourage over vast distances, and his master, the king of Aram, leans on his arm during religious ceremonies (ibid., verse 18). Still, his illness causes him distress and he tries to have it cured. It thus seems that Naaman saw his tzaraat as a nuisance, or perhaps an aesthetic-social defect, but it did not disrupt his day-to-day functioning. Nor do we find any indication of a concern that his disease would spread; in fact, the king of Aram would lean on
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the arm of his commander the metzora, without any fear of the effects of this physical contact. The cessation of Uziyahus functioning as king of Judah as a result of his tzaraat, and his taking residence in isolated quarters from that point until his death (Melakhim II 15:5; Divrei Hayamim II 26:19-21), are due not to medical reasons, but rather to religious reasons the mitzva forbidding a metzora from living in his home and town. Similarly, the four metzoraim who resided outside the city of Shomron (Melakhim II 7:34) thereby fulfilled the Torahs command that the metzora shall leave the camp. In the Land of Israel, this requirement translates into the metzoras departure outside walled cities. They do, indeed, fear for their lives - not because of their illness, but rather because of the famine and the army of Aram. They, too, are described as perfectly functional (ibid., verses 8-10), and even make a point of hiding gold and silver for safekeeping for the future. In opposing this approach viewing tumat tzaraat as preventative medicine, later commentators advanced different claims. Shadal (R. Shemuel David Luzzato), in his commentary to chapter 12, claims: Many thought that the shunning of the metzora is because of the illness which is transmitted through contact. It appears to me that if the Torah feared the spreading of the illness, there are other contagious illnesses for which the Torah prescribed no [precautionary] measures - and how did it not command anything concerning these plagues? In the appendix to his commentary to Parashat Tazria, Rav S.R. Hirsch discusses this question at length. Here is a selection from his discussion: No part of Gods Torah can serve, as much as this chapter on negaim [tzaraat infections], to show the absolute folly of the erroneous idea of the tendency of the Laws of Moshe to be rules and regulations to be enforced for health and sanitary purposes Real leprosy, shechin, in itself is not metamei [meaning, it does not transmit tuma] at all, and the evil leprosy, the incurable Egyptian leprosy (Devarim 28:27,35) does not bring any state of tuma The outbreak of tzaraat over the whole of the body, from his head until his feet (verses 12-13), brings tahara - which the health theorists take to be a sign that a violent acute attack which covers the whole body indicates a prompt immediate healing, and yet the shechin of Egypt, the very worst type of case, from which you cannot be cured, which has no cure, is described as being from the bottom yofoot until your skull. It is impossible to think that this chapter deals with sanitary or prophylactic measures against disease, or that we have to regard our kohanim - regarding whom, in any case, no trace of any reference to remedial measures can be found in the whole chapter - as functioning in the health or medical care of the people. In his work, Toledot Ha-emuna Ha-Yisraelit (1:548-551), Prof. Yechezkel Kaufmann distinguishes between the measures of purification prevalent in the pagan world and those commanded by the Torah: The acts of purification from tuma in the Scriptural doctrine do not come to ward off harm or illness They have no moment of battle against the evil
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emanating from the source of impurity, nor are they means of battling physical harm at all. And especially, these means of purification do not come to cure an illness. We see this clearly from the methods of purification related to illness: the purification of the childbearing woman, the metzora and the zav, as well as the infected house. In all these instances the purification comes after the cure of the illness The metzora undergoes purification only after the infection is cured (14:3) We purify the infected house, too, only after the infection is cured (14:48) The kohen deals with the metzora even during his period of illness, but this treatment does not entail any medical activity The distinction between the illness and the tuma extends to such a point [that] specifically tzaraat that spreads throughout all of ones skin is pure (13:12-13). I will continue the discussion of this question in next weeks shiur.

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PARASHAT METZORA The Reasons Behind Tzaraat and Other Forms of Tuma (continued from last weeks shiur on Tazria) CHAZALS VIEW: PUNISHMENT Throughout the Talmud and Midrashim, Chazal view tzaraat as a punishment for various transgressions involving interpersonal misconduct, particularly the sin of lashon ha-ra (slander/gossip). Several passages to this effect appear in Masekhet Arakhin (15-16), after the mishna that outlines the laws of the motzi shem ra (slanderer). We cite here several passages relevant to our discussion: Rabbi Yossi Ben Zimra said: Whoever speaks lashon ha-ra - tzaraat infections come upon him Reish Lakish said: This shall be the ritual for a metzora - this shall be the ritual for the motzi shem ra. Rav Shemuel bar Nachmani said in the name of Rabbi Yochanan: Tzaraat comes on account of seven things: 1) lashon ha-ra; 2) murder; 3) false oaths; 4) immorality; 5) arrogance; 6) theft; 7) stinginess. The final passage continues by citing Scriptural proofs for each sin mentioned. Indeed, several events in Tanakh prove that tzaraat served as a divine punishment for various forms of wrongdoing. Miriam is stricken with tzaraat for speaking against Moshe (Bemidbar 12); Geichazi is punished for his greed and false oath to Elisha (Melakhim II 5); Uziyahu is punished with tzaraat for offering incense in the Temple in defiance of the kohanim (Divrei Ha-yamim II 26:16-21). Chazals outlook on tzaraat as a punishment parallels their perspective on other forms of disaster that befall an individual or community as a punishment for a certain transgression or several transgressions. Let us take as an example the mishna in Avot (5:9): Wild animals come to the world on account of false oaths and desecration of the Name. Exile comes to the world on account of idol worshippers, immorality, murder and [failing to] let the land lie fallow. We find many similar statements regarding the individual, as well. This outlook, then, does not answer the question I posed in last weeks shiur: what is the reason behind the laws of tuma (impurity) of a metzora? As Rav David Zvi Hoffmann notes in his commentary on Sefer Vaykira (p. 220): In truth, if every affliction serves as a punishment for a sin, then why should the affliction of tzaraat not also come as a punishment for certain sins? However, just as, on the other hand, there are extraordinary cases where tragedies befall people without any possible way of seeing them as the result of sins, so too instances of tzaraat can occur in extraordinary fashion. Indeed,
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our Sages taught (Berakhot 5b) that there are cases where tzaraat befalls a person as afflictions of love. Moreover, it is difficult to understand why specifically tzaraat generates tuma, whereas other diseases, which also generally come as a punishment for sins, do not generate tuma. Thus, Chazals view of tzaraat - a disease like any other - as a punishment for certain sins does not explain the reason for the tuma of tzaraat. However, the Rambam and later writers (Ramban, Seforno to 13:47) explain that the tzaraat of houses and clothing are not natural disasters, but rather deviations from the natural order, an overt miracle intended as a signal to the individual. According to this approach, we cannot isolate the question regarding tumat tzaraat from the question concerning its very nature. One answer resolves both issues: the very appearance of tzaraat and all its regulations serves as a warning to a person to repent. Rambam writes: This discoloration mentioned with regard to clothing and homes, which the Torah called tzaraat, a name that it shares [with the physical disease tzaraat], is not a natural phenomenon; rather, it was a sign and wonder in Israel in order to warn them against lashon ha-ra, evil speech. One who spoke lashon ha-ra - the walls of his home became discolored. If he repented - the home became pure. If he continued his wrongdoing to the point where the home was dismantled, the leather linens in his home, on which he sits and lies, become discolored. If he repented - they became pure. If he continued his wrongdoing to the point where they were burned, the clothing he wears become discolored. If he repented - they became pure. If he continued his wrongdoing to the point where they were burned, his skin becomes discolored and he contracts tzaraat, and he is separated and publicly isolated, until he no longer engages in the sinful speech of frivolity and lashon ha-ra. The Torah warns against all this and says (Devarim 24:8-9), In cases of skin affection, be most careful Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam on the journey. This means to say: contemplate what happened to Miriam the prophetess who spoke against her brother and was punished with tzaraat; all the more so, then, [will this occur] to the wicked, foolish people who often speak high and lofty. (Hilkhot Tumat Tzaraat 16:10) A partial source for this description of the gradual progression of calamities that befalls the person is found in the Midrash (Vayikra Rabba 17:4). However, neither this midrash nor other sources dealing with the tzaraat of the home and garment provide any basis for the Rambams view of these phenomena as supernatural, a sign and wonder in Israel. It appears that Chazal made no distinction between bodily tzaraat and that which affected houses and clothing. All these forms of tzaraat are seen as natural calamities which serve to reprimand the individual for the sin of lashon ha-ra and other violations concerning interpersonal conduct. Therefore, the sources in Chazal relevant to our question are specifically those which explain the laws of tuma and the tahara (purification) process prescribed for the metzora, rather than the disease itself. Sure enough, several passages in Chazal explain the tuma and tahara of a metzora, too, within the context of the sinners punishment and process of teshuva. We bring here two adjacent passages from Masekhet Arakhin (16b): Why is the metzora different, that the Torah writes, He shall dwell in isolation; outside the camp shall be he residence? He caused a separation between husband and wife, between a man and his fellow [Rashi: for tzaraat comes on
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account of lashon ha-ra], and the Torah therefore writes, He shall dwell in isolation Why is the metzora different, that the Torah writes that he must bring two birds for his purification? The Almighty says: He committed an act of patit [Rashi: a voice sounded quietly], and so the Torah says that he must bring a sacrifice of a patit [Rashi: because birds chirp at all times]. A passage similar to the second citation appears in the Midrash Tanchuma (Metzora, 3): Why is the metzoras offering different from other offerings? Since he spoke lashon ha-ra, the Torah therefore prescribes for him an offering of two birds, which produce ongoing sounds. And a cedar wood - there is none higher than the cedar tree. Since he raised himself like a cedar, tzaraat befell him, as Rabbi Shimon Ben Elazar said: Tzaraat comes on account of arrogance Why hyssop? There is no tree lower than the hyssop. Since he brought himself down, he is therefore cured through a hyssop. Why does he slaughter one bird and send the other away? [Etz Yosef: Why does he not slaughter both? In every other instance where one brings two birds, both are slaughtered.] Because if he repents, he will not have a recurrence of tzaraat [just as the sent-away bird never returns]. Among the later commentators, Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch, in his appendix to Parashat Tazria, adopts Chazals approach and tries to explain on this basis the minute details of the laws found in both the Chumash and oral tradition. Two points must be made concerning Chazals approach to tzaraat and its laws.

1. Throughout the tzaraat section in Sefer Vayikra (chapters 13-14), the ltext of the
Torah makes no mention ofethical background to the arrival of tzaraat or its cure. We find not even an allusion to any sin preceding the onset of tzaraat, nor do we read of any instruction that the metzora pray or repent during his period of isolation outside the camp. The Torah never hinges the cure from tzaraat on the patients conduct or awareness. 2. In these passages, Chazal explain the special laws pertaining to a metzora both during his period of tuma (which marks the only form of tuma requiring solitary confinement) as well as over the course of his purification (only he, among all impure people seeking purification, must bring two birds, a cedar and a hyssop). Nevertheless, we cannot isolate the laws of tumat tzaraat from all other laws of tuma in the Torah. We need a general explanation for all these laws - those in Parshiyot Tazria-Metzora, those in Parashat Shemini (the tuma of animal carcasses), and those in Parashat Chukkat (the tuma of a deceased human being). Only on the basis of their common denominator can we proceed to explain the laws of the metzora - even those unique to this form of tuma. The ethical reason Chazal give for tumat tzaraat does not provide an explanation for the vast majority of other tumot (with the exception, perhaps, of the tuma of zavim, who might indeed have contracted an illness as punishment). After all, one who touches the carcass of a rodent or the remains of a human being has committed no sin; likewise, a menstruating woman is not a sinner. Why, then, did the Torah decree a status of tuma upon them? Conversely, why do we not find any status of tuma decreed upon people suffering from any other illness besides tzaraat?
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RAV HOFFMANN: EDUCATIONAL SYMBOLS In his commentary to Sefer Vayikra (pp. 219-223), Rav David Zvi Hoffmann attempts to explain the reason behind all forms of tuma as an integrated group. He makes a slight but critical change in Chazals view: Tzaraat does not generate tuma because it results from the sin [for this is not always the case; other illnesses also result from various sins but do not generate tuma]. Rather, tzaraat generates tuma because the outward appearance of the disease is the symbolic image of the sinner. (p. 220) In other words, tzaraat and the laws of tuma related to it are not a punishment, but rather a symbolic system. Tzaraat serves as a symbol of a certain type of wrongdoing. The tuma is intended to establish the appropriate attitude towards these sins, whereas the tahara process symbolizes the process of ridding oneself of these spiritual ills. Through this slight deviation, Rav Hoffmann transforms tzaraat and its laws from an ethical expression of reward and punishment to an educational, symbolic system expressing the proper attitude towards sin and repentance. This allows him to expand upon this theory and apply it to all types of tuma: In general, every tuma symbolizes sin. By distancing themselves from the symbol of sin and carefully ensuring its distance from the Temple and everything sacred, Israel remembers at all times its ultimate destiny. The observance of the laws of tahara brings one to purity of thought and action. Now let us see how Rav Hoffmann applies this symbolic outlook to other forms of tuma: When we consider the phenomena that serve as a source of tuma, we find three categories of tuma:

1. the tuma resulting from the death of human beings and animals - human
corpses, animal carcasses;

2. tumot resulting from bodily emissions, which we may perhaps refer to as

sexual tumot: baal keri, zav, zava (various forms of emissions), menstruation, and the childbearing woman; 3. the tumot of negaim (i.e. forms of tzaraat). All the temeiim (impure people) must leave certain regions. The first category of temeiim leave only the Temple grounds, meaning, the camp of the Shekhina. Those in the second group leave even the second camp, meaning, the camp of the Levites who are near the Lord. Those in the third category are expelled even from the camp of Israel, meaning, from the camp of the nation of God. If we also recall that the sin that causes the Shekhinas departure from among Israel is also referred to by the title tuma, and that the annual atonement ritual on Yom Ha-Kippurim serves to atone for the Temple, which dwells among the impurities of Benei Yisrael (Vayikra 16:16), it will become clear to us that the various types of tuma symbolize the various sins, which God despises to a lesser or greater extent, and that they must remain at a distance from the sacred territory.
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We therefore cannot be mistaken if we list the three types of tuma according to the three categories of transgressions: 1. transgressions against God; 2. transgressions against the individual himself; 3. transgressions against ones fellow or against society. With regard to the first category of sins and tumot a person is meant to serve God, to cling to Him, to love Him and obey His word. The punishment for betraying God is death One who touches a corpse may not enter the camp of God that exists eternally, for he has become a symbol of the betrayal of God And so the purity laws of the first category remind us of the mitzvot towards God, the fulfillment of which brings us closer to that which exists and lives forever With regard to the second category of sins and tumot Am Yisrael is obligated to be a sacred nation distant and apart from sensual desires and striving towards elevation We may view the tumot of the second category as symbols reminding us of the opposite of this sanctity One who descended to this level [of a life of desires and frivolity] must stay away not only from the camp of the Shekhina, but also from the camp of those near to God, who yearn to resemble Him Finally, regarding the third category of sins, which tumat tzaraat parallels, the tzaraat infection symbolizes transgressions between man and his fellow [Tzaraat] serves as an example of those sins which appear on the surface of the country that has been stricken with them and which gradually destroy its entire social structure The person afflicted must therefore distance himself from societal life and dwell in isolation outside the camp The appearance of negaim reminiscent of sins might occur on garments and homes, as well. Clothing symbolizes the persons character, and the home symbolizes his possessions. Negaim on a garment or home allude to and symbolize the corruption of ones character and the illegality of his possessions, requiring their removal from societal life. Later, Rav Hoffmann explains the details of the tahara laws on the basis of this symbolic system. The shortcoming of this approach, however, is that this explanation does not flow at all from the verses anywhere throughout the Torahs discussion of tuma and tahara. Not only are the details of his approach not to be found, but in addition, and primarily, the basic precept upon which his entire explanations stands - the perspective of these laws as part of a symbolic system - has no basis in the text. According to Rav Hoffmann, the laws of tuma and the process of purification all constitute symbols within a single system. But what objective indication can we bring to this far-reaching approach? Rav Hoffmann sensed this problem and tried to base his explanation on the comparison frequently made in Tanakh between sin and tuma: We find clear proof to the fact that tuma is but a symbol of sin from the use made by the prophets while speaking of the purification from sin of the same expressions employed by the Torah to express purification from tuma: Wash yourselves clean (Yeshayahu 1:16); I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your impurities (Yechezkel 36:25); Purge me with hyssop until I am pure (Tehillim 51:9). These expressions prove as clearly as
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possible that the prophets viewed tuma as symbolic of sin, and purification from tuma as symbolic of purification from sin. I believe this proof is far from clear. The verses cited by Rav Hoffmann (and other similar v) do not compare tuma to sin (as Rav Hoffmann does), but rather compare sin to tuma. Fsliving in the Biblical period, tuma was not an abstract, theoretical concept difficult to comprehend, as it has become for modern commentators. Situations of tuma and purification played an important role in day-to-day life. A persons life swayed constantly along the pendulum between tuma and tahara. By contrast, sin and its contaminating effect on the person, and the need to repent, were less clear to the people of the time. The prophets and poets of Tanakh therefore likened the abstract, ethical-religious world of sin and repentance to the more tangible world of tuma and tahara. Obviously, this comparison is based on the properties shared by the two realms. Tuma is a situation of distance from the Temple and its service, and thus translates into a concrete, practical dissociation between man and God. The prophets came along and taught that sin, too, cannot be reconciled with the Temple service, and it, too, detaches one from God. Tuma requires a process of purification; similarly, sin requires a process of teshuva. Complete purification yields the restoration of the previous relationship between man and God - as does teshuva. None of these parallels, however, proves that tuma serves as a symbol of sin. To the contrary, it requires no symbolic explanation.

RABBI YEHUDA HALEVI: DEATH AS THE SOURCE OF TUMA We find an attempt at a general approach to all forms of tuma already in Rabbi Yehuda Halevis Sefer Ha-Kuzari (2:58-62). The rabbi who is talking to the king of the Khazars prides himself on Gods closeness to, and constant providence over, Israel, as expressed, among other ways, through the appearance of tzaraat infections on their homes and bodies. The king then asks the rabbi for more convincing proof which brings the matter closer to the mind. The rabbi replies: I have already told you that our intellects are not comparable to that of the Divinity, and it is proper not to make any attempt to find a reason for these lofty concepts or anything similar to them. But after I ask for forgiveness and disclaim that this is surely the reason, I will say that tzaraat and abnormal discharges are related to the spiritual impurity related to death. Death is the absolute spiritual deficiency, and a limb afflicted with tzaraat is like a corpse in this respect. Similarly, an abnormal discharge also represents death, in that the discharged material had a certain life-force, which gave it the ability to become an embryo that would eventually develop into a human being. The loss of this material, then, is in opposition to the property of life and the spirit of life. Because this spiritual deficiency is very ethereal, it can be detected only by people with refined spirits and significant souls, who strive to attach themselves to Divinity Most of us feel different when we come close to the dead or to a cemetery, and our spirits become confused for a while when we enter a house where a dead person has been. Only one whose nature is coarse will not be able to detect any of this.
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To this the king responds: This suffices to explain that which was intellectually difficult to understand, why this excess bodily mass - namely, seminal discharges - can impart spiritual impurity, despite the fact that semen can create life, whereas urine and feces do not impart impurity, despite their disgusting odor and appearance and their more abundant amounts. Rabbi Yehuda Halevi thus transforms the tuma resulting from death into the central hinge around which all forms of tuma revolve, to one extent or other. All situations which bring about tuma somehow resemble death, and tuma itself constitutes the halakhic manifestation of the impression made upon man by this encounter with death. The corpse and carcass bring tuma upon the living person who encounters them, and this tuma expresses the confusion and change experienced by a person as a result of this encounter. Bodily emissions and tzaraat are all forms of partial death - in large or small measure within a persons body, and they therefore result in a partial encounter with death itself, expressed through tuma. There is room to expand on the notion of death as the source of tuma and an explanation for all its manifestations. Here I will merely raise two points concerning Rabbi Yehuda Halevis notion:

1. Regarding tzaraat, Rabbi Yehuda Halevi writes that a limb afflicted with tzaraat is
like a corpse. Chazal (Nedarim 64b) go even further, claiming that a metzora is considered dead. In that same context, however, they say that the poor, the blind, and the childless are also considered as those who are dead - and these obviously do not contract tuma. The question that has arisen several times in our discussion thus returns: why does no other disease, including terminal ones, generate tuma? The concept of tuma as partial death is derived from Aharons remarks after his sister Miriam was stricken with tzaraat: Let her not be as one dead, who emerges from his mothers womb with half his flesh eaten away (Bemidbar 12:12). It seems from this verse that it is not the threat of death posed by tzaraat (and it is doubtful that such a threat ever existed) that gives rise to this resemblance to death, but rather its external appearance, as though the victims flesh is eaten. The tuma of tzaraat thus evolves specifically from the visual association or aesthetic repulsiveness of this disease. The metzora appeared to both himself and those around him as a walking half-corpse.

2. Two forms of tuma in the Torah appear to negate Rabbi Yehuda Halevis theory: that
of the childbearing woman, and the tuma brought on by normal sexual relations (15:18). Both these contexts involve specifically the creation of new life - the direct opposite of the phenomenon which, according to Rabbi Yehuda Halevi, is responsible for the onset of tuma in general. It is clear that the two tumot just mentioned also lie along the axis between life and death. Apparently, only that which somehow connects to life and death generates tuma: the corpse and half-corpse on the one hand, and the womans blood and mans seed, on the other. Perhaps the answer to this question is that, though indeed the processes of conception and childbirth create new life, nevertheless, the creators of this new life - the father who fertilizes the egg and the mother who gestates the child - are emptied of some of their life57

force during the respective events of insemination and birth. This loss of life-force constitutes a form of partial death, which gives rise to a new, different life. This is particularly evident in the case of childbirth. For nine months, new life develops within the mother, and now, at the moment of birth, she loses it. The baby begins an independent life, while the mother loses a life that had been part of her. Therefore, the mother becomes tamei as a result of childbirth, whereas the child, who has now received new, independent life, is tahor.

