Comentário sobre Levítico 9:22

ויברכם AND HE BLESSED THEM with the priestly benediction (Numbers 6:24—26): “May the Lord bless thee … May the Lord cause his face to shine … May the Lord lift up …” (cf. Sifra, Shemini, Mechilta d'Miluim 2 17; Sotah 38a)

AND AARON LIFTED UP HIS HANDS TOWARD THE PEOPLE, AND BLESSED THEM — “with the priestly benediction: The Eternal bless thee …. The Eternal make His face shine upon thee … The Eternal lift up His countenance upon thee …”⁴⁶Numbers 6:24-26. Thus the language of Rashi. But if so, the section of Speak unto Aaron and unto his sons, saying: Thus ye shall bless the children of Israel, in the Book of Numbers,⁴⁷Ibid., Verse 23. takes chronological precedence over this section! Perhaps it is [indeed] so since it is placed near to that which it says there, And it came to pass on the day that Moses had made an end of setting up the Tabernacle⁴⁸Ibid., 7:1. [which was on the first of Nisan — “the eighth day” herein discussed].
It is possible to say that Aaron spread forth his hands towards heaven and blessed the people, just as Solomon did, as it is said, And Solomon stood before the altar of the Eternal in the presence of all the congregation of Israel, and spread forth his hands, toward heaven,⁴⁹I Kings 8:22. and there it is said, And he stood, and blessed all the congregation of Israel with a loud voice, saying, etc.⁵⁰Ibid., Verse 55. Therefore Scripture does not mention that Moses commanded him to do so [i.e., to say the priestly blessing, since it had in fact not yet been given].
In the Beraitha⁵¹See Seder Vayikra Note 65. of the section of consecration in the Torath Kohanim I have seen it said:⁵²Torath Kohanim, beginning of Shemini 30. “And he blessed them. This is an unspecified blessing [the nature of which] you do not know. Scripture [therefore] went back and explained it further on: The Eternal bless thee, and keep thee. The Eternal make His face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee. The Eternal lift up His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.”⁴⁶Numbers 6:24-26. Nonetheless, I could still say that the Rabbis of this Beraitha were saying as follows: “This blessing with which Aaron blessed the people of his own accord, is unspecified, and Scripture did not explain to us what it was. But the blessing that the priests have been commanded to say in all future generations, has been expressly set forth, it applying to all priests alike forever. Or it may be that [the Rabbis of this Beraitha] are of the opinion that here He commanded him [to say] the priestly blessing for that day, and later on [as stated in the Book of Numbers] this blessing was given to Aaron and his sons for the succeeding generations.

וישא אהרון אח ידיו, Aaron raised his hands, etc. Torat Kohanim claims that this verse is truncated and the words: "he descended from offering the sin-offering, etc." should have been written before the words "he raised his hands and blessed them." We therefore have to explore why the Torah chose this unusual sequence. Perhaps when Aaron realised that the Presence of G'd had not manifested itself (by consuming the fat and meat on the altar by means of heavenly fire) he may have felt that both he and the people had not yet been completely exonerated from their respective share in the sin of the golden calf. He therefore considered himself as having brought a curse on the people. By raising his hands already at this time and blessing the people, Aaron hoped to counteract that curse. Only after he had blessed the people did he feel that he had really completed the ritual of the sin-offering. He was then able to descend from the altar secure in the knowledge that he had done all he could. Perhaps the Torah wanted the blessing of the Israelites to be included in the procedure of offering the sin-offering because it also exonerated Aaron from his share in the guilt. The word וירד may also refer to a spiritual descent; when Aaron saw that the שכינה had not yet descended, he felt reduced in stature, i.e. וירד. Torat Kohanim on our verse reports Aaron as having cried out to Moses that the latter had commanded him to present these offerings on the altar only to now shame him when G'd had not indicated that He had accepted these offerings. Moses then entered the Tabernacle together with Aaron and after they asked G'd to show mercy the fire from heaven materialised.

וישא אהרן את ידיו אל העם ויברכם, “Aaron raised his hands toward the people and blessed them.” Rashi says that he blessed them with the standard blessing of the priests, the verses 24-26 in Numbers chapter 6. Nachmanides comments that if this were so then the paragraph in Numbers must have been inserted in the Torah out of turn. It is quite possible that this is indeed so, seeing that the paragraph following the blessing there dealt with events which occurred on the day the erecting of the Tabernacle was completed, i.e. the 1st day of Nissan of the second year, the day when the inaugural offerings were completed also. It is quite possible that Aaron raised his hands heavenwards, as did King Solomon when he blessed the people when the Temple was inaugurated (Kings I 8,22) If Aaron used the standard blessing used by the priests, this would account for the fact that we did not hear Moses instruct him to bless the people.

