Tafsiran Imamat 1:11: Rashi, Rabbeinu Bahya, Siftei Chakhamim & Chizkuni

על ירך המזבח means ON THE SIDE OF THE ALTAR (cf. Rashi on Exodus 40:22).

על ירך המזבח צפונה, “on the side of the altar, at the northern side.” Our sages (Baba Batra 25) say that the world is like a small house and the north wind can turn only inside its confines. It is just like a three-legged stool which cannot stand properly and requires a fourth leg (Berachot 32). The sacrifices may be viewed as if they supplied the fourth leg for the stool called the universe. This is also the meaning of Psalms 48,3 that ירכתי צפון קרית מלך רב, Mount Zion, summit of Zaphon, city of a great king.” [without Mount Zion the world would not be able to function properly. Ed.] When the Mishnah in Zevachim 47 asks “where is the correct site to slaughter the sacrificial animals?” The answer given is that the most sacred sacrifices had to be slaughtered on the north side of the altar. Surely it is preposterous to assume that the editor of that Mishnah did not know something as elementary as this, i.e. that these animals had to be slaughtered in the holy precincts of the Temple! However, the inquiry concerned in which direction of the precincts of the Temple (on which side) did this slaughtering have to take place? The scholar editing the Mishnah answers that it had to take place on the north side (if the animals were of the type called קדשי קדשים, the most sacred ones). The Mishnah cites our verse here where the north side is made mandatory for the slaughtering of the עולה offering, one of those called קדשי קדשים as proof.. When the Mishnah continues that the blood of the עולה has to be sprinkled על בין הבדים, “between and above the staves,” the meaning is that the officiating priest has to stand between the staves of the Holy Ark while sprinkling both above and below the thickness of the kapporet. In other words, the blood had to be sprinkled in the direction where the Shechinah was located between the outstretched wings of the cherubs. This corresponds to what is written in Song of Songs 1,13 בין שדי ילין, literally: (“he will sleep between my breasts”). However, the words בין שדי derive their profound meaning from the individual letters of the expression. The letters ש-ד refer to the שני בדים, two staves by means of which the Ark was carried. The whole expression is to be viewed as an allegorical comparison of the intimacy which existed between G’d and the Jewish people.

We are told in Pirke d'Rabbi Eliezer chapter 3 that four directions (of the compass) were created in the world. Light originates from the east; beneficial dew as well as beneficial rains originate in the south, whereas snow, hail, cold and heat and normal rain originate in the west. Whereas G’d had “created” i.e. initiated the north also, He did not assign to it any specific function. G’d reputedly said that anyone who claimed to be a deity should prove his ability by assigning a useful function to the north, i.e. the corner of the universe that He had left incomplete.

'צפנה לפני ה NORTHWARD BEFORE THE LORD — but the law of slaughtering northward is not necessarily applicable in the case of a “Bamah” (i. e. an animal offered on a “Bamah” as an עולה need not be slaughtered at its north side, for it states here: northward before the Lord, the last words being used only of the Tabernacle and the Temple; cf. Zevachim 119b and Rashi on 'לפני ה‎ וסמך, v. 3).