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PARASHAT METZORA - SHABBAT HA-GADOL Haftora for Shabbat HaGadol (Malakhi 3:4-24) Behold, I will send you Eliyahu the prophet... A. Shabbat Ha-Gadol (the great shabbat) We all think of Shabbat HaGadol the Shabbat preceding Pesach as the continuation of the four shabbatot when we read the four special parashiot; we regard it almost as the fifth shabbat. But in truth there is a very great difference between them. The reading of the four parashiot is an ancient custom, set down in the Mishna in Megilla, and discussed at length in the Gemara. The customs pertaining to Shabbat HaGadol, in contrast even the very existence of such a special shabbat by this name are mentioned nowhere in the Mishna or the Talmud. The custom seems to have originated in Germany during the Middle Ages, and from there it spread throughout the Jewish world. It is only since the time of the early commentators that the customs of this special shabbat have been discussed, together with its special name. The early commentators themselves questioned the reason for the name given to this shabbat. People customarily call the shabbat that precedes Pesach Shabbat HaGadol (the great shabbat), BUT THEY DO NOT KNOW WHY it is greater than any other shabbat of the year. (Sefer Ha-Orah). Since that period until today there have been unceasing efforts to find the reason for this name. The Maharshal suggests that the name for the shabbat is related to the haftara that is read, beginning with the words (Malakhi 3:4), And the offering of Yehuda and Jerusalem will be sweet to Hashem, and concluding: Behold, I will send you Eliyahu the prophet before the coming of the GREAT AND AWESOME DAY OF HASHEM. B. The haftara of The offering... shall be sweet to Hashem The reading of the special haftara is indeed the most obvious custom relating to this shabbat in the prayer service, and therefore it is logical that some connection exists between the name of the shabbat and the final pasuk of the haftara. However, just as the name of the shabbat is mentioned only from the time of the early commentators, who were perplexed by it, the custom of reading this special haftara also dates back to the same time and causes no less confusion. Various reasons have been suggested for the reading of this haftara, and accordingly different customs have developed. The most widespread custom today among most communities is to read this haftara every year on Shabbat HaGadol. But there are some communities where it is read only when Shabbat HaGadol falls on erev Pesach, and others where precisely the opposite custom is observed and it is read on Shabbat HaGadol only if it does NOT fall on erev Pesach. There is also a custom according to which this haftara is not read at all. But the very choice of this haftara itself is problematic - a haftara, by definition, is related to and complements the weekly Torah reading or the special maftir for special occasions. But on Shabbat HaGadol there is no special reading (maftir) from the Torah. Why, then, is the regular haftara that accompanies the weekly parasha for this week set aside in favor of a haftara that has no connection with the parasha?

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If the haftara of ve-arvah hinted in some way at Pesach then we could regard its reading as a sort of declaration and preparation for the forthcoming festival. It could then be compared to the haftara read on the shabbat that falls on erev rosh chodesh, when we read (Shmuel I 20:18), And Yehonatan said to him, Tomorrow is the new month.... This is the only haftara set down in the Talmud that is unrelated to the Torah reading that precedes it. In this unique instance the haftara serves as a declaration that tomorrow is the new month. But the haftara of Shabbat HaGadol contains no such hint at the festival of Pesach. Mystery surrounds the custom of reading this haftara on this shabbat, a custom that perhaps gave the shabbat its name of Shabbat HaGadol. Many learned scholars have sought the key to this mystery throughout the generations, but no clear and satisfying solution was raised until Dr. Yosef Ofer proposed his answer in his article, The Haftora of Shabbat Ha-Gadol. C. The haftarot according to the custom of Eretz Yisrael The custom of those who lived in Eretz Yisrael in ancient times was to read the Torah over a period of three-and-a-half years. This custom divided the Torah into 157 sedarim, and correspondingly there were 157 haftarot three times the number that are read today. With time the ancient custom of Eretz Yisrael was forgotten, and it only began to be recalled by individual scholars during the past few generations. The research of this custom was made possible in the wake of the large volume of material discovered in the Cairo Geniza, part of which reflects the custom of Eretz Yisrael from the period when it was still practiced. In 1989 Dr. Yosef Ofer published a full and updated list of all the haftarot that were read according to the three-and-a-half year custom (except for two). It would seem logical to expect to find a considerable degree of overlap between some of the haftarot from the threeyear cycle and those of the one-year cycle, but almost no such overlap exists. The reason for this is that the two customs used different systems for selecting a haftara to accompany the parasha. Dr. Ofer writes the following concerning the three-year system: The first pasuk of the haftara includes a sort of gezera shava (inference by analogy) to the first (or second) pasuk of the portion read from the Torah. This usually meant two or three words common to both, and sometimes also some common content. D. The haftara of Shabbat HaGadol Dr. Ofer points out that the haftara of ve-arvah (And the OFFERING [MINCHA] OF Yehuda and Jerusalem will be sweet) which we read on Shabbat HaGadol was the haftara for the seder beginning This is the sacrifice of Aharon and his sons... a tenth of an efah of fine flour for a PERPETUAL MEAL OFFERING (mincha tamid) (Vayikra 6:12-13). There are therefore two possible haftarot for parashat Tzav: the original one-year haftara, Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices (Yirmiyahu 7:21), or the haftara of ve-arvah, whose source is to be found in the three-year cycle. There is an echo of the battle between these two haftarot in the words of the Ohr Zarua (part 2, Laws of Readings for Festivals and Haftarot, siman 393): It is written in the responsa, Why was (the haftara of) Your burnt offerings... cancelled in favor of ve-arvah? Because the conclusion of ve-arvah speaks of the great and awesome day of judgment; therefore the custom was to read the haftara of ve-arvah.

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The writer of the responsum, Rabbi Menachem, noted the conflict between the two traditions. One one hand he recounts the custom of his fathers to read as the haftara ve-arvah. On the other hand he lives in a reality where the haftara read on this Shabbat is always Your burnt offerings..., as instructed by those who arrange the order of the haftarot. The book brought from Babylon also mentions both customs with regard to the haftara for parashat Tzav. Rabbi Menachem suggests a compromise between these two customs, delineating separate occasions for each of them. But what exactly is the compromise? Here his response is somewhat opaque. At first it sounds as though the haftara of ve-arvah should be read only when erev Pesach falls on Shabbat. This is also the impression we get from what he says at the end, to the effect that the haftara of Your burnt offerings is the usual haftara, and there is an echo of this idea in other halakhic sources as well. But later on he says something different: If parashat Tzav falls on Shabbat HaGadol then the haftara is ve-arvah, while if parashat Tzav does not fall on Shabbat HaGadol then the haftara is Your burnt offerings. Attention should be paid to the fact that at firsno mention was made of Shabbat HaGadol: the controversy concerned only the question of the proper haftara for parashat Tzav. And even when the suggestion was made that the haftara be dependent on the timing of Shabbat HaGadol, the discussion concerned only parashat Tzav. If Shabbat HaGadol fell on a shabbat when some other parasha was read, there was no special haftara. The process of the development of the haftara through all its stages now becomes entirely clear: at first there was a one-year haftara for parashat Tzav (Your burnt offerings) and a three-year haftara for the seder of this is the sacrifice of Aharon (ve-arvah). When the one-year cycle took over these two haftarot were left jostling for the same position. Certain customs created a compromise between them, reading ve-arvah only in some years: either only in regular years, when parashat Tzav was read on the Shabbat before Pesach, or only when erev Pesach fell on Shabbat. Ultimately (at a time later than the Ohr Zarua and therefore not reflected in his words) the haftara was completely disconnected from parashat Tzav and became the permanent haftara for Shabbat HaGadol even when this involved some other parasha. It is possible, of course, that certain factors influenced and encouraged this process. Firstly, the content of the haftara Your burnt offerings is harsh; it is a prophecy that speaks entirely of punishment for Israel. The responsum quoted above reflects this idea where Rabbi Menachem attempts to explain why this harsh haftara cannot be read on erev Pesach, dampening the spirits of Israel who have made their pilgrimage. A second factor influencing the acceptance of the haftara of ve-arvah was the consolidation of the tradition of Shabbat HaGadol, when the laws pertaining to Pesach are traditionally taught. The connection with the great (gadol) and awesome day of Hashem mentioned in the haftara, even if noted only post facto and not explicitly mentioned, also assisted in the spread of the custom of this haftara and its eventual prevalence. A custom, particularly when its original reason has been lost over many generations, assumes a life of its own. According to Dr. Ofers explanation, there is no reason to read the haftara of ve-arvah in a leap year, such as this year, since this haftara is no more than an alternative haftara for parashat Tzav, while on Shabbat this week we read parashat Metzora. What connection exists between our parasha and the haftara of ve-arvah? Indeed, in a different responsum that appears later on in the Ohr Zarua we read:

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It is further written in the responsa, In a leap year Shabbat HaGadol falls on (the shabbat where the parasha is) This shall be (the law of the metzora), and our Sages selected as the haftara four men (Melakhim II 7:3). But the power of custom is such that it spreads and expands through the course of the generations, even without any connection with its original reason, and even contrary to the custom practiced in the early generations when it was originally established. Post facto there is a tendency to relate the custom of reading ve-arvah on Shabbat HaGadol with the approaching festival of Pesach. Such a connection may be found in the mysterious appearance of Eliyahu the prophet, both at the conclusion of the haftara and on the Seder night in the relatively new custom practiced in some Jewish communities of placing a cup for Eliyahu upon the Seder table. E. Appearances in Tanakh after death Let us now examine the three final pesukim of the haftara for Shabbat HaGadol. (Malakhi 3:22) Remember the Torhah of Moshe My servant, which I commanded him at Chorev for all of Israel; the statutes and the judgments. (23) Behold, I shall send to you Eliyahu the prophet, before the coming of the great and awesome day of Hashem. (24) And he will return the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their father, lest I come and strike the land with a curse. These are the final pesukim of prophecy in the Tanakh. They conclude the period of the prophets, belonging as they do to the last of the prophets, Malakhi. They are even located at the end of all the books of prophecy, at the end of the twelve (minor) prophets. The Malbim explains the connection between pasuk 22 Remember the Torah of Moshe, My servant - and the two pesukim that follow it, thus: Concerning these words with which the prophet concludes, and this is the final prophecy, after which there will be no other prophet or seer until the end of days - he is telling them that from now onwards they should not expect to attain Gods word through prophecy; they should just remember the Torah of Moshe, to do all that is written therein, and it will tell them what they should do. Behold I will send until just before the coming of the great day of Hashem, when prophecy will come back to them, with the greatest of the prophets Eliyahu who will reveal himself at that time. This is not the only place in Tanakh where a figure who lived and died comes back and reappears from time to time. We find that Yirmiyahu prophecises: (Yirmiyahu 31:14) So says Hashem, A voice is heard in Ramah, it is the bitter crying; Rachel is crying for her children, refusing to be comforted for her children for they are gone.

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This, however, is most likely not a reference to the REAL Rachel. The Malbim comments: THE IMAGERY is of Rachel, mother of her sons, crying aloud over the fact that both her sons have been exiled.... Likewise there are other places, in the words of several of the prophets, where Davids name appears in the context of the time of the final redemption: (Hoshea 3:5) After Bnei Yisrael will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king... (Yehezkel 37:24) And My servant David will be king over them, and there will be one shepherd for them all... Here, again, it is clear that the prophets are referring not to David himself, but rather to one of his descendants, a sprout from the branch of Yishai whose name we do not know and therefore he is called after his early ancestor, the founder of the Davidic dynasty. In contrast, in the pasuk in Malakhi in which Eliyahus name appears the reference is neither a metaphor nor a literary image. Nor is Eliyahu the founder of a dynasty, such that his name could refer to someone who follows after him. Here the text speaks of an actual appearance of Eliyahu himself and of the specific mission with which he will be entrusted. And although this mission is related to the end of days, it nevertheless falls within the reality of human history, and it is a clear mission: He will return the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their father. What is the meaning of this appearance of Eliyahu prior to the great day of Hashem? And was Eliyahu not gathered up in a great storm to heaven, at the end of his life? D. Did Eliyahu die or did he not? This question forces us to go back to the description of Eliyahus ascent to heaven in Melakhim II, 2:

1. And it happened when Hashem took up Eliyahu to the heaven by a storm...

(3)...Do you know that today Hashem will take up your master from above you? (5) ...Do you know that today Hashem will take up your master from above you? (9) ...What shall I do for you before I am taken from you? (10)... If you see me as I am taken from you, it shall be so. (11)... Behold, there was a chariot of fire and horses of fire, and they parted the two from each other, and Eliyahu rose in a storm towards the heaven. What is the point of this description of Eliyahus ascent in a storm towards heaven, a description so different from the end of any other persons life in Tanakh? Is Eliyahus ascent, mentioned twice in the text, and his being taken up, mentioned four times, simply a euphemism for his death, or are they specifically meant to describe exactly the opposite: that Eliyahu did not die?

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If we wish to remain true to the text, we must admit that the text describes Eliyahus PHYSICAL ascent to heaven: Elisha watches him ascend until he disappears and saw him no more. The onlymaterial thing that remains after Eliyahus ascent is the robe that had fallen from him meaning that Eliyahu ascended bodily, with all his clothes, except for the robe that fell. The children of the prophets, who sought Eliyahu for three days around the area where he disappeared from them, did not find him (pesukim 16-17). But if this is so, and if Eliyahus ascent to the heaven is meant to express his transition from this world of ours to what lies beyond it, to the world of the Divine, then we are faced with a difficult and fundamental problem: R. Yosi said, The Shekhina never came down, and Moshe and Eliyahu did not ascend to heaven. As it is written (Tehillim 115:15), The heavens are Hashems heavens, and the earth He has given to man. (Sukka 5a) R. Yosi is pointing out the clear and unequivocal distinction between the mortal and the Divine: we cannot accept any possibility of confusion between these two spheres (his words were certainly directed against the various pagan mythologies, up to and including Christianity). The Gemara answers R. Yosi with pesukim that seem to contradict what he says, with an explanation for each problem:

Did the Shekhina not descend? It is written (Shmot 19:2), And Hashem descended upon Har Sinai.

To a height of more than ten tefachim.

And what about where it says (Zekharia 14:4), And His feet shall stand on that day upon Har Ha-Zeitim?

At a height of more than ten tefachim.

But did Moshe and Eliyahu not ascend to the heaven? It is written (Shmot 19:3), And Moshe ascended to the Lord.

(He ascended) less than ten (tefachim).

And (what about where) it is written, And Eliyahu ascended in a storm to the heaven?

Less than ten.

Ten tefachim is the definition of mans domain, and what is above ten tefachim falls in the sphere of the Divine. Although there is mutual contact between God and man, as is proved by those pesukim quoted in the Gemara as well as many others, such contact can never represent a blurring of the unequivocal distinction between the two spheres. Only when a persons soul is separated from his body, when it leaves the world that is under the sun less than ten tefachim, then: (Kohelet 12:7) The dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to the Lord Who gave it.
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How, then, are we to explain Eliyahus live and bodily ascent to heaven, in his mortal and material state? And how are we to understand the Talmudic explanation that this ascent was to less than ten tefachim? Let us compare the interpretations of two of the commentators: Radak and Ralbag. Ralbag opens his words with a formulation of the question: It is impossible for the meaning to be that He took him up to the heaven, for physical bodies do not ascend there! The Radak comments on this pasuk as follows: ... And a stormy wind took him up from the earth into the air; just as it lifts things that are light, so it lifted him by Gods will onto the wheel of fire, which burned his clothes except for the robe, and his flesh and his body, and his spirit returned to the Lord who gave it. Thus in the opinion of the Radak, Eliyahu died, and only his spirit returned to God. The uniqueness of the description of his death lies in the way in which he died a death that was different from any other mentioned in Tanakh. IN Eliyahus ascent in a storm to heaven there was a process of separation of body and soul. The soul ascended to heaven, while the body and its clothing were consumed. Thus nothing remained for burial. Thus only the second half of the pasuk which we quoted from Kohelet was fulfilled in Eliyahu, while the first half the dust will return to the earth as it was did not happen in this instance. In this way the Radak answers the difficult problem posed by our chapter.

Does the Radaks explanation match the language and spirit of our chapter? The Abarbanel criticizes his interpretation: Whether Eliyahu died or not, and where he is we have no way of establishing this through regular reasoning, but rather must rely on the tradition of our Sages and their teachings with regard to these pesukim. We find no mention in the text that Eliyahu is said to have died, as we are told concerning Moshe and all the other prophets, which shows that his body and spirit were not parted as is generally the case when people die by natural means. And if the commentators have said that it cannot be that mortal bodies cannot dwell among the heavenly bodies or above them... we cannot believe their words that his (Eliyahus) body and clothing were burned in that hot air, or in the element of fire that was upon him, and that (only) the spirit of the prophet was bound up in the bond of life with Hashem, like the other souls of the prophets and the righteous men of God (as explained by the Radak). For if this was so, the text would not expound on the way in which Eliyahu was taken up, and that he ascended in a storm. And why is the word death not mentioned there? Could we say that people who are burned do not die, as do those who are buried in the land? Let us now turn our attention to the interpretation of the Ralbag who, after presenting the problem (It is impossible for the meaning to be that He took him up to the heaven, for physical bodies do not ascend there!), solves it as follows: The reference is to the height of the air, as it is written (Devarim 9:1), Great cities, fortified (up to) the heaven, and (Bereishit 11:4), A tower, with the top
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(reaching to) the heaven. A wind from Hashem and His angels took him up to place as yet unknown, and he lives there, as we have explained. The Ralbag proves further that Eliyahu did not die in his commentary on pasuk 3: Today Hashem will take your master from above you we learn from this that he was taken up only from above him (above his head). And Eliyahu said to Elisha (pasuk 9), Before I am taken from you demonstrating that he was not taken away in the absolute sense; he was only taken from Elisha. In the view of the Ralbag, Eliyahu lives, physically, in an unknown place, and he waits there for the day when he will return and reveal himself once more. Is this place at the height of the air, or is it somewhere on earth? This is as yet unknown. The exegetical innovation here, by means of which he solves the problem that he raised at the beginning, is his explanation of the word to the heaven, indicating the place to which Eliyahu ascended. In his view the reference here is not to the Divine sphere, that which is above ten tefachim (as would be the reference in many other pesukim, including the one quoted by R. Yosi in the beraita: The heavens are Hashems heavens...), but rather to an elevated place in our own world, at the height of the air but still within the human sphere less than ten tefachim. He even brings proof of the fact that the Torah uses this word to indicate a great height that humans are able to attain in their human sphere. The Ralbags explanation fits in with the Sages comments in several places. It would seem that this is the intention of the Gemara quoted at the beginning of our discussion, that the meaning of the pasuk and Eliyahu ascended in a storm to the heaven is to less than ten tefachim. The Targum Yonatan on this pasuk (as well as on pasuk 11) also seems to match the Ralbags explanation: he translates the words to the heaven as towards the heaven. There are several other similar examples in the Talmud and in the midrashim. A sort of compromise between the two explanations that of the Radak and that of the Ralbag is suggested in a responsum of the Chatam Sofer: ... The truth demonstrates that Eliyahu never ascended bodily higher than ten tefachim. His soul separated from his body there (- i.e., in accordance with the Radak) and the soul ascended and performs Divine service above as one of the ministering angels, while his body thinned and remains in the lower Gan Eden, in this world. And on the day of Gods tidings, may it come speedily in our days, his soul will be clothed with this holy body, and he will be like any of the wise men and prophets of Israel.... g. Let us now return to the conclusion of Sefer Malakhi: It seems that we have proof as to the intention of the text in Sefer Melakhim: Eliyahu did not die. A mission still awaits him in the final days. The prophecy of Malakhi relates to the description of Eliyahus ascent in Sefer Melakhim, it interprets it and is interpreted by it. To these two sources we should obviously add the appearances of Eliyahu during the period of the Sages, as we find in dozens of different descriptions in the Talmud and the midrashim. This is a unique phenomenon that has no parallel in all of the literature of Chazal. The nature of Eliyahus revelation in this literature is very different from the nature of his actions in Sefer Melakhim: he is no longer the zealous prophet, aiming the arrows of his criticism against Israel. In his later appearances he acts as the savior of individuals from their troubles, as helping to bring appeasement between man and his fellow, but also as Israels
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great advocate before the Holy One. On the other hand, Eliyahus activity in the days of Chazal is still not a general preparation or Israels redemption, as his task is described in the prophecy of the end of days in Sefer Malakhi. Thus the revelations of Eliyahu to the Sages of Israel serve to fill the void of time between his ascent in a storm to heaven and his appearance at the end of days, and they also contain some element of preparation for the great change in the image and mission of the prophet. Let us conclude our study with the question posed by the scholar A. Kaminka: They are like two different faces, far removed from one another and with no relation between them: Eliyahu of the Tanakh and Eliyahu of the agadah. Eliyahu of the Tanakh is the angry prophet, the great zealous one... (but) already by the time of the ancient Mishna, at the end of the Second Temple period (he was described as) a sort of angel of God... ready to bring peace throughout the world. (After bringing some examples of Eliyahus appearances in the agadah, he once again asks) Are these really two different faces the zealous prophet of the Tanakh... and the merciful Eliyahu of the agadah, who is good and does good and mentions only the merits of Israel? We cannot say this, for even at the end of Malakhi we find a connection between these two images in the promise that Eliyahu will come to return the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their father. There can be no doubt that it is one single personality, the historical and the agadic. This change that occurs in this single personality of the great prophet will have to be addressed at a different opportunity.

