Komentarz do Liczb 5:9

וכל תרומה וגו׳ AND EVERY HEAVE OFFERING … WHICH THEY BRING UNTO THE PRIEST] — R. Ishmael asked, “Do they then have to bring the heave-offering to the priest; does he not have to go around the granaries begging for it? What, then, is the meaning of ‘which they bring unto the priest’? It refers to the first fruits of which it is said, (Exodus 23:19) ‘[The first of the first fruits of thy ground] thou shalt bring into the house of the Lord they God’, but I do not know what is to be done with them, (i.e., this is nowhere stated). Scripture therefore states here, ‘[and every heave-offering, …which they bring] unto the priest, shall be his’ — Scripture comes and teaches you with respect to the first fruits that they must be given to the priest” (Sifrei Bamidbar 5).

AND EVERY HEAVE-OFFERING OF ALL THE HOLY THINGS OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL, WHICH THEY BRING UNTO THE PRIEST, SHALL BE HIS. Scripture is saying that the heave-offering which the children of Israel hallow, that is to say, which they set aside [of the produce] and declare holy, shall be the priest’s, for since there is no specific measure [required by law of the Torah⁵⁴But the Sages laid down a measure: a generous person should give one fortieth of his produce; an average man, one fiftieth, and an ungenerous person must give nonetheless a sixtieth part (Terumoth 4:3). when setting aside] the heave-offering, therefore Scripture said that however much they set aside of the produce [as the heave-offering] shall belong to the priest when the owners bring it and give it to him, but the priest may not take it by force. This is the plain meaning of the verse. And so the Rabbis have said in the Sifre:⁵⁵Sifre Naso 5. The “Sifre” is the Tannaitic Midrash on the Books of Numbers and Deuteronomy. It is equivalent to the Mechilta on Exodus, and the Sifra or Torath Kohanim on Leviticus. “Rabbi Akiba says: ‘Scripture comes [here] to teach you that if the owner wishes to declare his whole granary heave-offering, he may do so, provided that he leaves over a small amount’ [as ordinary food].”⁵⁶From this text in the Sifre it is also obvious that there is no prescribed measure for the heave-offering.
We have furthermore been taught there in the Sifre:⁵⁵Sifre Naso 5. The “Sifre” is the Tannaitic Midrash on the Books of Numbers and Deuteronomy. It is equivalent to the Mechilta on Exodus, and the Sifra or Torath Kohanim on Leviticus. “Which ‘yakrivu’ (they bring) unto the priest. Said Rabbi Yishmael: But do they bring the heave-offering to the priest? What then is the meaning of the expression, which ‘yakrivu’ (they bring) unto the priest, shall be his? [It is as follows:] Since He stated, The choicest first-fruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the House of the Eternal thy G-d,⁵⁷Exodus 23:19. but we have not been informed yet what shall be done with them, therefore Scripture states [here], which ‘yakrivu’ (they bring) unto the priest, shall be his — Scripture comes and teaches you that the first-fruits are to be given to the priest.” Now Rashi [in citing here this text of the Sifre] explained [the question] “But do they bring the heave-offering to the priest?” in the following way: “Does not the priest have to go around the granaries asking for it?” But this is not clear.⁵⁸From Rashi’s comment it is obvious that even if the priest does not take it by force, but goes around the granaries to obtain the heave-offering, it is also prohibited on the basis of the expression stating which ‘yakrivu’ (they ‘bring’) unto the priest, shall be his. The heave-offering, according to Rashi, is to be “brought” to the priest. In the opinion of Ramban, only the priest’s taking it by force is forbidden, while his going around for it, is not prohibited in this verse, [[illegible]]since the yakrivu as explained by Rabbi Yishmael in the Sifre is to be understood as denoting offering on the altar, and his question is as follows: “Were they [really] (yakrivu) ‘bringing’ the heave-offering on the altar? Certainly not. Therefore it must refer to the first-fruits.” In brief, Rashi’s interpretation of yakrivu as “bringing” the heave-offering to the priest is therefore “not clear” (as Ramban expresses it). But the [correct] explanation is that in the opinion of Rabbi Yishmael [in the above text of the Sifre] the root hakravah in the Torah [“bringing” — as in yakrivu mentioned here] refers only to things which are offered up on the altar. Therefore he interpreted the expression ‘asher yakrivu’ (which they bring) as referring to the first-fruits, which require waving and bringing to the altar, Scripture thus stating [here] that all first-fruits which the owners bring to G-d shall belong to the officiating priest. And when Rabbi Yishmael said [in the Sifre above], “Since it is stated, The choicest first-fruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the House of the Eternal thy G-d,⁵⁷Exodus 23:19. but I do not know what is to be done with them,” he means to say that we have not yet been taught at all that the first-fruits are amongst the gifts of the priests, and it is here that He taught us for the first time that they are to be given to the priest. But afterwards He taught it again in the section dealing with [the gifts of] the priests: The first ripe fruits of all that is in their Land, which they bring unto the Eternal, shall be thine,⁵⁹Further, 18:13. for there He also restated the [laws of the] heave-offering,⁶⁰Ibid., Verse 12. and hallowed objects,⁶¹Ibid., Verses 9, 17-19. in order to include together all gifts given to the priests, and to make a covenant of salt⁶²Ibid., Verse 19. for all of them [indicating that just as salt never decays, so will His covenant with Aaron endure]. It also [repeats the laws] for the sake of some new things added in that section, such as, every one that is clean in thy house may eat thereof.⁶³Ibid., Verse 13. The verse is speaking about first-fruits. We furthermore learn from the verse here [i.e., from the expression asher yakrivu which, as explained above, refers to some act of service in the Sanctuary] that the first-fruits are to be given to the men of the mishmar⁶⁴See Note 92 in Seder Bamidbar. to offer it up [i.e., to the priests who are then on duty in the Sanctuary], and that [the owner] may not give them to any priest he wants to, as is the law of the heave-offering.

