Commentaire de citation sur Les Nombres 28:3

Introduction The following four chapters of mishnah deal with the Pesah sacrifice and discuss how it was offered in Jerusalem. Our mishnah deals with the afternoon tamid (daily) offering. Every day there were two tamid offerings, one in the morning and one in the afternoon (Numbers 28:3-4; Exodus 29:39). Usually the afternoon tamid was the last offering of the day. The one exception was the Pesah sacrifice which was offered after the tamid. Our mishnah comes to teach that normally the tamid was sacrificed later in the afternoon, but on the eve of Pesah they would sacrifice the tamid earlier in order to leave more time to sacrifice the Pesah.

What did they do with the appropriation? They bring with it the daily burnt-offerings ( and the additional burnt-offerings ( and their libations, the omer and the two loaves and the showbread and all the other public offerings. This section contains a list of some of the public offerings that were purchased from the appropriation. Tamidim see Exodus 29:38, Numbers 28:3; musafim see Numbers 28:9 ff.; the omer Leviticus 23:10-11; the two loaves Leviticus 23:16-17; the showbread Leviticus 24:5-9.

In the Yalkut it concludes why children begin to learn from the section of sacrifices, just as the sacrifices are pure, so too are the children. This is explained according to what the Yalkut concludes in the portion of Pinchas (28:3) that lambs [kevasim] in their first year wash away [mekavsim] a person’s sins and make him like a one-year-old child. Because of this, the alef [in the word “Vayikra”] is small, hinting that small children should begin [their learning] here, and this learning is at the beginning, like the alef is at the head of the letters. Another explanation: “alef” is a term for learning, as in I will teach you [aalefekha] wisdom (Job 33:33), hinting that learning only endures in one who makes himself small [humble]. It also hints that Moses merited this calling because he made himself small and fled from authority, saying I am not a man of words (Exodus 4:10), as concluded in the Yalkut (427).