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PARASHAT ACHAREI-MOT Forbidden Unions (Arayot) Vayikra 18 A. Structure of the parasha of arayot types of arayot The parasha of arayot covers the 30 pesukim of chapter 18. There is an introductory speech of 5 pesukim and a concluding warning consisting of 7 pesukim. These 12 pesukim point out to us the special significance and great severity of the laws of arayot included within this rhetorical framework. This is conveyed both by the content of these outline pesukim and their lofty style, as well as by the quantitative relationship between them and the laws themselves. Chapter 18 can be divided into two almost equal halves: A pesukim 1-16: Introductory speech (1-5), prohibitions of arayot that are of the same flesh (6-16). B pesukim 17-30: prohibitions of various arayot which are not of the same flesh (17-23), concluding speech (24-30). This structure highlights two principle types of arayot: the larger group (11 pesukim) is found in the first half (6-16). Since there is single reason for the prohibitions included in this group, it is preceded with a title: (6) No man shall approach anyone who is of his same flesh to uncover nakedness; I am Hashem. And from here the Torah proceeds to list all those women who are considered the same flesh i.e., close relatives of the man whom the parasha addresses in the second person. These relatives include some who are truly blood relatives, such as mother, sister and granddaughter, while others are the wives of blood relatives the wife of ones father who is not ones mother, the wife of ones brother, and ones daughter-in-law. In B. we find a smaller group of arayot (7 pesukim, 17-23). The common denominator here is the negative: these women are forbidden NOT because they are of the same flesh they are not close relatives of the man whom the parasha addresses (- but rather for some other reason). There is no heading since there are different types of prohibitions here with no single reason underlying them. The first sub-group (pesukim 17-18) includes arayot based on the blood relation to the WIFE of the man addressed by the parasha. Since the prohibitions of family relations apply here too, there is some stylistic similarity to the prohibitions of the first group. In pesukim 19-20, two independent prohibitions appear: the prohibition of the menstruant (nidda), and that of a woman who is married to someone else. In pasuk 21 we find a pasuk that stands out in its difference - And you shall not allow any of your seed to be passed to Molekh, and the group concludes with the prohibitions of relations that are unnatural: homosexuality and bestiality (pesukim 22-23). A discussion of the structure of the parasha and of the types of prohibitions included in it was necessary before we could address the reasons for arayot. It
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becomes apparent that we cannot speak of reasons for arayot in a general sense, for as we have seen, the various prohibitions differ from one another by their definition and by their position within the parasha; hence also by their reasons.

Most of the prohibitions included in this parasha are explained in the text itself, with reasons that follow immediately after the negative command (the significance of the reason must be properly understood, but we shall discuss that later). We may distinguish between the reasons that are repeated over and over in the prohibitions of the first group and those that appear in the second group: the reasons in the first group (found together with almost all of the prohibitions of that group) concern the actual family relationship that exists between the man addressed by the parasha and the women who are forbidden to him: (7) She is your mother; you shall not uncover her nakedness. (8) It is the nakedness of your father (10) For it is your own nakedness (11) She is your sister; you shall not uncover her nakedness (12) She is of your fathers flesh (13) She is of your mothers flesh (15) She is the wife of your son; you shall not uncover her nakedness (16) It is the nakedness of your brother. The reasons in the second group are different: in general they highlight the moral repulsiveness of trespassing on these prohibitions, at times in technical terms that are not entirely clear to us: (17) they are of her own flesh (sheerah), it is lechery (zimah) (20, 23) to become impure through her (le-tamah bah) (22) It is an abomination (toevah) (23) it is perversion (tevel) We shall limit our discussion of the prohibitions of arayot to those in the first group those that are prohibited because they are of the same flesh. We shall discuss these firstly because of their single common denominator, and secondly because it is specifically these whose motivation is hidden from us and concerning which many scholars have found difficulty in fathoming the reason. The prohibitions of the second group have wide-ranging reasons, some of which are obvious and easily understood such that they present no problem. B. Do belong to the category of chukkim or mishpatim?
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The phrase statutes and judgments of Hashem appears three times in the context of the parasha of arayot: twice in the introductory speech and once in the conclusion: (4) You shall perform My judgments and observe My statutes, to follow them (5) And you shall observe My statutes and My judgments which a person shall do and live by them (26) And you shall observe My statues and My judgments A famous beraita in massekhet Yoma (67b, as well as in the Sifra) notes the distinction between the two parts of this compound: Our Rabbis taught: You shall perform My judgments this refers to those things that, had they not been written, would seem logical that they be written as laws. These include idolatry, adultery, murder, stealing and blasphemy. And you shall observe My statutes this refers to those things for which the Satan provokes, including the eating of pork and wearing shaatnez, the freeing of a levirate marriage, the purification of the metzora and the goat that is sent into the wilderness. Lest you say, These (chukkim) are a meaningless creation, the Torah comes and teaches, I am Hashem I, Hashem, legislated these laws and you have no right to question them. Thus we deduce that the prohibitions of arayot are in fact judgments mishpatim (since they are not listed as chukkim), which had they not been written (in the Torah), it would seem logical that they be written down. But this is not the opinion of the Ramban in his commentary on pasuk 6, after he differs with the opinion of the Ibn Ezra and the Rambam with regard to the reasons for the arayot: Behold, the arayot fall under the category of statutes; they are matters decreed by the King. A decree is something that is decided at the Kings discretion, for He is wise in the rule of His kingdom and He knows the need for and purpose of the mitzvah that He is commanding, but He does not tell it to the nation, only to the wisest of His advisors. The Rambam, too (who, in his Moreh Nevukhim provides a reason for the prohibitions of arayot; a reason that will be discussed below), seems to believe that arayot falls under the category of statutes, as it appears from the sixth chapter of his Eight Chapters. There he quotes the Sifra on parashat Kedoshim (20:26): R. Elazar ben Azaria said: From where do we learn that a person should not say, I do not wish to wear shaatnez; I do not wish to eat the flesh of a pig; I DO NOT WISH TO APPROACH A FORBIDDEN SEXUAL PARTNER, rather, he should say, I do wish to, but my Father in heaven has so decreed upon me. The Rambam explains that there is no contradiction between the words of this beraita and the opinion of the philosophers that a lofty person is one who ... performs good deeds, and desires and longs for them, while a person who desires to do bad,
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even if he does not act (according to his des), is on a lower level. Why is there no contradiction? Because the bad deeds that are so called among the philosophers those which they say that someone who does not desire to perform them is better than one who does desire them but holds himself back these are the things that are universally considered bad: murder, theft, robbery etc. These are the mitzvot concerning which our Sages of blessed memory said, were they not written down, they would be considered worthy of being written. But those things that our Sages said that if a person does desire but he holds himself back he is better, and his reward is greater these are the mitzvot which are not intellectually perceived, for were it not for (what is written in) the Torah, they would not be (considered) bad at all, and therefore they taught that a person should allow his soul to love them, and only abstain because of the Torah. These and the other mitzvot like them are what Hashem calls My statutes, saying, These are statutes that I have decreed upon you, and you have no right to question them, and the nations of the world answer for them, and the Satan prosecutes for them, such as (the laws of) the red heifer and the goat that is cast off into the wilderness. Several different explanations have been offered with a view to resolving these words of the Rambam in his Shmonah Perakim with the beraita in massekhet Yoma. But in truth the contradiction exists between the two sources of Chazal themselves: between the beraita in Yoma (and its parallel in the Sifra on parashat Acharei-Mot) and the beraita in the Sifra on parashat Kedoshim. It would appear that there is no need for explanations, for the contradiction between the two definitions of the prohibitions of arayot (as chukkim or as mishpatim) is a fundamental one and arises from the genuine difficulty involved in their definition. On one hand, obviously the prohibitions of arayot cannot be defined as statutes that the nations of the world answer for them. Anthropological study reveals that in every human society there is a prohibition of forbidden sexual relations (incest) there is no society in which sexual relations are permitted between a man and his mother or his sister or his daughter; likewise there is no society in which the prohibition is limited only to first-degree relations. Rather, it is extended to secondary relations in different ways in each society. On the other hand, when we attempt to indicate the reason for the prohibitions of arayot which are so deeply rooted in human society and so close to every individual member thereof we sense that the explanations given are generally unsatisfying. This applies both to commentators on the Torah, in their attempts to give reasons for the prohibitions of arayot (and the weakness of the reasons quoted by the Ramban in his commentary and the difficulty with them, which led him to define the prohibitions of arayot as chukkim), as well as to the attempts by various scientific scholars (anthropologists, psychologists, biologists etc.) to explain this universal human taboo: We may assume that there is no single reason for this taboo, but rather that it is bound up with various bio-social processes and remains an enigma both in mythology and in science. (Dr. Harvey Goldberg, Hebrew Encyclopedia, arayot, gilui volume 27 p. 202).
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Anyone who senses that he is encountering an enigma whose solution drifts somewhere in the mists of the historical-philosophical-spiritual sphere will certainly accept a definition of the prohibitions of arayot as a statute as a decree made by the King of the universe, and HE knows the need for and the purpose of the mitzvah that he is commanding. It seems that the distinction between those mitzvoth of the Torah that are mishpatim and those that are chukkim is not as clear as we may have believed. There are mitzvot such as arayot which lie somewhere between the two spheres: they have aspects that attach them to the category of chukkim, while other aspects would seem to categorize them as mishpatim. There are mitzvoth which one commentator or philosopher regards as chukkim while another would define them as mishpatim (again, as we have seen in the case of arayot). The Rambams view concerning the reason for the mitzvot (as explained in Moreh Nevukhim part 3, chapter 26) is: The mitzvot ALL have a reason, and they were commanded for their benefits those that are called chukkim such as shaatnez and kashrut and the goat that is sent into the wilderness, concerning which Chazal explained that Hashem declared, The things which I have decreed for you, you have no right to question; and the Satan prosecutes for them and the nations of the world answer for them most of the Sages do not believe that they are matters which have no reason at all rather they have a reason but it is hidden from us, either because of our limited intelligence or for our lack of knowledge those (mitzvot) whose benefits are clear TO THE MASSES are called mishpatim, while those whose benefit is not clear TO THE MASSES are called chukkim. To this view, the distinction between chukkim and mishpatim exists only for the benefit of the recipients of the Torah. The Torah distinguishes between these two categories only for educational reasons, because of the difficulty of observing the mitzvoth and because of the need to strengthen us in our observance of those that we perceive as chukkim. In light of all that we have said above, the line dividing chukkim and mishpatim is dynamic in the historical sense as well: a general consensus in one generation that a certain mitzvah is a chok may change in a different generation, where the reason for the mitzvah is revealed, such that it is from then on considered as falling within the category of mishpatim. This may work in the opposite direction as well: a change of perceptions and views in the course of the generations can bring about a situation in which mitzvoth whose reasons were regarded as clear and obvious in earlier generations may face the prosecution of the nations of the world in another generation, with the accusation that the Torah of Israel does not suit the spirit and progress of the times. C. The Rambam and Hillel Zeitlin on the reasons for arayot In his Moreh Nevukhim (part 3, chapter 49) the Rambam provides the following reason for those prohibitions of arayot that are of the same flesh: The prohibition of arayot the message in all of them is to limit sexual relations and to convey abhorrence for them, and to be satisfied with the very minimum and the whole of arayot are all one single matter for each of these (women) is a permanent
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fixture in a mans home, and she is easily found and attainable; it requires no effort to find her and if the law concerning (those women who are defined as) ervah was the same as any regular single woman in other words, that it was permissible to marry her, and the only prohibition that would arise would be if she was already married, then most people would continually debase themselves with prostitution of them. Since sexual relations with them are completely forbidden and we are warned against them with dire warnings and there is no way in which relations with these (women) are permitted, we are safe in our access to them and our thoughts concerning them are cancelled. The Ramban attacks this view and writes (in his commentary on pasuk 6): This is a very weak reason for the Torah sentencing one to karet because of them only because they are sometimes with him, while permitting one to marry many wives even hundreds or thousands. What would be the harm in marrying only ones daughter, as is permitted to the sons of Noah (Sanhedrin 58b), or marrying two sisters as Yaakov our forefather did? There is no more appropriate marriage than for a man to marry off his daughter to his older son, such that they will inherit from him and will be fruitful and multiply in his house, for He did not create the earth a wasteland; he formed it to be inhabited (Yishayahu 45:18). We have no tradition in this regard, but it athat this is one of the secrets of creation. Let us now skip some 700 years and see how Hillel Zeitlin zl explained these prohibitions of arayot, in his eleventh letter to Jewish youth: It astonishes me how some of the major Jewish Sages (such as the Rambam in Moreh Nevukhim, part 3, chapter 35) invent their own reasons for the prohibitions of arayot, while others (such as the Ramban, Vayikra 18) claim that the prohibitions of arayot may be explained only in terms of secrets beyond our comprehension, while the Torah itself explains the real reason in clear and simple language. The Torah states quite clearly: You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father and the nakedness of your mother she is your mother; you shall not uncover her nakedness, You shall not uncover the nakedness of the wife of your father it is the nakedness of your father, you shall not uncover the nakedness of the daughter of your fathers wife, born of your father she is your sister; you shall not uncover her nakedness, and so on concerning all the rest of the arayot as they are listed, with the second half of the pasuk explaining the reason for what is written in the first half. If the woman is your mother or your sister etc. you are forbidden to conduct sexual relations with her. If you conduct sexual relations with your sister or with one of the other female relatives listed by the Torah, you offend the sisterliness of your sister; you damage the honor of the relationship with that female relative. If you approach a woman out of desire and sexual attraction, it is not possible that you will continue to relate to her with the proper honor due to her. To relate to any woman with respect and profound appreciation and at the same time to conduct sexual relations with her is, truly, a contradiction, although people are not prepared to admit this. A few of the Mussar scholars understood a little of this. It was Tolstoy who understood it thoroughly and in all its profundity. Until Tolstoy there was no-one who saw with such clarity the extent to which regular sexual love does not permit one to honor the personality within a woman. Sexual desire sees a woman as an object, a means, a plaything and not a personality with her own life and her own desires, not a purpose unto itself, not a person. When Tolstoy teaches a person not to relate to a woman out
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of sinful thoughts and sexual desire, it is as if he is teaching him to regard every woman as his sister. Where there is love of a person insofar as he is a person, there is no room for sinful relations and desire If we were to realize this view consistently, then there is no choice but to arrive at Tolstoys conclusion (concerning celibacy), but the Torah cannot arrive at such conclusions, for they oppose life and Torah the living Torah. Therefore the Torah exercises this principle in all its severity only in those instances where it may exercise it. It also exercises it with respect to arayot. A person should regard his family relations exclusively as people, and not as a means for the satisfaction of his sexual desires. The Torah categorizes three types of female relations: there are those who are forbidden in order that the honor of their own integrity not be harmed (she is your mother, she is your sister, etc.), others are prohibited because the integrity of other people would thereby be harmed (it is the nakedness of your father, she is of your fathers flesh, etc.), and still others are prohibited because this would involve some sin that harms the integrity of the man himself (they are your nakedness). After each woman who is prohibited, the Torah gives a fairly clear explanation of the significance of the prohibition: she is your sister, she is of your fathers flesh, it is your own nakedness as if to say, in an instance where you are obligated to maintain a purely Platonic connection, you are not allowed to conduct sexual relations. Why, then, should we seek to invent reasons when the Torah itself clarifies the reasons in short, clear and simple words? Is it not entirely clear that this was the Torahs intention? Are all those half-pesukim, understood thus far, no more than unnecessary repetition? There is an element that is common to the approach of the Rambam and of Zeitlin, an approach that influenced the reasons that they give for the prohibitions of arayot: both express in their words an outspoken anti-sexual philosophy. Both regard mans sexual activity as something to be deprecated. This approach does not flow from the ancient Jewish sources neither from Tanakh nor from the words of Chazal. It is a foreign heritage, the fruit of the encounter of both these thinkers with western culture: the Rambam, with the roots of this culture in the writings of Aristotle, and Hillel Zeitlin, with one of its later representatives in Russian culture Lev Tolstoy. In truth, it is difficult to understand how this approach could have been acceptable to most of the Jewish Sages of the Middle Ages while the Holy Writings include such a book as Shir Ha-Shirim and the midrashim of Chazal generally express a fundamentally different approach. Since the basic approach of the Rambam and of Zeitlin is unacceptable in our generation, it would seem that the reasons that they give for the prohibitions of arayot, too, are no longer valid. Nevertheless, their words provide an opening for further discussion. D. Man vs. animals Like other things, sexual activity exists among people just as it does among animals. This was emphasized in its negativity both in the writings of Aristotle and by those medieval Jewish sages who followed him. But Aristotles depiction of human sexuality as an animalistic characteristic, and the Rambams theory that actions based on the sense of touch have no hint of humanity, were not correct.
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Animals have a natural regularity of sexual activity, and such activity takes place among them by inborn instinct. This is not so in humans. Let us explain: in animals, sexual activity is influenced by the hormonal periodicity of the female i.e., her states of oestruation in a fixed periodicity. But in man, sexual activity is not naturally limited to a certain time related to the females period. The types of sexual contact between male and female animals (permanent connection between a particular male and a particular female, incidental contact, male at the head of a female herd, etc.) are fixed in every type of animal as part of the genetic structure of that species. But this is not so of human beings: the different types of contact between males and females is not dictated by some genetic code. What does this emancipation from subjection to a fixed natural periodicity and to predetermined types of sexual contact mean to man? The answer is not simple: a person is free to mould his own sexual behavior, for the good as well as for the bad. Human culture as created in human society over the course of many generations serves as a voluntary alternative to the predetermined biological periodicity of animals with regard to their sexual behavior. And this represents mans superiority over animals: he, by his choices, by his social and cultural creations, by his legal and scientific thought, by his psychological and religious understanding, creates modes of contact between men and women, and he creates boundaries for sexual activity such as befit his outlook and his variegated needs as a thinking, social being. Like all mans biological activity, his sexual activity can also be elevated to a precious human act that distinguishes him from animals, when such activity is performed as part of his human culture, as part of his definition as a person with choice. At this point we can return to the subject of our study, to the laws of arayot, and say that these represent an important part of that cultural regulation of sexual activity. One of these laws that of nidda accomplishes this in the dimension of time during which the sexual contact between man and woman is permitted, while most of the other laws limit the people with whom one is permitted to engage in sexual co. But man, having free choice, may throw off the cultural and social limitations and devote himself to the fulfillment of his sexual appetite without any boundaries. Here, too, he is acting as a person, for a lifestyle of genuine sexual licentiousness does not exist in nature. Among animals there is strict subjugation to the unchanging laws of nature, while only man is free to chart his own path in the sphere of his sexual activity (as in other activities). In doing so in consciously throwing off human culture, the laws of society, the tradition of his forbears, the commandments of his religion he is not acting as an animal; rather, he is putting himself on a lower level, for there is nothing that will protect him from his self-destruction and from the degeneration that comes with unbounded sexual activity. The above applies on the individual level. But human society as a whole also has choices, and society can also choose to remove sexual boundaries, creating a society that madly pursues sex. Then the unrestrained human sexual activity becomes a destructive force with the power to destroy human society and to bring upon it both internal and external destruction: Wherever you find prostitution, turmoil comes to the world. This is illustrated in Tanakh in a number of incidents, beginning with the
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generation of the flood, via the destruction of Sedom and the incident of the concubine in Givah, and the Torah warns us in the parasha of arayot that the land will vomit out its inhabitants if they break the bounds of acceptable sexual behavior. According to Dr. Harvey Goldberg, There are anthropologists who regard the taboo of forbidden sexual relations as the cornerstone of human culture. This statement will be properly understood in light of our discussion below. E. The human family The human family is perhaps the most important cultural achievement of mankind in the sphere of his social life and in the sphere of the cultural regulation of his sexual activity. It is different from any other permanent contact between male and female that exists in the animal kingdom. A person is not naturally bound to maintain it or to belong to it; this depends on his decision. The partnership between its elements is not automatic but rather depends on continued and complex human effort. We may point to many other profound differences between the human family and its corresponding modes, as it were, in the animal kingdom (especially among birds), but we shall suffice with just one more difference: the human family is multi-generational. Three or four generations belong simultaneously within the framework of the extended family, know each other and maintain mutual and variegated contact between themselves. In the animal kingdom, as we know, the male and female care for their mutual direct offspring for some period of time, and the young then leave their parents nest forever. The parents no longer recognize their own offspring, and certainly have no relationship with the third generation. Life in the family framework is what the Torah prescribes for man (Bereishit 2:25): Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall become a single flesh. The family framework is surrounded with an entire system of mitzvot which regulate it and protect is proper maintenance. The prohibitions of arayot are the negative aspect of the maintenance of the family. The existence of the family, from both the biological and psychological perspective, demands the restraint of the sexual relations within it and their limitation to a man and woman who are married to one another, forming the foundation of the family. Without the laws of arayot, the human family would have no existence. This is expressed by one of the major social anthropologists of the twentieth century, B. Malinovsky: In every human culture we find first of all some well-defined taboo systems, strictly separating the two sexes of whole groups and not allowing contact between them. The most important prohibition prevents any possibility of marriage between close relatives of the same family The second most important law of the taboo of forbidden sexual relations concerns adultery (the wife of a man). While the aim of the first prohibition is to protect the family, the second protects marriage. The Rambam was therefore correct in explaining the reason for the prohibition of arayot as being because each of them is always present in his home, and Hillel Zeitlin was correct in his sensitivity to what is explicit in the Torah as the reason for each individual prohibited sexual union: She is your mother, she is your sister, etc., except that according to what we have explained above, the reasons are different from those proposed by each of them.
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PARASHAT ACHAREI-MOT The Prohibition of Marrying Sisters A. DEFINITION AND LOCATION OF THE PROHIBITION You shall not take a woman as a wife after marrying her sister, as her rival, to uncover her nakedness beside the other during her lifetime. (Vayikra 18:18) The prohibition against marrying sisters is among the long list of forbidden relations included in Vayikra chapter 18. Rambam explains: Once a person has married a woman, her near relations are forbidden to him (Hil. Issurei Bia 2:7). This prohibition of her near relations is addressed in verses 17-18. Verse 17 prohibits a woman and her daughter, as well as a woman and her granddaughter (born either of her son or her daughter), while verse 18 adds the prohibition of her sister. Two expressions in verse 18 require clarification. a. As her rival (litzror) - Rashi comments, This term is derived from the word tzara (distress) - that each (sister) will cause distress to the other. Rashbam elucidates Rashis interpretation as follows: As her rival - as in (Shemuel I 1:6), And her rival provoked her. [In a polygamous society,] two women married [at the same time] to the same man are called a distress to each other. This idea requires further explanation. The prohibition applies not only to a person who marries two sisters, making them into permanent rivals - for after he marries one sister, the other is forbidden to him, and any marriage to the second does not take effect. The verse furthermore prohibits any relations with his wifes sister - even a one-time affair, as stated in the conclusion, to uncover her nakedness beside the other (his wife). But the reason for the prohibition is, as Ramban teaches, For it is not proper that one take a woman and her sister (as wives), making them into rivals, for they should love one another and not distress each other. b. During her lifetime - while the relatives of the wife mentioned in verse 17 are each forbidden to him forever, whether he divorces her, or she is still alive, or after her death, a womans sister is forbidden to him until his wife dies (Rambam, ibid.). After his wifes death, her sister is completely permissible to him, and such marriages have been quite commonplace throughout the generations. While the expression during her lifetime makes the marriage permissible after his wifes death, it also involves a limitation: even if the man and his wife are divorced, her sister remains forbidden to him so long as the divorced wife is still alive. This requires emphasis, especially in light of the reason given for the prohibition: as a rival. The prohibition of marrying the sister of ones wife is the only one among all the forbidden relations which, although arising from a blood relationship, is nullified upon the death of the person who represented the reason for it. Although there are two other temporary forbidden relations - nidda, a menstruant woman, which is nullified after the womans immersion in a mikveh, and a married woman, who becomes permissible if she is either divorced or widowed - neither of these arises from a blood relationship. This unique characteristic of the prohibition against marrying ones wifes sister explains its position - at the end of the list of forbidden relationships arising from family ties, and prior to
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the prohibitions against a nidda and a married woman (verses 19-20). Since it belongs partially to both groups, it is located in between them. Why is the prohibition against marrying the sister more lenient than the prohibition against the wifes other relatives (mentioned in verse 17) or the women married to the husbands relatives? Why is the sister the only woman who becomes permissible after the death of the person because of whom she was forbidden? This question leads us to a discussion of the reason and definition of the prohibition against marrying ones wifes sister. It is clear that there is some connection between the two expressions addressed above - as her rival and during her lifetime, and this connection is the key to answering the question. We shall return to this subject later on. B. HOW COULD YAAKOV MARRY TWO SISTERS? The prohibition of You shall not take a woman as a wife after marrying her sister immediately raises a question: Yaakov, our forefather, married two sisters - Rachel and Leah, who jointly built the House of Israel (Ruth 4:11). How could Yaakov have transgressed one of the prohibitions of forbidden relationships listed in our parasha? At first glance, the question does not seem too difficult. Rav David Zvi Hoffmann concludes his commentary on our verse as follows: The prohibition against marrying two sisters did not exist prior to the giving of the Torah at Sinai, as proved by Yaakovs actions. The Ramban (Bereishit 26:5) nevertheless has a problem with Yaakovs marriage to two sisters, for he seeks to reconcile this situation with the midrash of Chazal according to which the forefathers observed the entire Torah even prior to Sinai. But if we do not regard this midrash as reflecting the literal text, then the question never arises. But its not as simple as that. Even a literal commentator like Ibn Ezra grapples with this question in his commentary on our verse, with no reference whatsoever to the midrash of Chazal. Although he does not explicitly formulate his difficulty, we can deduce it from his answer. The forbidden relations in our chapter are set out within a rhetorical framework that describes them as abominations through which the Canaanite nations were defiled, and as a result of which the land became polluted and vomited out its inhabitants. This being the case, the nature of these actions is not related to or dependent on the giving of the Torah; they obligate - and have always obligated - even the nations of the world. Thus, we return to our question: how could Yaakov transgress one of the abominable prohibitions that characterize the worst of the nations? Ibn Ezra answers as follows: Mistaken is the one who explains that Rachel and Leah were not sisters, proving this with the words, for all of these abominations. This is not a sound proof Others have claimed that although the Torah says, all of these abominations, as a general description, it does not thereby refer to all of them (the forbidden relations), but rather only to most of them. What Ibn Ezra means is that the prohibition against marrying two sisters does not fall into the category of abomination, and it was not because of this prohibition that the nations dwelling in the land were thrown out. Therefore, Yaakovs action is not problematic, for the prohibition against marrying sisters became applicable for Israel only after the giving of the Torah.
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If so, in what way is the prohibition against marrying sisters different from the rest of the forbidden relationships, such that it is not defined as an abomination? The Karaites noted some unique features of our verse, but explained it incorrectly and against the Halakha. In his listing of the mitzvot, Daniel Al-Qumsi (9th century Persia and Jerusalem) points out that the Torah does not define marriage to two sisters as foulness (zima) and abomination (toeva), as it does in the prohibition of the previous verse. This point is worthy of emphasis, for all the forbidden relations in the second half of our chapter (17-23) - those not involving blood relations of the man concerned - give emphasis, in their reasoning, to the sexual vulgarity and ugliness of the deed: Verse 17: a woman and her daughter, or a woman and her granddaughter they are her blood relations; IT IS FOULNESS. Foulness in this context denotes licentiousness. Verse 19: Concerning a woman who is nidda, the Torah stresses that she is in the nidda state of HER IMPURITY - and this explains the prohibition of relations with her. Verse 20: You shall not lie agive seed to the wife of yo, TO BECOME IMPURE THROUGH HER. Verse 22: Homosexuality is an abomination Verse 23: Bestiality is perversion. Al-Qumsi also notes that in contrast to the previous verse, in which the blood relationship between the woman and her relatives was stressed (she is her blood relation), such emphasis is absent from our verse. In his Eshkol Ha-kofer, Yehuda Hadasi (12th century Crimea) likewise notes the unique nature of our verse, and writes as follows: The Torah distinguishes this law in two respects: firstly, it does not say, You shall not uncover the nakedness of your wifes sister, as the law is formulated in all the other instances, but rather You shall not take a woman as a wife after marrying her sister Secondly, concerning all the other forbidden relationships we are told, You shall not uncover, but no reason is given, whereas here, the Torah says as her rival, to uncover her nakedness beside the other during her lifetime - for the rivalry and distress would be only during her (the wifes) lifetime, not after her death. Hadasi therefore rightly points out that the formulation of our verse is different than that of the preceding prohibitions, and even the prohibition itself is different from the others in that it is based on the rivalry that exists only during her lifetime, but not after her death. The Karaites mistake lay in the conclusion they drew from all of these facts: that our verse is not talking about two sisters (but rather about two wives, or a woman and her niece, or two unequal wives). The proper conclusion is entirely different: that the Torah does not regard marrying two sisters (real, blood sisters) as a perversion or ugliness like marrying a woman and her daughter or a woman and her granddaughter. It is not licentiousness and an abomination, for the family relationship between the women does not make it so.
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The forbidden relationships defined as sheer in the Torah always pertain to the husbands family relationship with the woman who is forbidden to him (as a result of her status or that of her husband). From this perspective, a woman and her daughter are likewise not sheer with regard to the man who is forbidden to marry both of them; THEY are sheer, the Torah says in their regard, and they hints at the woman and her daughter - they are related TO EACH OTHER. And what does this have to do with the man? The answer is that because the one woman was born of the other, maintaining relations with both of them is a kind of licentiousness. But the relationship between two sisters (admittedly born of the same mother, but they themselves are not one flesh) does not make marrying them an act of licentiousness. (This distinction would seem to be clear from a human, psychological point of view as well.) Why, then, does the Torah prohibit marrying two sisters? The answer is provided in the text: because it is not MORALLY proper to turn sisters into rivals. This moral reason applies only during the wifes lifetime; after her death there is no reason for the husband not to marry her sister, since this relationship is not defined as sheer. The deceased wifes sister is not a blood relative of the husband, and her blood relationship with the deceased wife is no longer a valid reason to prohibit the marriage. The unique formulation of the verse, the absence of any condemnation of the forbidden relationship, the moral reason - as a rival - and the special condition - during her lifetime clearly testify to the above conclusion. And this is in fact hinted at in the Rambans commentary on our verse: As a rival, to uncover her nakedness before the other during her lifetime Here the Torah gives the reason for the prohibition; it is not proper that one marry a woman and her sister, turning them into rivals of each other, for they should love one another and not be rivals. The Torah does not say this concerning a woman and her daughter or a woman and her mother, for these are sheer, and (the second relationship is) forbidden even after the womans death. Even clearer expression of this idea is to be found in the Seforno: You shall not take as a rival - THE TORAH SAYS THAT WERE IT NOT FOR THIS, A WOMANS SISTER WOULD NOT BE FORBIDDEN (to her husband as a wife), SINCE SHE IS NOT BORN OF THE WIFE, AND THE SISTER HERSELF IS PERMISSIBLE TO HIM, but the Torah forbids her in order that they will not be rivals. And therefore she forbidden to him only during the wifes lifetime, which is not the case concerning any other of the forbidden relationships. It is this, then, that Ibn Ezra was hinting at when he points out that the prohibition against the womans sister is not defined as an abomination, and therefore Yaakovs act in marring two sisters (prior to the Torahs prohibition of this) need not cause any problem. C. RAMBANS EXPLANATION OF YAAKOVS MARRIAGE Ibn Ezra himself has a different opinion concerning our question. In his commentary on verse 26, And you shall not perform any of these abominations; neither the Israelite nor the stranger who dwells among you, he asks why a resident non-Jew is likewise committed to refraining from all the prohibited relationships mentioned in our chapter. (This question is similar in nature to his clarification in our verse: were the Canaanites obligated concerning
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ALL of these forbidden relationships; was it because of all of them that the land ejected them?) He answers as follows: This commandment applies equally to an Israelite and to a resident non-Jew BY VIRTUE OF HIS LIVING IN ERETZ YISRAEL (and ALL of these forbidden relationships arise from the special sanctity of the land). And one who has a heart can understand that Yaakov, when he married two sisters IN CHARAN, and also Amram, who married his aunt IN EGYPT (Shemot 6:20), were not thereby defiled. The connection that Ibn Ezra points out between the entire list of prohibited relationships (as well as other mitzvot, such as idolatry) and living in Eretz Yisrael is addressed at length in his commentary on Devarim 31:16, and is developed and expanded upon in the Rambans commentary in several places, especially on verse 25 of our chapter. Ibn Ezras explanation for Yaakovs marriage to two sisters - that it took place in Charan and not in Eretz Yisrael - is likewise developed and complemented by the Ramban: And God alone plans how things work out, that Rachel died on the way, as they began to enter the land. In her merit, she did not die outside Eretz Yisrael, and in his merit, he did not dwell in Eretz Yisrael married to two sisters, for she was married to him in contravention of the prohibition against marrying sisters. It appears that she fell pregnant with Binyamin before they reached Shekhem; Yaakov had no relations with her at all within the land because of the prohibition. The Ramban is hinting that Yaakov was aware of the fact that the moment he entered the land, the prohibition against two sisters would apply, and therefore he had no relations with her at all within the land, because of the prohibition. This is expressed more clearly in his commentary on Bereishit 48:7, where he writes: Yaakovs (true) intention in not taking her (Rachel, after her death) to Mearat Ha-Makhpela was in order that two sisters would not be buried there, for he would thereby be embarrassed before his fathers. D. THE DEEDS OF THE FATHERS AND THE TEACHINGS OF THE CHILDREN After all of the above, we have still not received an answer to our question. We have proven that marriage to two sisters is not categorized as a sexual abomination (although following the Torahs prohibition, it is punishable - like any other forbidden sexual relations - with karet, excision). Its reason, as Ramban explains, is that it is not proper to turn two sisters, who should love each other, into rivals. Was Yaakov then blind to this seemingly obvious human reasoning? Yaakovs original intention was never to marry two sisters. He found himself married to both in the complicated circumstances brought about by Lavan, his father-in-law. In these circumstances - anin the absence of any formal prohibition against marsis- marrying Rachel and allowing Leah to remain in his home was the best and fairest thing that Yaakov could do. Divorcing Leah or refraining from marrying Rachel, in those circumstances, would have been much greater injustices than being married to both - a situation which did, indeed, turn the sisters into rivals in the fullest, most tragic sense. Although we have shown that Yaakovs marriage to Rachel after marrying Leah is not in any way problematic, we may add a further statement which removes the very question.
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The Torah contains various mitzvot that arise from events that happened to our forefathers. Although most date to the time when the nation had already been formed - the Exodus from Egypt and the wanderings in the desert - there are some that are connected to the original forefathers themselves. An example is the prohibition against eating the sinew of the thigh, arising from Yaakovs battle with the angel in parashat Vayishlach (Bereishit 32:25-33). I propose that the prohibition against marrying sisters likewise should be understood as arising from the events of Yaakovs life. Rachel and Leah, who jointly built the House of Israel, were both worthy of Yaakov, and his act in marrying both was likewise worthy - considering the circumstances and the lack of any prohibition concerning this. But he witnessed the tragic rivalry that developed between them: a hostile rivalry that continued and developed over many years, a rivalry for the love of their husband and a rivalry over bearing children. This difficult relationship is described explicitly in the Torah in chapters 29-30 of Sefer Bereishit. Such hostility was, admittedly, experienced between many women who became rivals (for example, Channa and Penina at the beginning of Sefer Shemuel), but a particularly tragic aspect characterizes such a relationship between sisters, as any reader of these chapters in Sefer Bereishit senses. Sufficient proof of this is to be found in verses such as (30:1), And Rachel was jealous OF HER SISTER, and (30:8), A Divine struggle have I wrestled WITH MY SISTER. The lesson learned from this one-time experience from the period of the patriarchs is formulated with regard to their descendants in the Torahs command, You shall not take a woman as a wife after marrying her sister, as her rival. You - the descendant of Yaakov shall not again take your wifes sister beside her, turning them into rivals, for it is not proper for they should love each other. The stories of the forefathers are a teaching in themselves; they contain lessons for their descendants for generations to come - lessons which are sometimes formulated as explicit mitzvot. The life stories of the forefathers are meant to serve us - their children - as the basis for leading our lives according to the mitzvot of the Torah.