וכל תרומה, according to Sifrey 5 the t’rumah of which the Torah speaks here are the first fruit which have to be offered to G’d, as it is customary for the owner of fields or orchards to present these first fruit of each year’s produce (seven species) and to recite the appropriate benediction when presenting same in the Temple. (compare Deuteronomy 26,3). Here the Torah tells us that just as property stolen from a proselyte who died intestate, which was described as “being returned to G’d,” winds up in the hands of the priest, i.e. G’d’s agent, so the bikkurim, the farmer’s gift to G’d has also been assigned by G’d to the priest of the respective roster on His behalf.

וכל תרומה…לו יהיה, "and every heave-offering…..shall be his." Why did the Torah repeat the same subject three times (verses 9 and 10)? Furthermore, why did the Torah repeat the same words, i.e. לו יהיה? Our sages in the Sifri explain that the apparently superfluous words "they shall be his" refer to the offering of the first ripe fruit which are normally called ראשית. They too are to be treated in the same way as the heave-offerings, תרומה. They become the priest's personal property. The second time the Torah repeats this expression it refers to priests who performed Temple service at a time which had not been allocated to them. If such a priest offered his own offering i.e. קדשיו, it remained his although his presence in the Temple at the time had not been authorised. The words אשר יתן לכהן לו יהיה refer to a situation when a father had given to the priest money to redeem his firstborn son and that baby had died after 30 days. The Torah legislates that the priest does not need to return this redemption money to the father. There are numerous other halachic Midrashim in this vein. All of this does not suffice to explain the plain meaning of these verses.

וכל תרומה , the first tithe the Israelites set aside from their crops for the priests, as well as the ten per cent the Levites set aside for the priests from the tithe they had received from the ordinary Israelites as spelled out in Numbers chapter 18.

