Cytowanie Komentarza do Kapłańska 2:3

Just as the covenant of circumcision serves two distinct purposes [Genesis 17:1; Genesis 17:11], so it is possible for a single commandment to serve many different purposes — like the commandments of the burnt-offering and other sacrifices: 1) In offering up the appropriate portion at the appropriate time, we who have a portion in the world to come are apportioned proportionately. Thus the word “to atone” literally means “to ransom” (this is evidenced in the beginning of the parasha of Ki Tis̀s̀a [Exodus 30:12], and it explains the phrase “lest he strike us with pestilence” [Exodus 5:3]). 2) The burnt offerings also contain profound allusions to natural history. 3) By studying each sacrifice, one may come fundamentally to understand the nature of sin, and the nature of our obligations to sustain the teachers of the Torah. God called to Moshe Since Scripture has already stated that “Moshe was not allowed…” [Exodus 40:35], God must have called him from within the Tent of Assembly, telling him to enter therein, where He would speak to him. Moshe used to go behind the Partition, where the Glory resided (for so it is written [Exodus 25:22]). The reason for mentioning the sacrifices before the other commandments is that the Divine Presence would depart if they did not keep the law of the daily burnt-offering (which eventually happened). Perish the thought that God should need a burnt-offering! As it is written: “If I were hungry, I would not tell you” [Psalms 50:12]. The subject is admittedly too profound to explain easily.

והנותרת ממנה, “and what is left of it;” the Torah here repeats itself seeing that it had written in Leviticus 2,3: that the leftover from the minchah offering was to be given to Aaron and his sons. If the Torah had not stated this at this point, we might have thought that the entire left over was to be given to be burnt. The word: ממנה from it, makes it clear that this is not so.

והנותרת מן המנחה, As to what is left over from the meal-offering, etc. Why did the Torah repeat this verse twice both here and in verse 3? Perhaps we can understand this by referring to what we learned in Menachot 58. The Talmud states that all meal-offerings whose left-overs are permitted to be eaten may be consumed together with honey; if the left-overs had become leavened, however, a person eating same is guilty of Malkot 39 lashes with a strap. Menachot 55 derives this halachah from Leviticus 6,10: לא תאפה חמץ חלקם, "it (the meal-offering) shall not be baked with leaven even partially." If I did not have the word והנותרת, I would have argued that the culpability for eating it when it had become leavened would apply only if the meal-offering had already been baked with leaven, not if it had become leavened after having been baked. The word כל המנחה in that verse makes it plain that even if only the left-over of the meal-offering had become leavened, the same law of not consuming it applies and he who does so is culpable. Even though our sages there derived their halachah from the Torah writing the words לא תאפה חמץ immediately before the word חלקם, that exegetical use of the word would not have sufficed to make someone culpable for eating only the left-overs of a meal-offering which has become leavened; culpability was established only for the person who had actually baked such a meal-offering. Even eating from such left-over turned-leaven meal-offering could not be culpable unless there was some additional indication in the text of the Torah. Menachot 55 and Torat Kohanim stated that baking meal-offerings as chametz had been part of a general prohibition applying to all kinds of meal-offerings so that there was no need to mention this here specifically. If the Torah nonetheless wrote the prohibition here specifically, it served notice that just as baking is something performed by an individual, so any other activity connected with the meal-offering which is performed by an individual is equally prohibited on pain of the penalty of malkot. I believe that even after having learned this, the culpability would be limited to such activities as taking a Kometz, a partial fistful of the ingredients of the meal-offering, etc. Eating from the left-overs should not have been culpable. In order to make one culpable for eating left-over parts of a meal-offering which had become leavened the Torah had to write the word והנותרת in our verse.

והיתה לכהן כמנחה AND IT SHALL BE THE PRIEST’S, JUST AS A MEAL-OFFERING — This is intended to teach with regard to the meal-offering of a sinner (i. e. a meal-offering brought as an expiation for the sins mentioned above) that what is left of it after the קמץ has been burnt may be eaten by the priests just as the remains of the free-will offering (cf. Leviticus 2:3). This is what the statement means according to its literal sense. Our Rabbis, however, explained והיתה לכהן to imply: that if this sinner be a priest, then it shall be as any other meal-offering brought as a free-will offering by a priest which comes under the law: (Leviticus 6:16) “[For every meal-offering of the priest] shall be wholly burnt; it shall not be eaten”. (The words are to be construed thus:והיתה לכהן, but if it be a priest’s, כמנחה then it shall be exactly like any voluntary meal-offering that he brings) (cf. Sifra, Vayikra Dibbura d'Chovah, Chapter 19 11; Menachot 73b).