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PARASHAT KEDOSHIM You Shall Not Place a Stumbling Block Before the Blind: Chazals Metaphoric Approach A. Four Interpretations of the Prohibition You shall not curse the deaf, and you shall not place a stumbling block before the blind. You shall fear your God; I am the Lord. These two prohibitions, of cursing the deaf and leading the blind to stumble, both involve the protection of those particularly vulnerable due to physical disability. Indeed, these two crimes are linked by the single admonition towards the end of the verse: You shall fear your God. Nevertheless, we will devote our discussion entirely to the second prohibition, addressing the first half of the verse only insofar as it affects our understanding of the second. We present here the four interpretations that have been offered to this verse, in the sequence of their deviation from the simple, straightforward meaning, from closest to furthest:

1. Blind refers to an individual who cannot see, and stumbling block denotes a

physical object, such as a stone or beam, that physically endangers the unsuspecting blind person as he walks. This is the interpretation of the Kuttim, who rejected the Oral Laws extrapolation of Biblical verses. (See Nida 57a, Chulin 3a.)

The prohibition according to this approach involves taking unfair advantage of the handicap of another. The earlier prohibition against cursing the deaf would presumably be explained in a similar manner.

2. Blind here means anyone, even without any handicap, who does not see the
stumbling block placed before him. With respect to this specific danger, he may be considered figuratively blind. Stumbling block refers to a physical trap lying innocuously in ones path, such as a pit with an indiscernible covering. In other words, this approach maintains virtually the same interpretation of the term stumbling block, and only minimally expands the definition of the word blind, to include a person with operative vision but who cannot see the stumbling block before him. The prohibition thus comes to forbid taking unfair advantage of not only the handicapped, but anyone in a situation where they cannot detect a given threat to their well-being. Similarly, the ban against cursing the deaf would include not only the deaf, but anyone incapable, for whatever reason, of responding to the slur. This appears to be the approach of Targum Onkelos, who translates deaf and blind in our verse as one who does not hear and one who does not see, while elsewhere he invokes the Aramaic terms for deaf and blind in his translation of these words (see Shemot 4:11; Vayikra 21:18; Devarim 15:21, 27:18 and 28:29). Onkelos here translates the word mikhshol (stumbling block), which appears nowhere else in the Torah, as takala, meaning, something upon which people stumble.

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3. Blind here refers to one lacking certain information or a proper understanding

regarding a given situation, and stumbling block means misleading counsel given to that individual. This approach interprets both blind and stumbling block figuratively, as referring to intellectual blindness and a mistake resulting in some form of loss in one area or another. This is the approach taken by the Sifra in its comments on our verse. The Sifra provides three examples of such a stumbling block: telling a kohen that a prospective spouse is permissible for him, when in fact she is forbidden to him (such as a divorcee, etc.); advising one to leave on his trip at a time when he is exposed to certain dangers, such as thieves early in the morning and sunstroke in midday; advising one to sell his field and purchase a donkey instead, only to be able to personally purchase the field. (Rashi interprets the verse likewise, citing as an example the third instance mentioned in the Sifra.) The Rambam (Lo Taaseh 299, Hilkhot Rotzeiach 12:14) and Chinukh (232) adopt this view, as well. In order to appreciate the significance of the prohibition according to this approach, let us carefully examine the motives of the misleading counsel in each of the three cases introduced by the Sifra. In the first case, the violator apparently looks after the womans interests. So as not to interfere with her marriage prospects to the recommended bachelor, he advises the latter that she is in fact permissible. While his concern for her well-being is laudable, this interest does not justify misleading the kohen. In the third instance, the advisor deceives the victim for his own personal gain. This prohibition thus outlaws misleading others for either ones own interests or those of a third party. In the second case, however, no motive seems to have prompted the deceit. No one benefits from the victims miscalculated departure. Why, then, did the advisor set this trap? Apparently, this prohibition involves misguiding one for the sheer joy of watching another fail. If so, then this approach bears some similarity with the second interpretation, and the relationship between this prohibition and the earlier one concerning the deaf becomes clear.

4. The most surprising interpretation of the verse appears in a twice-repeated Beraita in the Talmud (Pesachim 22b, Avoda Zara 6b) and occupies a substantial portion of halakhic literature to this very day. That is, one may not assist one in committing a sin or cause him to sin. The examples presented in the Beraita are giving wine to a nazir to drink and offering meat taken from a live animal to a gentile for his consumption. The figurative meaning of stumbling block according to this interpretation resembles its meaning according to the previous approach. The meaning of blind, however, is far from clear. Both the culprit and victim know full well whats at stake; no one is misled. How, then, does this approach understand the word blind in the verse? The Rambam addresses this issue in several places in his works, and explains that the one assisted in his sinning is considered blind because his desire obscured his vision, and he does not see the truthful path. (See Lo Taaseh 299 and Hilkhot Rotzeiach 12:12-14.) According to his interpretation, blind here refers not to visual impairment (as in the first two approaches) nor to a misunderstanding of a given situation (as in the third approach). Rather, it connotes moral blindness, suffered by one whose drives and inclinations lure him off the proper path. Needless to say, this approach steers quite a distance from the straightforward interpretation of the verse.
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In any event, the significance of the prohibition according to this approach is clear. One may not assist another in committing a sin, even if he offers his help out of camaraderie, good manners, or any other noble motive. B. The Halakhic Status of the Four Interpretations The issue of the halakhic status of these approaches essentially translates into a different question: which of these four interpretations of the verse do Chazal view as correct? All the sources in Chazal indicate that they viewed the figurative interpretation, that one may not lead one to stumble in the metaphoric sense, as binding on the Biblical level (mdeoraita). Clearly, they approached this interpretation as a primary explanation of the verse and rejected the position of the Kuttim who limited the verses implication to placing a physical stumbling block before a blind person. However, as some Acharonim indicate, this does not preclude the possibility that Chazal viewed all four approaches as primary interpretations of the verse. Both Rav Meir Simcha of Devinsk (Meshekh Chokhma) and Rav Barukh Epstein (Torah Temima) are of the opinion that the prohibition includes all four interpretations mentioned above. Chazal disagreed with the Kuttim only regarding their rejection of the figurative approach; they conceded, however, that the literal approach is legally relevant. The Minchat Chlikewise raises such a possibility. , the omission of any mention of such a prohibition - the placement of a physical obstacle before the blind - in halakhic literature from Chazal onward casts serious doubts on such a possibility. Furthermore, if indeed Chazal accepted the literal interpretation as legally binding, it is hard to imagine that the figurative approach would likewise apply on a Biblical level. In the presence of the literal interpretation, we must relegate the figurative meaning to the lower level of derash. It would seem, therefore, that Chazal outright rejected the literal interpretation of the verse upheld by the Kuttim. They did not merely add an additional level of interpretation; they believed that the figurative approach to the verse is the only plausible explanation of the prohibition. Indeed, this is the view of a wide array of commentators and halakhic authorities, some of whom we will encounter in the course of our discussion. Two obvious questions emerge from this conclusion. First and foremost, as Rav Yerucham Perlow (in his work on Rav Saadia Gaons enumeration of the mitzvot, p. 107) asks, why did Chazal refute the straightforward interpretation? To this we may add, why and how did Chazal choose a metaphoric interpretation of the prohibition? This second question raises a more general, fundamental issue: may we approach mitzvot metaphorically? C. Metaphoric Interpretation of the Mitzvot: The Rule and the Exceptions A Beraita entitled Beraita Dlamed-bet Midot enumerates thirty-two literary guidelines employed by Chazal in their exegesis of Biblical verses. The twenty-sixth principle establishes that while parables and metaphors are employed in the Neviim and Ketuvim, regarding the words of the Torah and mitzvah you may not interpret them as allegories. The Beraita then proceeds to provide three exceptions, instances where Rabbi Yishmael explained a mitzvah figuratively. The basis for such a principle is clear: legal code must be clear and straightforward. Approaching the mitzvot metaphorically may lead one to strip them of their original meaning and reach conclusions far from the intent of halakha.
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Is there any rational explanation behind the exceptions to this rule? Could we perhaps determine the basis for Chazals interpreting them figuratively? How does their interpretation of our verse accommodate this principle? D. Two Types of Metaphor In his dictionary of literary terms, Professor Yosef Eban distinguishes between two types of metaphor. The first type features two words or groups of words, one of which maintains its original, literal meaning, while the second receives an entirely new meaning through its association with the other word or words. For example, we may describe an inspiring, soul-stirring speech as breaking down the walls of indifference among the audience, meaning that it significantly transformed their emotional or mental mindset. The expression breaking the walls has been borrowed from its natural habitat - a battle waged against a besieged city - and infused with an entirely new meaning through its introduction into the context of a persuasive lecture. The second group of metaphor, by contrast, consists of a word or group of words that loses its literal meaning without any textual association with a foreign context. Rather, purely external circumstances change the meaning of the words(s) and advise the listener to reinterpret the word(s) accordingly. For example, someone recently relieved of some financial or personal crisis might say, I have finally arrived at safe shores. While a stranger might conclude from this remark that the individual has just returned from a stormy voyage at sea, those familiar with his situation know that he had been on dry land, only caught in a mire of tension and anxiety. With this background, let us proceed to examine the instances where Rabbi Yishmael approaches a mitzvah with a figurative interpretation. We begin with the second example, the case of a thief who breaks into a home (Shemot 22:2). The Torah writes, If the sun shone upon him [the thief], he [the homeowner] is held accountable [if he kills the thief in alleged self defense]. Rather than interpreting the sun shone upon him literally, Rabbi Yishmael understands this phrase as referring to a case where the intruder clearly intends no harm to the homeowner. It would seem that this metaphor belongs to the first category. As the Beraita notes, the sun shines not only upon the thief, but upon the whole world. Thus, the association of the suns shining with the specific expression, upon him forces us to consider an allegorical interpretation of the suns shining. We may conclude, then, that the Torah itself requires that we approach this verse as an allegory. The other two examples in the Beraita, however, are of the second type of metaphor. The Torah addresses a situation where the victim of a beating recovers from the blow: If he then gets up and walks outdoors upon his staff, the assailant shall go unpunished (Shemot 21:19). The Beraita observes that staff cannot be understood literally, for we are dealing with a case where the victim has been completely cured, thus relieving the aggressor of punishment. Therefore, his staff here means his body, and the verse thus refers to a healthy individual capable of walking independently. Nothing in the verse itself compels us to adopt a figurative interpretation. Rather, the legal consideration of acquitting the attacker only upon the victims complete recovery leads us to a metaphoric reading. (We do not deal here with the third instance, the investigation of a bride whose husband accuses her of a premarital affair [Devarim 22:17], where the compelling reason for the figurative reading is unclear.) To which of these two categories would we place our verse - the prohibition against placing a stumbling block before the blind?
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E. Three Attempts to Prove the Metaphoric Interpretation Several attempts have been made throughout the ages to identify a textual basis within the verse for Chazals rejection of the literal meaning. Rav Yerucham Perlow cites the various suggestions and subjects them to his rigorous critique. We will generally follow in his footsteps. The first approach is that of Rav Eliyahu Mizrachi, who authored a classic work on Rashis commentary: It seems to me that the reason why they interpreted in this way [in the Sifra] is because we cannot say that blind here implies the straightforward meaning, since blind must resemble deaf [in the first half of the verse]. Just as deaf does not refer specifically to the deaf, so does blind not refer specifically to the blind. However, if this was the sole concern, then Chazal should have interpreted the verse according to the second approach listed above, that blind here refers to anyone who cannot see a given obstacle placed in is path. There would be no need to steer even further from the simple meaning and arrive at the allegorical interpretation of the third and fourth approaches. The Maharal of Prague, in his commentary on Rashi entitled Gur Aryeh, identifies the source of the allegorical interpretation in the conclusion of the verse: You shall fear your God. He writes, You shall fear your God is stated only with regard to something given over to ones heart [i.e. a sin not indiscernible from the outside, thus requiring genuine fear of God to refrain therefrom - see Rashi on our verse]. This instance [placing a physical obstacle before the blind], however, is not given over to ones heart, for at times the blind person will discover who placed the stumbling block before him, or others will see, or he will be recognized by his voice, etc. The obvious problem with this interpretation is that according to the literal approach to the verse, this prohibition clearly refers to a situation where one would hurt a helpless person in such a way that he would never be discovered. In a situation where the blind victim or anyone else could identify the perpetrator, no one would attempt the prank, and theis no need for the prohibition. Thus, given that we are dealing with a situation whthe perpetrator would never be discovered, there is no context more suitable than this one for the admonition, You shall fear your God. A third suggestion was posed by Rav Aharon Ibn Chayim, in his commentary on the Sifra, Korban Aharon. He notes that the verse describes the placing of the stumbling block with the word titen, which generally means, give, rather than the Hebrew word for place, tasim. He argues, One who places an obstacle upon which for another to stumble will not be called, giving. What or to whom is he giving? He would rather be called placing, and the verse should have therefore stated, Do not PLACE [tasim] a stumbling block before the blind. On account of this Chazal were compelled to interpret the verse in a manner that would accommodate [the use of the verb] giving, that he gives someone this stumbling block, meaning the advice that he gives. However, as Rav Perlow already notes, in Biblical Hebrew the verb form netina is often used in reference to placing, particularly when followed by the word, lifnei (before), such as in Shemot 30:36 and Vayikra 5:11. Thus, none of the three attempts satisfactorily provides a textual basis for the rejection of the literal meaning of the verse.