וכל תרומה לכל קדשי בני ישראל, “and every portion from any of the holies that the Children of Israel bring, etc.” The point of the verse is to inform us that the portions spoken of by the Torah are henceforth the private property of the priest who had received them, and anyone stealing it from them is treated as having robbed the priest. Alternately, the meaning of our verse is that at this point the Torah completes previous legislation about the rights and duties of the priests, seeing it had not yet discussed certain aspects except obliquely with words such as מלאתך, and דמעך (Exodus 22,28). Not only that, but mention of the tithes at the end of the Book of Leviticus 27,30 does not include the תרומה to be given to the priests at all. Therefore the Torah complements the legislation at this stage by speaking both about תרומה and other holy gifts of even higher degrees of sanctity, i.e. קדשי בני ישראל. Both revert to the priests to whom they have been allocated, and become their personal property. The מנחת סוטה, meal offering to be presented by the woman accused of but not proven guilty of marital infidelity, is not mentioned in Leviticus at all, seeing that it is a meal offering resulting from a husband’s jealousy, not a free will offering like other meal offerings. This offering does not contribute to the atonement of that woman at all. (Verse 15-17) At this point the legislation governing meal-offerings is completed. Similarly, the Torah uses this opportunity to fill us in about the offerings a Nazir has to bring at the end of the term he vowed to abstain from ritual impurity and any grape-related products. After the Tabernacle had been erected and laws about maintaining ritual purity had been introduced, the Nazir legislation also became something of an actual rather than something theoretical. During the term of abstinence the Nazirites used to throng around the entrance of the Tabernacle, hoping to be useful in its service in some manner. Moreover, the Torah thought it appropriate to deal with the subject of the Nazirite at this juncture as a female Nazirite serves as the model for the exact opposite of the Sotah, the wife who by her conduct aroused the suspicion in the mind of her husband that she had indulged in marital infidelity.

But one does not know. (Ba’al Hamesader) A question is asked upon Rashi’s explanation: “Do we not know what must be done with them?” Surely there is an explicit verse in Parshas Korach “the bikurim of all that is in their land, which they bring before Hashem, shall be yours” (Bamidbar 18:13)! The answer is that in Parshas Mishpotim (Shemos 23:19) the mitzvah of bringing bikurim is listed as one of the six hundred and thirteen mitzvos, but Parshas Ki Savo (Devarim 26:1-11) only lists the mitzvah of recitation over the bikurim that is stated in that Parshah. In Parshas Korach Rashi explains on the verse “I have given [you the guarding of my trumah-gifts]” (18:8) that there is “a comparison to a King…” consequently “I have given” means “that I have already given”; thus “shall be yours” (18:13) also means [that the bikurim] have already been given. However, we do not find in the entire Torah that the kohanim were given the bikurim like they were given the other twenty-three gifts. Therefore Rashi here needed to explain as he did and switch the word terumah for the word bikurim, using the force of Rabbi Yishmael’s question.

V. 9. וכל תרומה וגו׳. Dieser und der nächstfolgende Vers schließt sich nur als gelegentliche Bemerkung über die Priestern zugewiesenen Gaben dem vorigen an. Es heißt im Vorhergehenden: המושב לד׳ לכהן, dass das Gott Zurückzuerstattende den Priestern zu geben sei; daran knüpft sich die Bemerkung וכל תרומה usw. תרומה ist ja buchstäblich: das für Gott Ausgehobene und bezeichnet somit allgemein alles das, was Gott geweiht worden. Es ist daher hier der ungewöhnliche und sonst nur für Opfer vorkommende Ausdruck אשר יקריבו לכהן :הקרבה gebraucht. Man bringt es dem Priester, indem man es eigentlich "Gott nahe" bringen will. Es heißt nun, dass alle solche תרומה, die man als הקרבה dem כהן bringt, dessen Eigentum werden soll, da es ihm von Gott überwiesen ist. Es ist ganz das, was so eben für גול הגר ausgesprochen worden: קנאו השם ונתנו לכהן oder, wie es sonst von den den כהנים überwiesenen Heiligtümern heißt: כהני׳ משולחן גבוה קא זכו. So wird denn auch in ספרי aus dieser Stelle speziell für בכורים, über deren Verwendung Dewarim Kap. 26 nichts Näheres angegeben ist, nachgewiesen, dass sie dem כהן zu geben seien.