וישא אהרן את ידיו אל העם ויברכם, “Aaron raised his hands in the direction of the people and he blessed them.” The meaning of the words אל העם, normally translated as “in the direction of the people,” should here be translated as: “for the sake of the people, i.e. to meet their needs.” The commentators who disagree with us and dress themselves up in fancy garments to lend weight to their words, are wrong when they said that the meaning of these words is that Aaron lifted his hand in order to indicate to the people that they should raise their right hand as affirmation. These commentators [Christian theologians, compare St. James version of the Bible, Ed.] quote a Midrash (see gloss of Maimoniot on Maimonides Hilchot Tefillah 14,3) that the word ידו with the vowels of the plural, is spelled without the letter י indicating that it is really a singular, i.e. “his hand.” Our answer to them is simply that traditionally we read the word as if it had been spelled with the letter י, i.e. that Aaron raised both his hands. Their argument that Aaron only raised his right hand is null and void. The reason that we encounter this unusual spelling is to indicate that the right hand is more important than the left hand concerning mystical matters which are revealed only to select individuals. This is why the Kabbalists have said that the word is spelled ידו in the singular to allude to the select individuals who are recipients of deeper insights from the “right” side of G’d. In this way justice is done both to the spelling and the traditional reading. When you compare the prayer Moses uttered when he prayed for the victory of the Israelites against the attack by Amalek in Exodus 17,11 you will also find this dual spelling of the word ידו, i.e. והיה כאשר ירים משה ידו וגבר ישראל. “Whenever Moses raised his hand (s) Israel would prevail.” In the following two verses the word is spelled as ידיו in the normal way. Had Moses used only one hand at a time, it is hard to understand why he needed two men to support his hands as is evident from verses 12 and 13 in that chapter.
If the people who understood our verse as Aaron raising his hands towards the people (instead of towards G’d) would be correct, the Torah should have written instead of וישא אהרן את ידיו אל העם, the formula וישלח אהרן את ידיו אל העם. It is the custom for a father who prepares to bless his son to put his hand on his head, just as Yaakov did when he prepared to bless the two sons of Joseph. In that instance the Torah wrote וישלח ישראל את ימינו, “Israel extended his right hand.” In our verse the Torah employs the verb וישא to show that Aaron’s hands were stretched upwards (towards heaven). We have a parallel example in Kings I 8, 54-55 ויהי ככלות שלמה להתפלל אל ה' את כל התפלה והתחנה הזאת וכפיו פרושות השמים ויעמוד ויברך את כל קהל ישראל, “it was when Solomon had completed this entire prayer and entreaty with his palms outstretched heavenwards, he stood and blessed the entire congregation of Israel.” It is clear that the meaning of the verse is that Solomon’s hands were in an upright position aimed towards heaven.

May [He] bless you. You might ask: Why does Rashi need to mention, “May [He] bless you, May [He] cause [His Face] to shine, May [He] lift up”? Since he mentioned Birkas Kohanim, surely it was, “May [He] bless you, May [He] cause [His Face] to shine, May [He] lift up”! The answer is: So that you will not raise the difficulty: How does Rashi know at all that he blessed them with Birkas Kohanim? Perhaps it was another blessing, such as the blessing of Shlomo, as it says (Melachim I, 8:22): “And he spread forth his hand...” Therefore, Rashi mentioned, “May [He] bless you, May [He] cause [His Face] to shine, May [He] lift up,” i.e., why did Aharon bless them? Because they offered a sin-offering, burnt-offering, and peace-offerings, which are alluded to in these blessings. See Baal HaTurim [who explains the hints].

וישא אהרן את ידיו, “Aaron raised his hands, etc.;” this verse has been truncated somewhat; it should have commenced with: “from having completed the rites of the sin offering and the burnt offering and he then raised his hand in order to bless the people.”

‎‏וירד AND HE CAME DOWN from off the altar.

וירד מעשות החטאת והעולה והשלמים, “he descended from having performed the sin-offering, the burnt offering, and the peace-offering.” The Torah does not mention Aaron having also performed the minchah, gift offering. Some commentators claim that seeing that the gift offering is only an offering preparatory to ensuring that the major part of offering is acceptable to Hashem, there was no need to mention this. We must assume that the Torah only bothered to mention the animal sacrifices.

From the altar. And not that Aharon descended from the place of lifting his hands. According to this, the verse is reversed. Possibly, “he descended” can be explained: He had already descended. Examine what I wrote in Parshas Shemos on the verse (4:20): “And he returned to the land of Egypt and Moshe took the rod of Hashem in his hand.” Similarly, the Sages said in Toras Kohanim: “This verse’s text is distorted, and it should say: He descended after offering the sin-offering, the burnt-offering and the peace-offering, and Aharon raised his hands toward the people and he blessed them... [after he descended he raised his hands and blessed them].” The Sages in Megillah (18a) said the same (Nachalas Yaakov).

And he blessed them. The three blessings of the Kohanim (Bamidbar 6, 24-26) correspond to three types of offerings: The first blessing corresponds to sin offerings, “and may He guard you” — from sin, as it says (Shmuel I 2:9), “The feet of His pious ones He will guard”; “May he cause His face to shine” corresponds to the burnt offering [olah], as it says (Shemos 34:24), “When you go up [ba’aloscha] to see”; “peace” corresponds to the peace offerings.

וירד מעשות החטאת, “he descended from the altar from performing the rites of the sin offering,” i.e. burning up the parts not to be eaten.