F. Establishing Chazals Metaphoric Interpretation in Three Stages

We must therefore look for an external factor - outside the text - that led Chazal to their figurative approach to the verse. Since external considerations are generally less compelling than internal, textual ones, it would be worthwhile to look for some textual support for the allegorical interpretation. If we can establish Biblical precedents for the
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metaphoric usage of the terms blind and stumbling block and verify the widespread usage of their allegorical meaning, we can increase the likelihood of their figurative meaning in our context. Our third and final step will then be to explain why the Torah selected metaphor as the means by which to present this specific prohibition. As we explained at the outset of our presentation, the literal approach to the verse yields a prohibition against taking unfair advantage against the handicapped. It forbids one from causing harm to a helpless individual by capitalizing on his handicap such that he cannot guard himself or identify the antagonist. Such a warning would be directed to an audience with an inclination towards such sadistic tendencies, generally young children who relish the opportunity to watch others fail. However, the Torah prohibits only those crimes against others that people are led to commit by reasonable motives. One might steal out of desperate poverty or desire for a higher economic standard; a person may kill out of uncontrolled vengeance. The Torah warns against following through on these motives. Placing a stone before the blind, however, involves sadism for its own sake. Chazal presumed that the Torah would have no need to address such conduct with an explicit prohibition, as this behavior falls far short of the basic moral standards of the audience towards whom the Torah directs itself. They therefore interpreted the prohibition as outlawing the deception of others for personal gain and assisting sinners, even when prompted to do so by understandable social interests. In these instances, where the potential violator may have reasonable interests or concerns at stake, the Torah must explicate a prohibition. We now proceed to the second step, our search for similar usage of blind and stumbling block throughout Tanakh. The word iver (the word for blind in our verse) appears twenty-six times in Tanakh, and an additional five times in the verb form. In at least ten of these instances it is used metaphorically, mostly in Yeshayahu. Particularly noteworthy is one example appearing twice in the Torah, where bribes are said to blind [yeaver] the eyes of the wise. This figurative usage of the term fits beautifully with the Rambams aforementioned explanation of blind in our verse. Regarding the second term, mikhshol stumbling block, in each of its fourteen appearances in Tanakh - plus the two instances of the related term, makhshela - it emerges as a metaphor. In fact, half of these metaphors involve spiritual stumbling blocks, i.e. sins. Thus, Chazals figurative approach to the verse implies no irregular usage of Biblical terms. In conclusion, we turn our attention to the issue of why the Torah invokes metaphoric usage in its presentation of this prohibition, rather than employing straightforward terminology suitable for legal code. One answer may lie in the fact that this verse includes two distinct prohibitions: offering misleading advice and assisting sinners. The Rambam (Sefer HaMitzvot, Shoresh 9) cites this verse as an example of a lav shebklalot, a negative commandment that subsumes multiple prohibitions. The Rambam writes that we must consider all the various prohibitions included within one verse as just one of the 365 negative commandments of the Torah. As such, the Torah needed to present these two prohibitions against misleading counsel and assistance in sin - in a form that would include both under a single category. Were the Torah to have articulated these prohibitions in a straightforward manner, it would have had to separate them into two negative commandments. Alternatively, the use of metaphor generates an association between the present context and the one from where the metaphor is borrowed. The Torah sharpens our awareness of the severity of these crimes - offering unsound advice and helping to facilitate a Torah violation through the image of the placement of an obstacle before the unsuspecting, helpless, blind person. With this metaphor, the Torah teaches us that there exist various levels of
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blindness, and one who leads one to stumble in the figurative sense is considered to have placed an actual stumbling block before a blind person.

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PARASHAT EMOR From the Day Following Shabbat (Vayikra 23:9-22) I. THE PROBLEM When you enter the land that I am giving to you and you reap its harvest, you shall bring the first sheaf of your harvest to the kohen. He shall elevate the sheaf before God by your will; the kohen shall elevate it on the day following the Shabbat And from the day following the Shabbat, from the day on which you bring the sheaf of elevation offering, you shall count seven weeks. You must count until the day following the seventh week - fifty days, and then you shall bring an offering of new grain to God. The day the Torah refers to as the day following Shabbat determines the scheduling of an entire array of mitzvot in the Jewish calendar. On that day itself, the omer grain offering is waved, accompanied by its sacrifice. This ends the period in which the new years grain crop is prohibited, marks the beginning of the counting of the omer, and determines the date of the festival of Shavuot, which is observed on the fiftieth day thereafter. As we know, Chazal (Menachot 65b) held a tradition that this ambiguous term refers to the sixteenth of Nissan, the day following the first day of Pesach, a tradition that formed the basis of a fundamental dispute between the rabbis and the heretical group of Boethusians towards the end of the Second Temple era. The latter group insisted that Shabbat in the verse be understood literally, as the seventh day of the week. They therefore claimed that the day to which the verse refers is the first Sunday after the first day of Pesach. As such, they always celebrated Shavuot, which occurs fifty days after this day, on Sunday. The Karaites likewise adopted this view, which they maintain to this very day. II. VARIOUS UNDERSTANDINGS OF THE PESHAT In light of the many far-fetched attempts to find a basis for interpreting Shabbat in this verse as Yom Tov, we pose the following question: When Chazal established that the day following the Shabbat should be understood as the sixteenth of Nissan, what did they mean? Did they intend that the word Shabbat in this verse be given an unusual translation the first day of Yom Tov, as opposed to what we generally call Shabbat? Or perhaps they meant that although the word Shabbat in the verse means what it says, nevertheless we must follow the halakha as established by the Oral Law, which mandates bringing the omer offering on the sixteenth of Nissan (regardless of which day of the week it is)? Interestingly, the literature of commentaries differs drastically from the Gemaras treatment of this verse. While the later commentators seek to demonstrate that even on the straightforward level of interpretation Shabbat is to be understood as Yom Tov, Chazal never pose such a claim. Surprisingly, not one of the eight proofs cited in the relevant passage in Masekhet Menachot addresses the issue of how we ought to interpret the word Shabbat. Whats more, the very first proof against the Boethusians, that of Rabban Yochanan Ben Zakai, accepts the definition of Shabbat in the verse as literally, Shabbat. He merely posits that a later clause in the verse, You shall count fifty days, must refer to a situation where the counting began on a day other than Sunday, thus informing us that sometimes the counting will begin on a Sunday (if Pesach falls on Shabbat) and sometimes it will begin on another day (if Pesach falls on any other day of the week). It seems, then, that Chazal never felt the need to find a basis within the text to change the literal meaning of the word Shabbat. This is one striking example of many when the Oral
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Law reverses the law that emerges from the straightforward meaning of the text, a phenomenon noted by the Vilna Gaon in his commentary to the beginning of Parashat Mishpatim (Aderet Eliyahu). He likens the simple meaning of the text to a stamp, which when pressed against some material produces an opposite image. The Gaon concludes, One must therefore know the straightforward meaning of the text, in order that he know the stamp. Only by properly understanding the original image on the stamp can one understand its reflection on the halakhic level. Unique among the post-Chazal approaches to this verse is that of Rav Yehuda Halevi (Rihal) in his Sefer Ha-Kuzari (3:41). He concedes that Shabbat means Shabbat, and the day spoken of in the verse is thus Sunday. However, the Torah merely presents this day as an example by which to demonstrate how to calculate the fifty-day period between the omer offering and the festival of Shavuot. Should the first day, upon which the omer offering is brought, occur on Sunday, then the fiftieth day, Shavuot (the day following the seventh Shabbat), will also occur on Sunday. The Torah presents this example so as to clarify how the counting must be conducted and the date of Shavuot determined, in order to avoid possible confusion. However, the Torah does not establish a specific date for the offering of the omer. The only requirement is that it coincide with the beginning of the barley harvest. Then, seven weeks later, when the wheat harvest begins, we observe Shavuot. All this is according to the simple meaning of the verse. However, the Halakha established a fixed day for the offering of the omer, namely, the second day of Pesach. This does not contradict the peshat, but neither is it necessitated by the peshat. Rihals thesis that the peshat of the Torah does not establish a fixed date for the bringing of the omer, but merely requires its coinciding with the beginning of the barley harvest, allows him to pose a convincing challenge to the approach of the Boethusians. Given that the fiftyday period comes to mark the passage of time from the beginning of the barley harvest to the onset of the wheat harvest, why would the day of the week bear any significance? Why would the Torah link these commemorations to one day of the week over any other? Rather, the Torah mandates the offering of the omer at the beginning of the wheat harvest, a day determined by the people themselves, after which point fifty days are counted, culminating with the celebration of Shavuot. Although Rihals approach adequately explains the term the day following Shabbat in the context of the counting of the omer, it does not explain its usage in the earlier verse: you shall bring the first sheaf of your harvest to the kohen. He shall elevate the sheaf before God the kohen shall elevate it on the day following Shabbat (23:10-11). Here, there exists no potential ambiguity that necessitates an example; no confusion would have arisen if the Torah had written, on the sixteenth day of Nissan. Nor can we say that the Torah utilizes this expression as a result of the forthcoming example, since to the contrary, the later verse is predicated on the chance instance of the sixteenth day falling on Sunday. Additionally, this verse clearly states imperatively and unconditionally that the kohen must conduct the omer ritual on the day following Shabbat; no possible flexibility is implied. III. A NEW SUGGESTION The solution to this quandary may lie in one word in the aforementioned verse that hasnt earned sufficient attention in the commentaries: He shall elevate the sheaf before God li-retzonkhem; the kohen shall elevate it on the day following the Shabbat. This term, li-retzonkhem, literally, for your will, appears with reference to an individual offering a sacrifice four other times in Sefer Vayikra (1:3, 19:5, 22:19, 22:29). In all five instances, Targum Onkelos translates the term as le-raava lei or le-raava lekhon, meaning that
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God will accept the individuals offering willingly. Several commentators have followed Onkelos approach. The Sifra and Talmud, however, explain the will in the verse as referring not to Gods will, but to tof the individual. They explain that this expression teaches several halakhot regarding the intent of the person offering the sacrifice, all of which are indispensable for the korbans acceptance. Several commentators adopt this approach as well. Given the fact that this term modifies the individual (e.g. li-retzonkhem - for YOUR will, referring to the one bringing the sacrifice), this second interpretation better accommodates the simple reading of the text. Additionally, the Torah employs different expressions in reference to Gods willing response to sacrifices (see Vayikra 22:21 and 1:4). The usage of this expression in our verse, however, differs significantly from the other four instances. While the other four appearances involve individual, voluntary sacrifices, our context deals with a MANDATORY offering brought by the NATION as a whole. How can the Torah require that a mandatory korban be brought by the will of the entire nation? The Sifra explains this term as indicating that the community at large is not to be coerced with regard to the omer sacrifice. The obvious question, however, is, to what kind of coercion does this refer? Only the representatives of the High Court were actively involved in this mitzva - whom would they have to coerce? Additionally, why would this sacrifice be singled out for such a halakha, more than any other obligatory or national offering? According to Rihals general approach, the explanation of the verse is clear. By your will refers to the one detail of this sacrifice that indeed depends upon the decision of the nation - its date. The nation determines when the barley harvest begins, and thus, by extension, when to bring the omer sacrifice. This interpretation yields the following reading of the verse: He shall elevate the sheaf before God by your will, meaning, whenever you decide, so long as the kohen shall elevate it on the day following the Shabbat. Which Shabbat it is that will precede the day of the omer depends entirely upon the will and decision of the people. This reading of the verse may help us understand halakhas disregard of the requirement that the omer be brought on the day following Shabbat. The condition that we bring the omer on Sunday applies only when the date depends upon the subjective determination of the people. However, once a permanent date for the korban was established (on the sixteenth of Nissan), the flexibility afforded by the term by your will no longer exists. Therefore, there was no longer any need for the restriction of the day following Shabbat. (A precedent for such a phenomenon, where the Torah establishes certain requirements only under certain conditions, may be the construction of the menora. The requirement to include decorative balls and flowers in the menora applies only to a golden menora. The menora may be fashioned from other metals, as well, in which case these ornaments are not required. See Menachot 28a.) Alternatively, the Torahs requirement that the omer be offered on the day following Shabbat may mandate that the offering be brought on the day following a day when no work is performed. In other words, the interpretation of Shabbat is open-ended: it can mean either the seventh day of the week, or a day upon which we desist from work. Thus, the day after Shabbat is either Sunday or the day following a Yom Tov. When the day of the omer is subject to flexibility, then the most reasonable day of cessation of work to determine the day of the omer is Shabbat, the most frequent day of rest. With the establishment of a
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permanent date for the omer, the halakha determined that the day of rest to precede this day would be the first day of Pesach. If so, then the conventional understanding that Chazal actually interpret the word Shabbat as Yom Tov, is, in a certain sense, correct. The Torah here refers to a day upon which no work is performed, be it Shabbat or Yom Tov. In actuality, however, when the day of the omer depended upon the peoples decision, it occurred on Sunday, whereas once a fixed date was established, it is brought on the day following Yom Tov.

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PARASHAT EMOR The Parasha of the Festivals: Its Structure and Significance A. THE TWO HALVES OF THE PARASHA OF THE FESTIVALS The order of the parasha of the festivals follows the order of the festivals themselves in the annual calendar. The parasha consists of seven masoretic sections, as follows: 1. 2. 3. 4. (1-3) General introduction and the mitzva of Shabbat (4-8) Pesach and the Festival of Matzot (9-14) The mincha offering and its sacrifice (15-22) The offering of the two loaves and its sacrifice, and the declaration of a holy convocation on the day when it is brought 5. (23-25) A day of remembrance and sounding of the shofar on the first day of the seventh month 6. (26-32) Yom Kippur 7. (33-44) Festival of Sukkot and the Eighth Day; conclusion of the parasha In previous shiurim, we have seen that many parashot discussing a single subject are divided into two equal and clearly distinguishable halves, which sometimes parallel one another. Is it possible to analyze a halakhic parasha such as ours, which is simply a list of dates, in terms of literary structure? The answer is a resounding yes. Our parasha comprises 44 verses, and is clearly divided into two equal halves of 22 verses each (sections 1-4 and sections 5-7). This division is reflected both in style and in content, as follows:

1. Each half concludes with the declaration, I am the Lord your God (verse 22 and verse
43, which precedes the concluding verse: And Moshe told the holy days of God to Bnei Yisrael). This declaration does not appear elsewhere in the parasha of the festivals. 2. The festivals addressed in the first half (except for Shabbat) are those that fall in the spring and the harvest season. The festivals treated in the second half all fall in the seventh month, Tishrei. The connection between the festivals included in the first half also finds expression in their musaf (additional) sacrifice, as we learn from Bemidbar 28-29. On each of the days of the Festival of Matzot, and on Shavuot, the same musaf sacrifice is offered: TWO BULLS, a ram and seven lambs (Bemidbar 28:19, 27). The festivals of the second half other than Sukkot, which is an exception to all the other festivals in terms of its musaf sacrifices likewise share the same musaf: on Rosh Ha-shana, Yom Kippur and Shemini Atzeret the prescribed offering is ONE BULL, one ram and seven lambs (Bemidbar 29:2, 8, 36).

3. Each half mentions four holy convocations when labor may not be performed; on
three of them it is labor of work that is forbidden i.e., labor required for preparing food for the festival is permissible and on the fourth, called a Shabbat shabbaton, ALL labor is forbidden even those activities required for preparing food. Let us now examine the connection between the festivals mentioned in each of the two halves, leaving out Shabbat, which is an exception here and which we shall treat later. The festivals of the first half are divided into two types:
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a. Festival of Matzot lasting seven days, with the first and the last day being

holy convocations. b. Two single days the day of waving the Omer, and the day of bringing the two loaves that are clearly related to each other. The festivals of the second half are divided in a similar way:

a. Sukkot, followed by Shemini Atzeret lasting a total of eight days, with the first
and the last being holy convocations. b. Two other festivals that are single days: the shabbaton for remembrance with the sounding of the shofar (Rosh Ha-shana) and Yom Kippur. These two are also related to one another, but their connection is less obvious.

The connection between the day of waving the Omer and the day of bringing the two loaves finds expression, inter alia, in the fact that a closed parasha separates them, as well as in the fact that the parasha of the two loaves has no introduction. The hidden connection between Rosh Ha-shana and Yom Kippur is reflected in a similar way: they are separated by a closed parasha, and the parasha of Yom Kippur has only a partial introduction. B. THREE DIFFICULTIES REGARDING THE PARASHAS STRUCTURE Even upon a cursory reading of the parasha of the festivals, three difficulties relating to its structure become immediately apparent. 1. The parasha of the festivals opens with verses 1-2: And God spoke to Moshe, saying: Speak to Bnei Yisrael and tell them: The festivals of God, which you shall call as holy convocations these are My festivals. Then, in verse 3, we find the mitzva of Shabbat, and this concludes the first masoretic section. The next section opens anew, again introducing the entire parasha of the festivals: (4) These are the festivals of God, holy convocations, which you shall call at their appointed times. This second opening is followed (verses 5-8) with the mitzvot of the Pesach and the Festival of Matzot. What is the meaning of this double introduction first at the beginning of the parasha as a whole, and then again at the beginning of the second masoretic section? The similarity between verse 2 and verse 4 is obvious, such that the second introduction seems to add nothing new. 2. At the conclusion of the first half, closing the parasha of bringing the bikkurim bread (the two loaves) and calling that day a holy convocation, there is a verse that appears to depart entirely from the subject of the festivals: (22) And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not finish the corners of your field when you reap, nor shall you gather the gleaning of your harvest; you shall leave them for the poor and for the stranger; I am the Lord your God.