וכל תרומה לכל קדשי בני ישראל, “and any portion from all the holies that the Children of Israel bring.” Nachmanides writes that the plain meaning of the verse is as if the Torah had written that seeing that there is no official minimum amount for such a gift set by the Torah [as opposed to the tithes. Ed.], the word כל may be understood as “any.” Such a gift is not one that may be demanded by the Levites or priests, but until it is offered as a totally voluntary offering the priest has no claim on it whatsoever. In the Sifrey our verse is interpreted as speaking of the bikkurim, the respective first fruit of each of his crops the farmer brings to Jerusalem, seeing that offering is on occasion referred to as תרומה. The words יקריבו אותה are also understood as the owner having the choice to which priest he wants to give these gifts.

I believe that we may approach these verses in accordance with the principle that when the Torah repeats something three times it is intended to show that we may not use the information contained in those statements exegetically by applying them to other commandments. The three statements teach us rules applying to the 24 types of gifts the Torah has allocated to the priests. In the first chapter of his treatise on the laws of בכורים, first ripe fruits, Maimonides writes that the 24 gifts G'd allocated to the priests were divided into five categories, which in reality are only three basic categories. 1) the portions of the sacrifices which they receive from animals which have been offered on the altar. These included: the meat of the sin-offering; the meat of the guilt-offering; the meat of the peace-offerings paid for by the public purse; the remainder of the Omer, i.e. the barley offering on the second day of the Passover festival; most of the meal-offerings except the fistful offered on the altar; the showbreads; the two loaves offered on Shavuot from the new wheat harvest; the oil of the person undergoing purification rites after having been afflicted with Tzoraat; the skins of any animal offered on the altar; the breast and right flank of all private peace-offerings; left-overs of the thanksgiving offerings; the part of the ram of the Nazirite not presented on the altar; the firstborn male of the pure animals. The first ripe fruit (of the seven species Israel is blessed with). These are 14 gifts allocated to the priests. The common denominateor of all the above is that the owner is obligated to offer them on the altar or bring them to the priest. They are all inherently sacred. The second category are such things as the Terumah, a tithe from the grain-harvest, olive trees or vineyard's produce; the Terumat Maasser i.e. the portion of his tithes the Levite has to give to the priest; Challah, i.e. 1/48th of a dough of certain proportions which the Israelite has to give to the priest. The third category are the gifts such as the tithe of the animals when they are shorn (1 tenth); certain fields which were sold by an Israelite and not redeemed within a specified time; the redemption money paid by a father for retaining his firstborn son; redemption money for the firstborn donkey; properties set aside for use by the priest. Property of an intestate convert stolen from him which is inherited by the priests by decree of the Torah. All the latter are not inherently sacred. They are not handed to the priest but he has to claim them by himself.

Let us now approach our verses. Concerning the first 14 items mentioned by Maimonides all of which are sacred by definition and which the Israelite is obligated to hand to the priests, the Torah wrote וכל תרומה לכל קדשי בני ישראל. The Torah gives notice that these gifts are sacred by definition. It goes on: אשר יקריבו which they offer as a sacrifice; the Torah mentions that all these items have to be brought to a site which has been sanctified. Concerning the second category the Torah writes that איש את קדשיו לו יהיו. In this instance the Torah does refer to the sacred nature of the gifts but makes no mention of their qualifying as an offering on the altar, seeing the priest himself has to go after these gifts in order to secure his share. Concerning the final seven items the Torah writes איש אשר יתן לכהן, "that which a person has to give to the priest." Nothing is mentioned about any of these things being sacred as they are of an ordinary secular status, i.e. חולין. The word יתן, "he will give, or he may give" alerts us to the fact that a priest may not claim such gifts from the person whose duty it is to dispense them to a priest of his choosing. Once he has become the recipient of the gift, however, it is not reversible, i.e. לו יהיה, it remains his. Please read what I have written in my book Pri Toar item 61 concerning gifts to the priests. The word לו יהיה implies that a priest is cannot refuse to accept such gifts when they are offered to him (compare Yore Deyah 306,4). Having explained all this we see that the Torah had adequate reason to divide the priestly gifts into three categories so that it had to use the word לו יהיה separately for each category. Had the Torah not done so, I would not have known that the priest is obligated to accept these gifts.