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This verse repeats what we were already mentioned in parashat Kedoshim (19:9-10), among the laws of gifts to the poor. Why does the Torah repeat here a law that has nothing to do with the festivals, in the middle of a parasha that deals with the festivals and nothing else? 3. The conclusion of the parasha of the festivals is located in a strange place - in the middle of the laws of Sukkot: (37-38) These are the festivals of God which you shall call as holy convocations, to offer burnt offerings to God a burnt offering and a meal offering, a sacrifice and a drink offering, each thing on its given day. Besides the shabbatot of God, and besides your gifts, and besides all your vows, and besides all your freewill offerings that you may bring to God. Following this conclusion, the first part of which (beginning of verse 37) repeats almost verbatim the introduction to our parasha (verses 2 and 4), the Torah goes on to elaborate on the laws of Sukkot: (39-43) But on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you gather the produce of the land, you shall celebrate the festival of God for seven days And you shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of the citron tree and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days, and you shall celebrate it as a festival to God, seven days in the year You shall dwell in sukkot for seven days in order that your descendants may know that I made Bnei Yisrael dwell in sukkot when I took them out of the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God. Now, after the concluding words, I am the Lord your God, there is a final conclusion to the parasha of the festivals: (44) And Moshe told the festivals of God to Bnei Yisrael, corresponding to the command at the beginning of the parasha (2): Speak to Bnei Yisrael and tell them: The festivals of God. Why are there five verses dealing with Sukkot (39-43) in between the first part of the conclusion (37-38) and the second part (44)? And why are all the laws pertaining to Sukkot not grouped together? In the following sections we shall attempt to answer these questions. C. WHAT HAS SHABBAT GOT TO DO WITH THE FESTIVALS? In order to clarify the reason for the double opening of the parasha, we must first define in what way Shabbat is related to the festivals. Shabbat is called a holy convocation, as are the other festivals, and all labor isfon Shabbat, as on Yom Kippur. On Shabbat a musaf sacrifice is offered, as on the other festivals. It is on the basis of this broad similarity that some commentators have attempted to explain Shabbats appearance at the beginning of our parasha. On the other hand, Shabbat is also fundamentally different from the festivals. It is not connected with any specific date; rather, it was established at the beginning of the worlds existence as falling every seventh day. This establishes the Shabbat as independent of any human factor (the nation of Israel and their courts), in contrast to the other festivals, whose establishment depends on the recognition and sanctification of the New Moon. The Ramban comments:
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It appears to me that the verse, The festivals of God which you shall call as holy convocations these are My festivals (verse 2) refers to those listed thereafter in the first month etc. (verse 5 onwards), and therefore the Torah then repeats (verse 4), These are the festivals of God, because THE LIST IS INTERRUPTED AT SHABBAT. For we are told [by means of this pause created by the subject of Shabbat]: The festivals of God which you shall call as holy convocations, these are My festivals labor of work [may not be performed, but on these festivals we are permitted to prepare food for the festival]. However, Shabbat must be observed as a Shabbat shabbaton, refraining from every type of labor This hints that EVEN WHEN SHABBAT FALLS ON ONE OF THE FESTIVALS, IT (Shabbat) MAY NOT BE SET ASIDE TO PREPARE FOOD [by performing one of the forbidden types of labor]. (See also the Rambans analogous comments on Shemot 35:1.) Thus the Ramban explains why the second section of our parasha opens with the verse, And God spoke to Moshe, saying (verse 4) the same opening as every new law in our parasha: For the first command (verses 1-2) ITSELF was the mitzva of the festivals [rather than an introduction to the mitzva of Shabbat, as other commentators maintain]. Shabbat is mentioned only in order to negate the law of the festivals [i.e. license to prepare food for the festival] in its regard, and not in order to elaborate on its commandments. Therefore with regard to Shabbat we are not told, And you shall offer a burnt sacrifice to God, as on the festivals, and at the end the Torah mentions (verse 38), BESIDES the Shabbatot of God And this is what is meant by the question posed by the Midrash of our Sages (in the Sifra), What is Shabbat doing among the festivals? FOR SHABBAT IS NOT ONE OF THE FESTIVALS OF GOD AT ALL; the Torah only juxtaposes it to them. According to this explanation of the Ramban, which requires no further substantiation, the appearance of Shabbat at the beginning of the parasha of festivals is not meant to include Shabbat among them. On the contrary it comes to limit the license for preparing food for the festivals when they fall on Shabbat, just as in parashat Vayakhel the Torah mentions Shabbat in order to limit the command of building the Mishkan, such that labor will not be performed on Shabbat. The reason for first presenting the warning concerning Shabbat is also similar in both cases: like the construction of the Mishkan, preparation of food for the festival on the festive days themselves is also derived from the command to rejoice on the festive days, and therefore it is possible that one would mistakenly assume such labor to be permissible on a Shabbat that coincides with the festival. Therefore, the Torah precedes the discussion of the festivals with a warning that ALL labor is forbidden on Shabbat, even when it coincides with one of the festivals to be discussed in the rest of the parasha. This explanation by the Ramban illustrates a unique stylistic phenomenon in the formulation of the mitzva of Shabbat here. In eight places in the Torah, Shabbat is defined in a similar style: as the seventh day a day of rest that follows six days of activity. In five of these places, the verse addresses the command in the second person, thus making him the subject of these commands, and the labor performed during these six days is HIS labor. There are only three instances where there is no appeal to a person; simply labor is forbidden. The labor itself is the subject of these verses, and its performance on the six weekdays appears in the passive form ( shall be performed). The first two of these three verses are to be found in parashat Ki Tisa (31:15) and parashat Vayakhel (35:2), and they forbid the building of the Mishkan on Shabbat. The third verse is the one with which chapter 23 of our parasha opens. (Shemot 31:15) Six days shall labor be performed
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and on the seventh day a Shabbat shabbaton. (35:2) Six days shall labor be done and on the seventh day a Shabbat shabbaton. (Vayikra 23:3) Six days shall labor be done and on the seventh day a Shabbat shabbaton. What is common to these three verses? It is only in these three instances that the Torah does not prohibit YOUR labor a persons own weekday work - but rather prohibits labor for the sake of heaven labor performed in the fulfillment of a mitzva: the construction of the Mishkan, or the preparation of food on the festival, for the sake of rejoicing on that day. Although these are considered labor for the sake of heaven, they are permissible only on the six weekdays not on Shabbat.

D. BEGINNING VS. END OF THE HARVEST The verse that concludes the parasha of bringing the two loaves And when you reap the harvest of your land comes to close the two masoretic sections that precede it: the section of verses 9-14, dealing with the Omer meal offering, and the section of verses 15-22, dealing with the mincha offering of the two loaves. In fact, these two sections form a single unit in the parasha of the festivals, as becomes clear from their content and as expressed in the division between them in the form of a closed parasha, with no new introduction to the second section. The concluding verse verse 22 likewise contributes towards the unity of these two sections AS DEALING WITH THE MITZVOT PERTAINING TO THE HARVEST SEASON. The root k-tz-r appears as a verb or as an object in two places in this unit: At its opening (10) When you come to the land that I give to you AND YOU REAP ITS HARVEST, then you will bring the Omer the beginning of YOUR HARVEST to the kohen. At its conclusion (22) AND WHEN YOU REAP the HARVEST of your land, you shall not finish off the corners of your field WHEN YOU HARVEST, nor shall you gather the gleanings of YOUR HARVEST. In total, this root appears within the double parasha seven times (and nowhere else in the body of the parasha). The connection between these two verses extends beyond the mention of the harvest. The word land also appears in both: the land which I give to you, and your land, and the harvest is referred to in both places as the harvest of the land (but also as your harvest). The term THE FIRST of your harvest is a contrast to the command You shall not FINISH OFF the corners of the field. Finishing off the corners, and gathering the gleaning, represent the end of the harvest. Concerning this contrast, Rav David Zvi Hoffmann writes (p. 168): There is no doubt that the law (in verse 22) is closely connected to the first mitzva of this parasha that of the Omer. That mitzva pertains to the BEGINNING of the harvest,
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while the conclusion of the parasha is related to the actions at the END of the harvest. The beginning of the harvest is to be dedicated to God, and the remainder is not to be gathered in its entirety by the owners of the field. Rather, the corners, and whatever falls to the ground during the gathering, are to be left for the poor. The recognition of God as the ultimate Owner of the land, which finds expression in the dedication of the first of the harvest, requires that the corners and gleanings of the field be given to the poor. I am the Lord your God thus the text concludes: I am the Master of both rich and poor. It is for His honor that you are to dedicate together the first of your harvest. E. WHY TWO COMMANDS CONCERNISUKKOT? The conclusion of the parasha of the festivals in the midst of the laws of Sukkot is also explained in Rav Hoffmanns commentary. At first he addresses the phenomenon, found in several places in the Torah, where following the conclusion of a halakhic parasha, a few laws are then noted to complement that parasha. He brings a few examples, and maintains that verses 39-43, which conclude the laws of Sukkot, likewise represent a complement or appendix to the parasha as a whole: The reason why verses 39-43 are given in the form of a complement is simple. The laws pertaining to the kohanim and to ritual purity (the parts of Sefer Vayikra preceding our parasha) are desert laws in the most precise sense of the word: not only were they GIVEN during the desert period, but they are also MEANT FOR THAT PERIOD. Let us take, as an example, the laws of tzaraat. The victim of tzaraat is always described as being located outside of the CAMP (13:46, 14:3, 8). Where the law in question is meant for the future (tzaraat of houses), then the text opens with the formulation (14:34), When you come to the land of Canaan. The fact that the same principle applies to the laws of the festivals is evidenced by the law of the Pesach sacrifice (Shemot 12), the law of Pesach Sheni (Bemidbar 9:1-14), the laws of Yom Kippur (Vayikra 16:26-28), and the introduction to the law of the Omer (Vayikra 23:10). But specifically Sukkot is a festival whose special mitzvot cannot be fulfilled in the desert. In particular, [one could not observe] the joyous celebrations adjacent to the Mikdash, holding a lulav as a sign of thanks for Gods blessing at the gathering of the produce, and the dwelling in sukkot in memory of Gods protection during the desert wanderings. This part of the Sukkot celebrations therefore required its own special, separate complementary section. In other words, the division of the laws of Sukkot into two parts occurs because there are two different sets of instructions for two different time periods. In verses 33-36, the text is commanding the celebration of the festival of Sukkot IN THE DESERT. What is included in this instruction? In his explanation of these verses, Rav Hoffmann writes as follows: It appears that the mitzva of dwelling in a sukka was meant for the generations that would live in the land, and therefore it is brought in a special appendix, whereas here only those mitzvot that could also be fulfilled in the desert are given: On the first day shall be holy convocation; all labor of work you shall not do; the various sacrifices of each day compare Bemidbar 29; a holy convocation again on the eighth day, on which another sacrifice is brought. The text uses the name festival of Sukkot here (verse 34) for the purposes of the future, for in future the festival will be called Sukkot.

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Verses 39-43, on the other hand, instruct as to the celebration of Sukkot from the time of entering the land and dwelling in it. This distinction is made explicit in verse 39: when you gather the produce of the land this describes not only the season when the festival of God occurs, but also the historical period when certain mitzvot of this festival begin to become applicable. We may perhaps add another explanation: the expression when you gather the produce of the land also explains the idea of these mitzvot. The taking of the four species on the first day and the rejoicing before God for seven days are expressions of thanksgiving and joy for the good land to which He has brought us, and for the ingathering of produce that we have merited. The Rambam writes as follows in his Guide of the Perplexed (III:43): What is represented by the four species of the lulav is the joy and gladness at their leaving the desert, which is not a place of fertility, of figs, grapes, pomegranates, and where there is no water to drink (according to Bemidbar 20:5), for a place of fruit trees and rivers. Therefore, in memory of this, the most beautiful of the lands fruits is taken, and the one with the best fragrance and the most beautiful leaves, as well as the most beautiful of its herbs the willow. And these four species are [selected because of] their commonness in Eretz Yisrael at that time [the season of the ingathering], and they are easily obtainable. The mitzva of dwelling in the sukka is related, obviously, to dwelling in Eretz Yisrael. This is not only for the simple reason that it is meant to remind us of the (contrasting) period of desert wandering, but also because of what the Rashbam writes concerning the reason for this mitzva in his explanation of verse 43: The festival of Sukkot you shall make for yourselves for seven days, when you gather in your corn and your wine (Devarim 16:13) When you gather in the produce of the land, and your houses are full of all kinds of goodness grain, wine and oil - in order that you may remember that I made Bnei Yisrael dwell in sukkot in the desert for forty years, with no dwelling place and no portion. FROM THIS (remembrance) SHALL YOU GIVE THANKS TO HE WHO HAS GIVEN YOU A PORTION AND MADE YOUR HOUSES FULL OF ALL KINDS OF GOODNESS, and you shall not say in your hearts (Devarim 8:17), My strength and the power of my hand have made me all of this valor And therefore we leave our houses full of all kinds of goodness at the time of the ingathering, and dwell in sukkot, as a reminder that they had no portion in the desert, nor houses in which to dwell. And it is for this reason that the Holy One established the festival of Sukkot at the time of the ingathering of the corn and the wine. Thus, the character of Sukkot as celebrated in Eretz Yisrael is indeed qualitatively different from the festival as celebrated in the desert, and therefore two different commands are given for it, separated from one another by means of the concluding verses 36-38. Rav Hoffmann still has difficulty with this explanation, and writes as follows: However, the proper place for this complement (verses 39-43) should then perhaps be PRIOR to the concluding verse (37), These are the festivals of God..., in order that the entire discussion of the festivals would conclude with that. But the answer to this appears simple: had the concluding verses appeared after the laws of Sukkot that are applicable only in the land, then we might mistakenly assume that the mitzva of bringing the burnt sacrifices to God on the festivals is likewise dependent on entering the land. The conclusion therefore appears where it does in order to teach us that these laws apply even in the desert, and only the laws that follow them are restricted to the land.
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F. PARALLEL BETWEEN THE TWO HALVES Let us return to the structure of the parasha of the festivals as a whole. In section A. above, we discussed how the parasha may be divided into two equal halves. The division of biblical literary units into two equal halves usually helps us to compare them to each other. How, then, can we draw a parallel between the two halves of our parasha? In section A. we noted various possible parallels between the two halves, but hinted at the fact that the main and most important parallel becomes apparent only at the conclusion of the discussion, after solving various questions related to the structure of the parasha. Does the first half of our parasha also address festivals whose mitzvot apply only upon entering the land? There can be no doubt in this regard: (9-10) And God spoke to Moshe, saying: Speak to Bnei Yisrael and say to them: When you come to the land which I give to you and you reap its harvest, you shall bring the Omer the first of your harvest to the kohen. How far do the mitzvot of the festivals that apply only in Israel continue? Here, too, the answer is clear: up to the conclusion of this half, in verse 22. This entire section of verses (922) is a single unit, dealing with the mitzvot of the harvest in the land of Israel. A literal reading of the text would suggest that not only the waving of the Omer and the bringing of the two loaves are mitzvot that apply in Eretz Yisrael, but that the very days upon which these sacrifare brought not commemorated in the desert. The festival of Shavuot, after all, is altogether dependent on the counting of fifty days from the waving of the Omer, and when there is no day of waving then clearly there can be no festival of Shavuot! Hence, each of the two halves of the parasha is built in a similar way. First we find the laws of the festivals that apply in the desert as well, and thereafter we find those that apply only from the time of entering the land onwards. The schedule of festivals is therefore a double schedule: one is valid already in the desert, while the other becomes applicable only in the future. The two halves of the parasha correspond directly with one another: Half A: In the desert: (1-3) Shabbat (4-8) Pesach and the Festival of Matzot In Eretz Yisrael: (9-14) The day of waving the Omer (15-22) The day of bringing the two loaves Half B: In the desert: (23-25) Day of Remembrance (Rosh HaShanah) (26-32) Yom Kippur (33-38) Sukkot (in the desert) In Eretz Yisrael: (39-44) Sukkot (in the land) Although the corresponding sections of the two halves are not identical in length, other aspects the parallel are obvious. There is a clear linguistic and thematic parallel between the long festivals that are commemorated even in the desert i.e., between the Festival of Matzot (5-8) and the festival of Sukkot in the desert (34-36).
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Concerning the festivals that apply in Eretz Yisrael, there are a number of connections:

1. It appears that the description of the time of Sukkot in the land (39) When you
gather in the produce of the land refers back to the introduction to the corresponding section (10): WHEN YOU COME TO THE LAND and reap its harvest. This may be deduced from the similarity between the verse, When you gather in the produce of the land and verse 22 when you reap the harvest of your land. Just as the verse And when you harvest clearly refers back to When you come to the land, so likewise the verse When you gather in. 2. The two sections dealing with the Eretz Yisrael festivals conclude in a similar way: I am the Lord your God. 3. The expression before God occurs both in the parasha of the Omer and in the parasha of the two loaves: (11) And he shall wave the Omer BEFORE GOD (20) And the kohen shall wave them (the lambs of the peace offering) with the bikkurim bread as a wave offering BEFORE GOD. We find this expression occurring again in the laws of Sukkot in Eretz Yisrael: (40) And you shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of the citron tree and you shall rejoice BEFORE GOD you God for seven days. In each of the three places where the expression before God is mentioned here, the reference is to the Temple.

4. In the two sections dealing with the festivals celebrated in Eretz Yisrael, no mention is

made of the bringing of musaf sacrifices (the burnt sacrifices to God), for this law is not specific to Eretz Yisrael, and applied also in the desert. For this reason, no mention is made in the discussion of Shavuot of you shall offer a burnt offering to God, as appears in all the other festivals of our parasha, even though the musaf sacrifice of this festival is set down explicitly in the parasha of the musaf sacrifices in Sefer Bemidbar (28:26-31).

In my previous shiur on Parashat Emor (5760), I noted the significance of the Oral Law establishing the first day of the harvest as the 16th of Nissan. The analysis of the parallels between the two halves of the parasha of the festivals teaches us an additional significance to this ruling. Just as in the second half, verses 39-43 serve as a sort of Eretz Yisrael version of the Sukkot festival celebrated in the desert, as described previously in verses 33-36, so verses 9-22 in the first half serve as an Eretz Yisrael version of the Pesach celebration in the desert, described in the preceding verses (4-8). The day of the waving of the Omer the beginning of the harvest is simply a new aspect of the Festival of Matzot, expressed upon having entered the land, while the festival of Shavuot now becomes simply a sort of atzeret to Pesach.

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PARASHAT BEHAR Two Hebrew Servants A. Two Different Parshiyot Parashat Behar features a brief section dealing with the laws of eved ivri, the Jewish indentured servant (Vayikra 25:39-43). Although this halakhic concept is already familiar to us from Parashat Mishpatim (Shemot 21:2-6), the two discussions, as we will see, have virtually nothing in common beyond their shared interest in a Jew who becomes a servant to another Jew. The issue of eved ivri arises a third time, in Parashat Reeh. That section parallels the corresponding discussion in Mishpatim, both in terms of literary style and content. Its sole addition to the presentation in Mishpatim involves the mitzva of haanaka, the owners responsibility to provide his servant with basic support immediately upon his attainment of freedom, so as to help him regain his financial independence. Indeed, the section in Reeh appears amidst other mitzvot requiring one to assist others beyond the normally expected standard. For example, one must supply all the needs of the poor, lend money even just prior to the Sabbatical year when debts are annulled, etc. Thus, we may, for all intents and purposes, equate the section in Reeh with the corresponding discussion in Mishpatim, the former coming merely to add a dimension beyond the call of duty to the requirements of freeing a servant. Now, let us delineate the differences between the discussion of eved ivri as presented in Mishpatim/Reeh and that in our parasha:

1. Parashat Mishpatim requires the servants release after seven years of servitude,
allowing for an extension until the jubilee year only with the servants consent, in which case his ear is pierced, symbolizing his indentured status. In our parasha, the servant remains indentured until the jubilee year under all circumstances. Parashat Behar omits the owners obligation of haanaka, which, as we have seen, earns mention in Parashat Reeh. Our parasha prohibits unduly harsh treatment of the indentured servant in three separate verses (39, 42, 43), an element absent from the corresponding discussions in Mishpatim and Reeh. Whereas Parashat Mishpatim allows for the owner to marry his servant to a Canaanite maidservant, no such possibility exists in Parashat Behar. Finally, after the eved ivri discussion in Behar, the Torah proceeds to another scenario, where a Jew in financial straits sells himself not to another Jew, but to a gentile. In Parashat Mishpatim, the Torah does not address this case, but rather moves on to the situation of ama ivria, the Hebrew maidservant, an issue treated nowhere in our parasha.

2. 3.
4.

5.

More generally, the overall attitude towards the institution of the indentured servant differs fundamentally in the two parshiyot. Parashat Mishpatim presents this institution as established and acceptable. In Parashat Behar, by contrast, we find a concerted attempt by the Torah to minimize, if not abolish, the entire concept of servitude among Jews: For they are My servants, whom I freed from the land of Egypt (25:42); For it is to Me that the Israelites are servants: they are My servants, whom I freed from the land of Egypt (25:55). For this reason, it would seem, the term eved (slave or servant) never appears in the discussion here in Behar, while it is the dominant term employed in Mishpatim. The section in Behar seems to focus primarily on the limitations and restrictions of the servants status as such, a theme with no counterpart in Mishpatim.
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Further complicating matters are three differences that seem to point us in the opposite direction. The servant in Behar serves until the jubilee year under all circumstances; his term may extend for 49 years! By contrast, both Mishpatim and Reeh mandate the servants freedom after six years. Secondly, the servant as portrayed in our parasha receives no gratuity from the owner upon his release, as earned by the servant of Reeh-Mishpatim. Finally, the Torah in Parashat Behar allows for a gentiles acquisition of a Jewish slave, a possibility never addressed in the two corresponding sections. What emerges, then, are two distinct parshiyot dealing with two different instances entirely. Stated otherwise, the servant of Mishpatim-Reeh is not the same servant who appears in Parashat Behar. As the Rambam explicates at the beginning of Hilkhot Avadim, a Jew becomes a servant in one of two ways: either he sells himself into servitude out of sheer destitution, or he is sold by the Jewish court upon being convicted of theft and unable to afford compensation to his victim. The Rambam writes explicitly that the section in Parashat Behar addresses the first situation, as clearly indicated by the opening verse: If your kinsman under you continues in straits and must give himself over to you (25:39). Mishpatim and Emor, posits the Rambam, deal with the thief who cannot afford compensation and is therefore sold into slavery. (This method is spelled out by the Torah later in Parashat Mishpatim - Shemot 22:2. See also Mekhilta, beginning of Parashat Mishpatim.) The different circumstances addressed in the different sections may very well account for the discrepancies in presentation. The laws of the indentured servant as presented in Mishpatim/Reeh apply to the thief who was forced into servitude, while the legal detail in Behar affect only one who sells himself out of poverty. Indeed, this is the view of the first tanna in the beraita in Kiddushin (14a), who lists four practical differences between the two types of servants: 1) duration - the thief goes free after six years, while the pauper who sells himself remains in service beyond the six years; 2) the thief sold into slavery may extend his term of service by having his ear pierced, as outlined in Mishpatim/Reeh, unlike the one who sells himself; 3) only the thief receives financial assistance from the owner upon his departure into freedom; 4) only the thief may be married to a Canaanite maidservant. In other words, the tanna accepts the distinction we drew between the two parshiyot, and rules accordingly, taking into account several differences between the sections we noted at the outset of our discussion. The Rambam (Hilkhot Avadim 3:12) adds a fifth distinction, that one selling himself may do so to a gentile, while the court sells a thief only to another Jew. (One difference we observed between the two sections is not noted by the tanna or the Rambam - the prohibitions against harsh or denigrating labor, which appear only regarding the servant who sells himself. Although neither the tanna nor the Rambam says so explicitly, we will see that indeed, at least according to the Rambam, these laws may very well apply only to this servant.) B. The Reason Behind the Differences Can we find any common denominator behind the differences we delineated between the thief sold by the court and the pauper who sold himself? At first glance this seems impossible, for one simple reason - the differences point in two opposite directions. As we noted, the servant sold by the court leaves his master after only six years, receives a gratuity when he goes free and may never be sold to a gentile. All these laws indicate a higher level of independence than that enjoyed by his counterpart who sold himself. On the other hand, the
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servant who sold himself never has his ear pierced and may not be married off to a Canaanite maidservant, seemingly implying a higher status than the servant sold by the court. Let us begin by identifying the one factor that most vividly expresses a fundamental difference in status between the two servants. Clearly, this would be the issue of marrying a Canaanite maidservant. A Jewish man may not marry a Canaanite maid. The permission to marry a non-Jewish maid granted to the indentured servant sold by the court reflects a drastic change in his personal legal status. Moresuccinctly, he is no longer the same as other Jews. The servant who sold himself, by contrast, may not marry a Canaanite maidservant, just like the rest of the nation. The issue of the ear-piercing, too, reflects this change of status. A servant sold by the court has his ear pierced should he decide to remain in service beyond the six years. This physical imprint labels him as a slave; it marks the change in his personal status. No corresponding procedure exists with regard to the servant who sold himself. We may thus draw a scale, if you wish, of the various levels of servitude. On the lowest rung stands the Canaanite slave, who is considered the property of the Jewish owner. At the opposite end we find the Jewish employee (sakhir), who merely entered into a contractual agreement of labor, and may even nullify the agreement under certain circumstances (see Bava Metzia 10a). The two servants we have been discussing appear in between these two extremes. The servant sold by the court is further down, closer to the Canaanite slave, as his legal status underwent a significant change with his sale. The servant who sold himself, however, is closer to the employee. Indeed, the Torah compares him to a sakhir three times in the discussion in our parasha. Furthermore, as we have seen, the Torah never refers to this servant with the term eved, an expression the Torah does employ in its discussion in Mishpatim. The other differences, which seem to favor the servant who sold himself, may be understood in light of the Rambams comments in Hilkhot Avadim 1:7. In the context of the prohibitions against forcing ones servant to perform menial tasks which are assigned to slaves only, the Rambam writes, When is all this relevant? Regarding a Hebrew servant, because his soul is low [i.e. he has suffered humiliation] as a result of his sale [by the court]. But an Israelite who was not sold - he may be made to do the work of a slave, since he performs this work only out of his own will and volition. Which of the two Hebrew servants suffers from a low soul, or wounded emotions? Clearly, the servant forcefully sold by the court. Due to the emotional blow dealt to him through the compulsory sale, he especially requires the maintenance of basic human dignity. Therefore, the Torah spared this servant the indignation of an extended term of service. One who sells himself, by contrast, remains a free man. As such, he alone determines the length of his servitude according to his financial needs. The duration of his term depends entirely upon the contract he draws up with his employer, so long as he returns to his family on the jubilee year. Furthermore, one may sell himself to anyone, including a gentile. The Torah outlaws the sale of a Jew to a gentile only in the case of the servant sold by the court, so as to preserve his dignity and honor. Finally, the requirement that a servant receive financial assistance upon his attainment of freedom applies only to the servant forcefully sold by the court. He has spent his term of service under a slave status, and he now rejoins the world of freemen. The servant who sold
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himself, however, was free all along; his sale evolved merely as a result of his financial circumstances. He does not require his employers gratuity upon his departure. Additionally, recall that the servant sold by the court is a thief who could not afford to pay restitution. Any property he owned was given to his victim; he leaves his masters home penniless. The one who sold himself, however, presumably still owns the money he received through his purchase, given that the owner was responsible for supporting the servants family throughout his term of service. One final question remains. The entire purpose of the thiefs sale, it appears, is to enable the victim to receive the full amount stolen from him. If this is the case, then why does the Torah change the thiefs personal legal status, and decree upon him such a severe level of subjugation? How does this affect the victim, and how does this relate to his right to full reimbursement? We must conclude that the compulsory sale serves as a punishment for this thief, who not only stole but also consumed the merchandise to the point where he can no longer repay its value. Significantly, the Gemara (Kiddushin 15a) raises the possibility that if the court sells a thief into servitude within six years of the jubilee, the servant should not go free, in spite of the onset of the jubilee year. The Gemara explains that since he committed a crime, he should be penalized and his term extended. Although the Gemara negates such a possibility based on a Biblical proof, this passage reveals that Chazal perhaps perceived the thiefs slavery as a punitive measure. Thus, the thiefs sale serves a dual purpose. It guarantees the return of the stolen goods, and at the same time penalizes the criminal, by subjecting him to a humiliating process that sends him to a social status lower than that of the rest of the people.

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PARASHAT BEHAR Four Mitzvot of Counting (Part I) A. TWO WAYS OF DIVIDING THE PARASHOT The division of the Torah into a three-year cycle of sedarim, which was practiced in Eretz Yisrael from Mishnaic and Talmudic times up until the period of the Geonim, created units that were more uniform than the parashot of the annual cycle that developed in Babylonia (and which we follow today). Let us examine the division in the case of parashat Behar. The division of parashat Behar into three parts is logical. The first seder (section), up to 25:13, contains a definition of the Jubilee year and its principal laws, built on the foundation of the laws of the lands rest (shemitta year). The two other sections (25:14-34, and 25:35-26:2, which is the end of parashat Behar) address the economic ramifications of the Jubilee year on two spheres: transactions involving real estate (land and houses), and the purchase of slaves. The only aspect of this division that arouses a question is the location of the beginning of the first section: it is to be found not at the beginning of parashat Behar, but rather at the end of parashat Emor. Most of the sources that list the three-year cycle of Torah readings designate the beginning of this section at 23:9 And God spoke When you come to the land and reap its harvest i.e., in the middle of the parasha about the festivals. The most puzzling thing is that this section interrupts both the parasha of the festivals and the laws of the Jubilee. Why, then, was the ancient division of Torah readings established in this way? The answer becomes immediately apparent when we compare the beginning of this seder and its conclusion. Near the beginning of the seder, the Torah discusses the counting of seven weeks until the fiftieth day, which is to be called a holy convocation when melekhet avoda (labor of work) is forbidden. Near the end of the seder, we find a similar counting that of seven cycles of seven years until the fiftieth year, which is to be sanctified, with a declaration of freedom for the land and a cessation of agricultural activities: COUNTING OF DAYS UNTIL THE BRINGING OF THE TWO LOAVES: (23:15) And you shall count for yourselves from the day after the festival seven complete weeks shall there be. (16) Until the day after the completion of seven weeks you shall count fifty days, and you shall offer (21) And on that very day shall you call a holy convocation it shall be for you; you shall not perform any labor of work.

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COUNTING OF YEARS UNTIL THE JUBILEE: (25:8) And you shall count for yourself seven cycles of years; seven years times seven. And the seven cycles of years shall be for you Forty-nine years: And you shall sound (10) And you shall sanctify the fiftieth year and you shall declare freedom in the land (11) You shall not sow, nor shall you reap What does this obvious parallel come to teach us about each of the two countings in its own right, and about the connection between them? The counting from the beginning of the harvest until the festival that occurs at its conclusion is addressed in one other place in the Torah in the parasha of the festivals in Sefer Devarim (16:9-10): Seven weeks shall you count, from when you begin to put the sickle to the standing corn shall you begin to count seven weeks. And you shall make a festival of weeks for the Lord your God Aside from these two countings counting towards the festival of Shavuot, and counting towards the Jubilee year the Torah mentions two others that resemble one another: the counting of the zav and the zava (men and women experiencing abnormal fluid discharges) towards their ritual purification. (Vayikra 15:13) When the zav is cleansed of his issue, he shall count himself seven days for his purification, and he shall wash his clothes and wash his flesh in running water, and he shall be purified. (verse 28) And if she [the zava] is cleansed of her issue then she shall count herself seven days, and thereafter she shall be purified. Todays shiur will address the intention of the Torah in each of the places where the concept of counting is mentioned, and the way in which this counting is to be carried out according to Halakha. B. THE OMER AND THE OTHER COUNTINGS Out of the four countings commanded in the Torah, only the counting of the omer the period leading up to the festival of Shavuot is actually observed today, in accordance with the literal text. This counting is listed as a positive mitzva by the various codifiers of the mitzvot, and its laws are detailed in the Gemara (Menachot 65a-66a) and in early and later authorities. The mitzva is observed by counting verbally, each night throughout this period, the number of days and the number of weeks that have passed since the day of the bringing of the Omer, with a blessing recited prior to the actual count.
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Early and later commentators alike have discussed why the counting of the Omer is different from the other countings in the Torah, and in this regard they have also debated whether the way in which this counting is carried out arises from the literal text itself. Ibn Ezra (23:15) comments as follows: Were it not for the tradition, it would appear that the counting of these days is like the years of the Jubilee. It is clear to Ibn Ezra that the counting of the years towards the Jubilee is not carried out verbally and preceded with a blessing, and the Omer likewise, to his view, does not obligate a verbal count. It is the rabbinical tradition that has ruled that the counting of the Omer is to be fulfilled in this way. The Ramban has a similar view of this verse: The reason for [the formulation of the commandment] You shall count for yourselves is like that of (23:40), You shall take for yourselves [concerning the four species on Sukkot]: that the counting and the taking should be done by each individual, numbering aloud and keeping track, in accordance with the tradition of our Sages. This is not so concerning [the commandments of counting of] the zav and zava nor you shall count for yourself referring to the Jubilee, where [the intention is that] one should take care to keep track of them and not to forget [but there is no requirement to actually count verbally]. This being the case, the Ramban agrees that the counting of numbering aloud and keeping track is not explicitly commanded in the verse, but rather is a tradition of the Sages. Among later commentators, Rav Hoffmann writes as follows on the same verse: It appears to me that there is no need to recite a blessing [on the counting] for the Jubilee, for according to the literal text the command You shall count for yourselves (referring to the Omer) does not imply a verbal count, but rather a keeping track [of the number of days], as is required of the zav and the zava. It is only through the rabbinical tradition that we know that here, concerning the counting of the Omer, one is to count with a precise, verbally recited formulation, which is not the case concerning the Jubilee. C. COUNTING OF THE JUBILEE What was clear to these commentators regarding the counting of the years towards the Jubilee i.e., that there is no mitzva to count verbally was not at all clear to other commentators and halakhic authorities, who maintained the opposite. The most prominent among these the Rambam lists the mitzva of counting the years to the Jubilee in his Sefer Ha-mitzvot (positive commandment #140): We are commanded to count the years seven times seven years up until the Jubilee year. And this mitzva (i.e., counting shemitta years) is the responsibility of the Beit Din, i.e., the Great Sanhedrin; it is they who count each year of the fifty in the same way that each individual counts the days of the Omer and it involves counting the years separately as well as counting the shemitta cycles together with t.
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The Rambam lthis law that the Jubilee years are to be counted by the Beit Din in the same way that each individual counts the days of the Omer - from the Sifra on parashat Behar. The verse reads, And you shall count for yourself SEVEN CYCLES (shabbatot) OF YEARS, SEVEN YEARS seven times. The Rambam understands the Sifra to derive from this wording that one must count both years and shemitta cycles, similar to the way we count days and weeks in the Omer. From the Rambams discussion of counting the Omer in his Sefer Ha-mitzvot (positive commandment #161), it seems that the laws of counting the years towards the Jubilee are the basis for the laws of counting the Omer. The Rambam chooses to base the laws of counting the Omer upon the laws of counting the Jubilee years for one simple reason: the dual obligation of counting the Omer by days and by weeks, verbally, is quoted in the Gemara (Menachot 66a) as being deduced by Abbaye, who was an Amora of the fourth generation. However, the similar laws of counting the Jubilee years have their source in the earlier teachings of the Tannaim in the Sifra, and therefore they should be regarded as the basis for the teachings of the Amoraim concerning the counting of the Omer. D. COUNTING ALOUD Would the Rambam, and the large camp of those who share his opinion in this regard, support the views quoted in section B. above, according to which it is only rabbinical tradition that turned the counting of the Omer and the counting of the years towards Jubilee into an actual verbal count? Would they, too, agree that the literal text prescribes only a calculation of the weeks and years, with a view to observing the festival of Shavuot and the Jubilee year at their respective appointed time? Firstly, we must distinguish between two possible arguments by the literalists. One is that the countings in the Torah, according to a literal understanding of the text, are not mitzvot at all, but rather an illustrative description of the way in which we may know the proper time of Shavuot or of the Jubilee year. Such an argument is unacceptable, for it stands in direct contradiction to the style of the verses, which are formulated unequivocally in the imperative. Concerning the Omer we are told: AND YOU SHALL COUNT FOR YOURSELVES from the day after the festival until the day after the seventh complete week SHALL YOU COUNT Seven weeks SHALL YOU COUNT FOR YOURSELF, from the time that you begin to put the sickle to the standing corn SHALL YOU BEGIN TO COUNT. Had the Torah merely wanted to tell us that Shavuot falls on the fiftieth day of the Omer, it could have formulated it in a simpler way: Seven weeks after the sickle is put to the standing corn shall you make the festival of Shavuot, etc. Similarly, concerning the Jubilee, we are told, AND YOU SHALL COUNT FOR YOURSELF seven cycles of years. Had the Torah wished only to give an accounting description of the time of the Jubilee, it could have said, Following seven cycles of years that will be forty-nine years for you, you shall sound the shofar. The repeated use of expressions based on the root s-f-r in the imperative case cannot be understood in any way other than as an outright demand, not as a description or as advice. Further proof that in these sources the Torah means to command a counting, rather than to illustrate the keeping track of a calculation, is that there are other places in the Torah that require a calculation, and in those cases the matter is not presented in the form of counting.
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An outstanding example is provided by the laws of the impurity of a woman who has given birth, in chapter 12 of Vayikra: if she has given birth to a boy then she is impure for seven days, and thirty days and three days shall she remain in the blood of her purification. If she bore a girl, she is impure for two weeks, and sixty days and six days shall she remain in the blood of her purification. Despite the complexity of the numbers and the lengthy duration of time, the Torah explains this process with no reference to or use of the term counting. Hence we may conclude that there is no need for counting in the case of a mother who has given birth. Even so, the literalists would respond, there is an alternative argument: assuming that the counting is indeed a mitzva in both of the sources addressed here, as the style of the verses would suggest, why should we conclude that this counting must be done specifically by means of verbal expression? The Torahs intention is that we should take care and pay attention to the number of days and weeks leading up to the day of bringing the two loaves the festival of Shavuot, and similarly to the number of years and shemitta cycles leading up to the Jubilee year, in order that these will take place at the proper times. How, then, are these mitzvot of counting to be fulfilled? In ones heart, the literalists would reply. But a counting of units of time over an extended period is not compatible with the typical mitzvot obligating the heart such as love of God, or fear of Him. Mere thought is not sufficient: a mitzva of counting, such as these, must be accompanied by some external act, ensuring ones consciousness of time and its continuity in order that the counting not become mixed up. Well then, they could still claim, what about counting in writing? This question is actually addressed in responsa by Rabbi Akiva Eiger (#29-32), and there is room to consider that such a counting may indeed fulfill the obligation. But in the verses that command the counting, in the two places discussed, there is an additional phenomenon, indicating that the counting must in fact be done specifically in verbal form. The verses prescribe a dual counting: both small units (days or years) and larger units (weeks or shemitta years). The simultaneous counting of different units of time is not a matter for mental calculation, but rather requires explicit verbal expression. And the teachings of the Sages, both in the Sifra and in Menachot, are built around this idea, and present the mitzva of counting as a double verbal expression of two timetables. Thus we may say that the halakhic framework presented by Chazal for the mitzvot of counting the Omer and counting the years leading up to the Jubilee arise directly from the literal text itself. E. THE COUNTING OF THE ZAV AND ZAVA HOW? Thus far we have discussed only two out of the four countings that are commanded in the Torah. What is the status of the countings by the zav and the zava? Unlike the counting of the Jubilee, concerning which the discussion in the sources is not practical Halakha (since the Jubilee ceased to be observed long before Chazal and the Rishonim began to discuss it), the law of purification of the zava is still observed today (since we are stringent and treat every menstruant as a zava). And here as every woman knows there is no tradition that the seven days of purification must be observed by means of a verbal count. Why not? After all, in the verses discussing the zav and the zava the Torah uses the term counting in the imperative: AND HE SHALL COUNT FOR HIMSELF seven days for his purification; AND SHE SHALL COUNT FOR HERSELF seven days, and thereafter she
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shall be purified! If there were no command here, the law of the zava should have been formulated like that of the metzora, without mention of counting (14:8-9), And he shall dwell outside of his tent for seven days, and it shall be on the seventh day and he shall wash his flesh in water and he shall be purified. Indeed, there are some who would require the zava to count the days of her purification by means of an explicit numbering, as we shall see below. In Ketubot (72a) we find a statement by the Amora Rav Chinena bar Kahana, in the name of Shemuel: From where do we learn that a woman who is nidda must count to herself? And she shall count for herself seven days - for herself, i.e, to herself. This statement serves, in this sugya, as a source for the husband relying on his wife when it comes to her nidda status, but the language itself wouldimply that the woman who is waiting sevdays for her purification must actually count these seven days to herself. The Tosafot ask, Why does the zava not recite a blessing for her counting, as one recites a blessing for counting the Omer, for here to it is written, she shall count? In the writings of the Rishonim, the blessing for the counting is sometimes identified with the actual verbal counting itself. Therefore, we may interpret the question of the Tosafot in two ways: a.) Since the literal text of the Gemara would suggest that the woman must count to herself, why is it that the zava does not in fact count verbally, as we do when we count the Omer? b.) The literal reading of the Gemara would imply that the woman must count, and it is clear that women must count verbally. Why, then, was no blessing instituted for this counting? The Tosafot provide the following answer: We must say: A blessing is recited only for the Jubilee counting, and it is recited by the Beit Din every year, for this counting will always proceed in the proper order, and likewise the Omer. But [this is not the case] in the case of a zava - if she sees [blood] it will contradict [her counting thus far, and will then have to start a new count of seven days], so she should not count. From the final words of the Tosafot she should not count it would seem to appear that the question concerned the actual verbal counting, and the answer is that the zava should not count the seven days at all. But then the reason is not clear: why does the fact that if she sees blood, she will contradict her counting nullify the need to count these days? Therefore, it seems that the Tosafot means that she should not count WITH A BLESSING, in which case the reasoning is clear. Since the conclusion of the counting is not up to the woman, since if she sees [blood] it will contradict [her counting], she should not recite a blessing over the counting of the days, in order that this not become a berakha le-vatala (a vain blessing, entailing an unnecessary or unlawful mention of Gods Name) if she is later forced to start her count anew. According to this explanation of the Tosafot, the zava must in fact count verbally the seven days of purification. This is the conclusion drawn by R. Yeshaya Horowitz in his Shenei Luchot ha-Berit (Shaar ha-Otiot, 101a in the Amsterdam edition). [A number of Rishonim adopt a position similar to this, some based on the Tosafot and some independently. See the discussion by R. Yerucham Fishel Perlow, Commentary to R. Saadia Gaons Sefer Ha-mitzvot, p. 795.]

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The words of the Shelah (Shnei Luhot Ha-Berit) are discussed at length in the works of later halakhic authorities, and most reject his position. It seems that one of the main reasons for this is that there is no Jewish tradition of such a counting. As the Shelah himself testifies, his wife did not practice such a counting herself until her husband advised her to do so. And in truth, Jewish women throughout the generations have not made a verbal count neither before the time of the Shelah nor thereafter (except for those who follow his teachings). Hence, we return to the question of how the countings of the zav and zava are different from the counting of the Omer and of the Jubilee. Several differences between these two types of counting are apparent: 1. The length of time to be counted: seven days as opposed to fifty days or fifty years. 2. Complexity of the counting: units of time of a single, uniform type, as opposed to counting two sets of time units. 3. Purpose of the counting: a personal counting related to a private aim (the purification of the one who is counting), as opposed to a communal counting by the entire nation (Omer) or by its authorized representatives (Jubilee) leading towards a public, national event. 4. Security of continuity of the time counted: the counting of the zav and zava may be undermined they may return to the state they were in prior to the beginning of their count. Do any or all of these differences provide a reason as to why the zava does not make an explicit, verbal count? The Ramban (23:15) maintains that it is the third difference listed above that is the key: And the reason for the Torah saying, and you shall count for yourselves (concerning the Omer) is that one should count verbally and keep track of his count, in accordance with the tradition of our Sages. But this is not so in the case of and he shall count for himself and and she shall count for herself concerning the zav and zava, for if they wish to, they may remain in their state of ritual impurity; only they must not forget it. The son of the Noda Bi-Yehuda, in a gloss to fathers responsum (2nd ed., #124), poses the following question on the Ramban: I am puzzled by the words of the Ramban, for according to what he says, even the immersion [of the zav and zava in the mikveh for purification after the seven days] is not a mitzva for if they wish to remain ritually impure, they may do so. But the Rambam lists immersion in the waters of the mikveh as a positive commandment so it must be that the mitzva is as follows: if we wish to become purified, then we must do so by means of the mikveh, as is set down explicitly in the Rambam (Sefer Ha-mitzvot, positive commandment #109). If this is so, then the counting, too, is a mitzva, for if he wishes to become purified, then his purification process is by means of counting and immersion So just as immersion is counted as a positive mitzva, so the counting should be too. The answer he provides to his own question brings us to a definition of the mitzva of counting in every place where it occurs. The son of the Noda Bi-Yehuda perceives the counting as part of the process of purification; it is a ritual utterance that represents a precondition for purification, just like the immersion in the mikve. But it is difficult to accept such a contention.
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The literalists (quoted in section B. above) are correct in maintaining that the purpose of the counting is to clarify the date for a certain action or of a certain occasion; the counting is never an independent ritual whose purpose is simply the utterance itself. Even if we believe that the most basic understanding of the counting is that it is a mitzva requiring a verbal utterance, ultimately this mitzva serves as preparation for another mitzva, which is the purpose of the counting: the celebration of Shavuot, or the sanctification of the Jubilee year. Hence, the Ramban must be interpreted literally: it is not reasonable that the process of purification of the zav and the zava includes a mitzva to count seven days towards their purification. Counting is always an instruction for a person to calculate precisely the date when he must perform a certain obligation; what would be the point of warning a person to calculate carefully and count days towards an act that he isnt obliged to perform? It is enough for the zav and zava to know that following seven days from the day when the reason for their impurity ceased, they may be purified if they so wish. There is an additional reason why it would not be logical for the Torah to command the counting of these seven days: a timeframe of only seven days does not require a calculation and counting by means of an act even if the purpose of the counting is really a mitzva. Thus, the Torah does not instruct us to count six days in order to be able to sanctify the Shabbat, nor to count seven days after a male child is born in order to circumcise him on the eighth day. If this is so, then why does the Torah specifically command, And he shall count, And she shall count, concerning the zav and zava, while no such instruction applies to the metzora and other situations of impurity? It would seem that there is some intention behind this special instruction; if it cant be referring to an explicit, verbal counting, then what is its intent? The Torah is apparently commanding the zav and the zava to live with an active consciousness of the days going by until their purification. This consciousness of time must be that these seven days areseven clean days, i.e., that they see no further emission twould again render them impure. This requires special attention, and even an active examination. In this sense, the zav and zava are distinct from the metzora, who dwells passively outside of his tent for seven days, with nothing required of him until the seventh day arrives. The Shulchan Arukh (Yoreh Deah 196:4) rules thus concerning the zava: On each of the seven days of counting, she should preferably examine herself and some say that [after the fact, if she did not do so] she must at least have examined on the first day of the seven and on the seventh, and there is no room for leniency in this. The source of this law is to be found in the Mishna and Gemara (Nidda 68b): A zav and a zava who examined themselves on the first day and found themselves to be pure, and on the seventh day and found themselves to be pure, and on the intervening days did not examine themselves Rabbi Eliezer rules: They are assumed to be pure. In the Gemara, the halakha is established in accordance with Rabbi Eliezer, but even according to his lenient opinion in this Mishna it is clear that the zav and zava are ideally meant to examine themselves on each of the seven days, as set down in the Shulchan Arukh.
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The time consciousness required of the zava during those seven clean days led later halakhic authorities to rule that: A woman counted two or three of the seven clean days, and thereafter her husband traveled to some far-off place, with the understanding that he would not be returning home for a while, and the wife therefore forgot to continue counting. The husband then returned from his journey, arriving before the seventh day of her seven clean days. We rule strictly in this case, i.e., she cannot join the previous days that she counted (to her counting of the seventh day now); she must count seven clean days anew. (Taharat Yisrael, 196:3:20, based upon responsa of later authorities) This woman examined herself properly at the beginning of the seven clean days and at the end, but nevertheless since she forgot about counting the clean days between the beginning and the end, she has not fulfilled the Torahs command that she COUNT FOR HERSELF seven days in the sense explained above, and therefore she must start again.

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PARASHAT BECHUKOTAI Four Mitzvot of Counting, Part II: The Omer (continued from last week) F. WHY DO WE COUNT THE OMER? As we discussed last week, the Torah commands us to count the days and weeks of the Omer in order that the entire nation, and each individual, will know when the festival of Shavuot is to be celebrated. The mitzva is therefore one of clarification and calculation towards a date that depends upon our counting. Even after this clarification turned into a mitzva that is performed in a daily religious ceremony, the fundamental nature of the mitzva remains the same: a technical clarification. This perception of Sefirat ha-Omer is of great importance for an understanding of the literal intention of the text and the most basic reason for the mitzva, as well as the laws that are deduced from this basic reason. Below we shall examine the ramifications of this perception in each of these areas. i. (23:16) Until the day after the seventh complete week SHALL YOU COUNT FIFTY DAYS, and you shall offer a new mincha sacrifice to God. The Tosefot (Menachot 65b) pose the following question: But are we not counting only fortynine days? Several answers are proposed by the Rishonim, but that of the Ramban (on verse 15) seems to address most directly the literal meaning of the text: The number of days from the day of the wave offering (omer) until the day of the holy convocation (Shavuot) is identical to the number of years from the [beginning of the first cycle of] Shemitta until the Jubilee. And their reason is [likewise] identical, and for this reason [the Torah says,] You shall count fifty days - i.e., that one should count seven weeks, forty-nine days, AND THEN SANCTIFY THE FIFTIETH DAY ARRIVED AT BY THIS COUNTING, as we are told concerning the Jubilee. We do count the fiftieth day and sanctify it as a holy convocation, only there is no need to count it verbally, aloud, as we did on the previous days. In light of our previous discussion, the reason for this is clear. The counting of the fiftieth day does not represent any clarification of something that is due to follow it; this day itself is the purpose of the clarification that we have made thus far, and is thus counted by us without verbalization. ii. In explaining the reason for Sefirat ha-Omer, most commentators offer the same reason as Sefer ha-Chinukh (#15): One of the roots of the mitzva - on the literal level - is that the whole essence of Israel is the Torah And it (the Torah) is the purpose and reason for which they were redeemed from Egypt - in order to accept the Torah at Sinai and to fulfill it And therefore we are commanded to count, from the day after the Pesach
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festival until the day upon which the Torah was given, to demonstrate in ourselves the great desire for the great and awaited day, like a servant who looks forward and counts always towards the long-awaited time when he will go free. For the counting shows a person that all of his longing and desire is to reach that time. This reason, and those that resemble it, are not on the literal level, both because there is no mention anywhere in the Torah that Shavuot is the day of the giving of the Torah and because the act of counting itself is not an expression of a great desire for a great and awaited day in any other instance. The counting is a means to clarifying the proper time for a day that has no date other than that we will reach it by means of our counting. iii. In light of the reason he provides for Sefirat ha-Omer, the Sefer ha-Chinukh questions our formulation of the counting: Why do we count days of the Omer? In other words, why do we say that suchand-such days have PASSED in our count, rather than counting such-and-such remain until the time [that we await]? His answer to this question is truly forced, for its assumption is incorrect. The reason for formulating the blessing in such a way that we are counting days of the Omer rather than until the festival of Shavuot is simple: Shavuot exists only as a result of our counting; we cannot count towards something that does not yet exist and will exist only when our count is complete. We must count from the starting point - from the day of the bringing of the Omer. iv. The Rishonim are divided as to whether Sefirat ha-Omer in our times is a biblically or rabbinically ordained mitzva. I shall not enter here into an analysis of their dispute in understanding the sugya in Menachot 66a, but I shall ask how each side perceives the mitzva. The Ran (commenting on the Rif at the end of Massekhet Pesachim) presents the majority opinion: Most of the commentators agree that Sefirat ha-Omer in our times, when there is no bringing of the Omer or of the two loaves nor any sacrifice, is only of rabbinical origin, instituted as a memorial to the Temple. If so, then the counting is simply a ritual bridge joining two sacrifices. When these sacrifices are not offered, there is no mitzva of bridging them by means of that counting. But if the reason for the counting is to serve as the sole means of determining the date of Shavuot, we must understand this differently. The establishment and commemoration of the day of holy convocation is not dependent on the offering of the two loaves or on the existence of the harvest, but rather - as stated explicitly in the Torah: (23:20) And on that very day you shall call a holy convocation shall it be for you; you shall not do any labor of work, IT IS AN ETERNAL STATUTE IN ALL YOUR DWELLING PLACES FOR ALL GENERATIONS.
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The simple understanding of this text pertains also to the counting. As the Seforno notes: An eternal statute in all your dwelling places - Even though none of the sacrifices is offered in the various dwelling places in exile, THE MATTER OF COUNTING AND THE MATTER OF THE HOLY CONVOCATION DO NOT CEASE. In truth, the latter depends on the former: without a counting, how would we know which day is to be called a holy convocation? And so, according to this view we must accept the position of the Rambam (Hil. Temidin 7:23-24) and the Rishonim who rule in accordance with him, that: It is a positive commandment to count seven whole weeks from the day of the bringing of the Omer This commandment pertains to every Jew, IN EVERY PLACE AND IN EVERY TIME. v. Early and later authorities have addressed the question of why no blessing of shehecheyanu is recited at the beginning of the counting (i.e., on the first night), as is customary for any mitzva that is performed for the first time in the year. Many different answers are proposed. The most accurate answer appears to be that no blessing should be recited for the clarification and preparation towards the festival of Shavuot, since we recite a blessing over the result. The blessing of she-hecheyanu on Shavuot itself applies also to the clarification in which we were engaged in the time leading up to the festival: the counting of the seven weeks. The Chizkuni offers this type of explanation in his commentary on verse 21: And since the counting of the fifty days is only for the purposes of Shavuot, the day of bringing the Omer (the beginning of the counting) is not a proper time to recite the blessing of she-hecheyanu. vi. The Devar Avraham (I:34), by Rabbi Avraham Duber Kahana-Shapira of Kovna, contains a fundamental responsum concerning Sefirat ha-Omer, which dovetails with the analysis in this shiur. The question posed there is: Someone who was in a distant place among gentiles, and was in doubt as to his count of Sefirat Ha-Omer - whether he was up to three days of the Omer or four days: may he recite a blessing and count both numbers, in order to cover the doubt? I.e., may he say, Today is three days, Today is four days? The beginning of the answer provides a definition of the mitzva: On the literal level, it would appear that the essence of the counting is not that he utter thewords naming the nu, but rather that he know and be consciously aware of the number that he is counting. If this is not the case, then (his action) is not called counting at all, but rather the uttering of the words of the counting. It is not actual counting. In accordance with the above definition, there follows an explanation of the words of the Magen Avraham (Orach Chaim 489:2): One counts only in a language that one understands, and if he does not understand Hebrew and he counted in Hebrew - he has not fulfilled the
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mitzva, for he does not know what he has said, and this is not called counting. The Devar Avraham then asks: Why does the Magen Avraham insist that he understand Hebrew (in order for his counting in Hebrew to be valid)? After all Hallel and Kiddush and all the blessings for the mitzvot are recited in Hebrew, even if one does not understand - so why does he say that (counting in Hebrew for) Sefirat ha-Omer, specifically, requires that one understand Hebrew? The above explains it well: One reads Hallel or recites Kiddush and it is still called reading or reciting even though he has not understood But counting by its own definition is not a count unless the person who is counting understands the number. Otherwise, it is like a mere recitation of the words, not a counting. This is very simple. If so, then in our case - concerning one who is muddled concerning the days of Sefira - he should certainly not count two days out of doubt. How can he say, Today is three days, today is four days - what number does he mean? If he means that it is maybe three and maybe four, then this is no number at all And likewise I would say concerning one who was muddled during the days of Sefira and counted only one day out of doubt, thinking that perhaps it will turn out that he counted the correct number: even if it turns out that he did hit upon the correct number, he has still not fulfilled the counting because at the time of the count he did not know for sure, and this is not called counting. By means of his definition, the author then goes on to answer the question posed by R. Zerachia ha-Levi, the Baal ha-Maor, at the end of Massekhet Pesachim: Why do we not count two countings outside of Israel out of doubt (as to the proper date), like the celebration of a second day of Yom Tov (including Shavuot) out of doubt? The Devar Avraham replies: We are, after all, quite certain as to the dates of the months (since we now have a fixed calendar and no longer rely on reports by individuals to the Beit Din as to sightings of the New Moon). (And the fact that we celebrate a second day of Yom Tov is) because it is the custom of our forefathers (who relied on receiving notice from the Beit Din as to the new month, based on eyewitness reports). The crux of the question (of the Baal ha-Maor) is that we should count two countings, like (a second day of) Yom Tov because of the custom of our forefathers But according to what we have said it would seem that we should say something else: on Yom Tov, our forefathers (who had no fixed calendar) had the custom of celebrating two days of Yom Tov out of doubt, but when it came to counting - it was impossible for them to count two countings together out of doubt, for this would not be considered counting at all. In a place and at a time when they were in doubt, no such dispensation was given, and we must assume that he did not count at all. We may summarize by saying that Sefirat ha-Omer is not a reading nor an recitation, but rather a calculation that a person must make. The regular laws applying to mitzvot of recitation and speech do not apply to it, since the speech is not the actual mitzva, but rather the external expression of the calculation and clarification that the person is performing mentally. G. WHY DOES THE TORAH NOT SPECIFY A DATE FOR SHAVUOT?
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In the previous section we noted repeatedly that the purpose of the mitzva of Sefirat ha-Omer is to calculate the proper time for the festival of Shavuot, which is dependent on this counting. At this point one may ask: does Shavuot then have no fixed date in the year? The calendar notes the date of Shavuot as the 6th of Sivan every year! What, then, is the point of counting the Omer? A review of the parashot in the Torah dealing with the festivals reveals that nowhere is there any mention of the date of Shavuot. The date is absent both from the parasha of the festivals in Vayikra 23 and from the one in Bemidbar 28-29 - the two parashot that designate the dates of all the other festivals. When does this festival fall? The Torah gives a clear answer, in two different places: in Vayikra 23 the date is determined as the fiftieth day after bringing the Omer offering, and in Devarim 16 it is determined as following seven weeks after the beginning of the harvest. Since the Omer is the beginning of your harvest, and since the day that comes after seven weeks that have been counted is the fiftieth day, the two parashot identify the date of Shavuot as the same day. But how do we know the date of Shavuot - the date marked on the calendar as the 6th of Sivan? The answer is related to two teachings by Torah sages, the one quite ancient, the other a later innovation. The more ancient teaching is one that establishes the date of the bringing of the Omer on the day after the festival (literally, the Shabbat) as being the day after the first day of the festival of Matzot - the 16th of Nissan. This by itself does not yet cause Shavuot to fall on a fixed day, as we learn in a baraita (Rosh Hashana 6b): Rav Shemaya taught: Shavuot falls sometimes on the 5th, sometimes on the 6th, and sometimes on the 7th. How is this so? If both (Nissan and Iyar) are full months (30 days) - then it falls on the 5th (of Sivan); if both are lacking (29 days), then it falls on the 7th; if one is full and the other is lacking, it falls on the 6th. Thus, so long as the months were established and sanctified on the basis of eye-witness reports, Shavuot could occur on any one of three dates. But the establishment of the fixed calendar - a later innovation from the time of the Amoraim - made Nissan always a full month and Iyar always lacking, such that Shavuot always falls on the 6th of Sivan. In these circumstances, Sefirat ha-Omer loses the crux of its reason, and the counting becomes, in the minds of many, an unintelligible ritual. Throughout the generations, explanations have been offered to assuage this alienation: they explained the counting as an expression of our longing for the day KNOWN IN ADVANCE, the 6th of Sivan, which - according to one of the opinions in the sugya in Massekhet Shabbat (86b-88a) - is the day of the giving of the Torah. Obviously, this was not the original reason for the counting when Shavuot did not have a fixed date, but rather depended on the conclusion of the counting on the fiftieth day. Hence, the question is posed by the commentators: why does the Torah not establish a precise date for Shavuot, as it does concerning all the other festivals, but rather makes it dependent on the counting of fifty days? Even in the days when the New Moon was sanctified by the Beit Din, its date could be the 5th, 6th or 7th of Sivan. Why did the Torah not establish its date as one of these three, and save the need for counting?
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In the commentary of Rabbi Yehuda HeChassid on Vayikra 23:16, we find an interesting reason: Why does the Torah make Shavuot dependent on counting, in contrast to the other festivals? [R. Yehuda HeChassid} explained that it is because on Pesach, Rosh Hashana and Sukkot everyone is at home and knows when the 15th of Nissan is, and knows whether the previous month was full or lacking (i.e., knew when there was a New Moon). But when it comes to Shavuot everyone is busy with winnowing and harvesting and all the other agricultural activities; who would tell all the rural population whether Iyar had been a full month or lacking? Therefore the Torah says: Remember the day of Pesach, when you made your pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and at night, when you harvested the Omer - (the inhabitants of) all the townsgather together, and it is a great public Therefore the Torah tells Israel: All you need to do is to count fifty days from that night of harvesting the Omer. In the morning (of the 16th of Nissan) each person would start to make his way home (from Jerusalem) and would remember the day of his journeying, and would remember when the fifty days were up. This reason is condensed in the long commentary of the Tur on the Torah: And you shall count for yourselves - There are some who explain the reason for Sefirat Ha-Omer as being because these are the days of the harvest, and the people are busy; they are not at home to hear (of the New Moon) from the messengers of the Beit Din who go out, and would not know when the new month had been sanctified; therefore the Torah commands to count. For the same reason, the counting is done at night - because in the day they are occupied. From the explanation offered by these commentators, which is entirely compatible with Shavuot being the festival of the harvest (Shemot 23:16), we learn that Shavuot was fixed in the consciousness of the people as falling on a certain date (6th of Sivan), and the only problem was that there was no way of notifying the people, engaged in their agricultural labor in the fields, that the new month (Sivan) had been sanctified. The counting was therefore meant to serve as a means of leading the people in the fields towards this fixed and known date. But, as discussed above, in the period when the month was sanctified by word of the eye-witnesses, the counting was not directed towards a specific date. The simple reason for the lack of a date for Shavuot in the Torah, and for its establishment on the basis of a count of fifty days from the beginning of the harvest, is to be found in the Kuzari of Rabbi Yehuda Ha-Levi. In explaining the literal meaning of the words, from the day after the festival (literally, the Shabbat), he writes: Even if we accept the interpretation of the Karaites for the expression, the day after the Shabbat (i.e., that the Torah means Sunday), we must add: one of the judges or the kohanim or the kings explained correctly that this number means only to create a fifty-day period between the first fruits of the barley harvest and the first fruits of the wheat harvest, and to maintain the seven weeks, which are seven complete weeks. But the fact that the Torah mentions the first day of the week is meant only as a metaphor, as if to say: if the beginning, from when you begin to put the sickle to the standing corn, is on the first day of the week, then you will reach the end of your count on the first day of the week as well. Thus, we may conclude that if
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the beginning is on the second day of the week, then we shall count until the second day of the week (seven weeks later). BUT THE TIME OF BEGINNING TO PUT THE SICKLE TO THE STANDING CORN IS UP TO US: WHENEVER WE SEE FIT TO DO SO, WE MAY BEGIN, AND WE MAY START TO COUNT FROM THAT TIME. Indeed, this time is established as the second day of Pesach, which in no way contradicts what the Torah is saying. And we are obligated to accept this setting of the date as a mitzva, for it comes from the place that God will choose. In the view of R. Yehuda Ha-Levi, the situation according to the directions of the Torah, before the early Sages determined the fixed time of the harvest to be on the 16th of Nissan, was as follows. This entire body of mitzvot, including the waving of the Omer, the counting of seven weeks and the celebration of Shavuot, was not related to Pesach or to any other date in the calendar. The starting point of the whole system was the beginning of the harvest, and this time was not any specific date, but rather was determined by the actual, natural reality of the fields. Therefore, there is no date given in the Torah for Shavuot, for in truth it does not occur on any specific date; its date may change from year to year depending on the day we choose to begin the harvest. Thus, Sefirat ha-Omer is the sole means of clarifying the date of Shavuot. The parallel between Sefirat ha-Omer and counting towards the Jubilee is now complete: the only way of determining the fiftieth year is by counting fifty years from the previous Jubilee. A Jubilee cannot be determined on the basis of the year (5763, for instance), for no such count existed in the Torah. Thus, the only way the Torah could instruct us to sanctify the fiftieth year is to command that fifty years be counted from the time of our entering the land, and thereafter from one Jubilee to the next. An ongoing count of years such as the one we employ - 5763 since the creation of the world, or the count of the documents (shetarot) employed by the medievals - did not exist in the Torah, but some type calendar certainly did. The festivals are noted in the Torah according to their dates. Concerning the fifty days of the harvest, beginning with the offering of the Omer and concluding with the offering of the two loaves, no dates apply. They are not anchored in the calendar, but rather in the annually-renewed decision as to when they will begin. Therefore, when the Torah comes to determine the date of Shavuot, it can only make it dependent on the counting of fifty days from the beginning of the harvest, just as the counting of the Jubilee. I devoted a previous shiur on parashat Emor (5760) to an examination of R. Yehuda Ha-Levis approach, and I shall not elaborate further here. The mitzva of Sefirat ha-Omer in the Torah, in its literal understanding, is the most powerful proof for the truth of R. Yehuda Ha-Levis view. On each evening of the Sefira period, when the congregation gathers in the synagogue for the Maariv prayer and for the counting ceremony, they are demonstrating that even now - when Halakha has determined the beginning of the harvest as falling on a fixed date, and the calendar determines that Shavuot falls on a fixed date - the literal understanding of the Torah nevertheless teaches that Shavuot depends entirely on our count, regardless of what the calendar might say.

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