Komentaryong Sumisipi para sa Levitico 3:4

ואת הארנבת, and the rock-badger. The reason the Torah chooses to describe the whole species by its female gender is because when one deals with concepts of impurity one finds on occasion that the female is on top of the male making the male subordinate to the female. Mention of the female of the species first then is for the very same reason that the male is mentioned first most of the time, i.e. to describe the dominant part of the species. There is an interesting comment in the Zohar on פרשת פנחס page 231 according to which the mystical aspect of the יותרת הכבד (Leviticus 3,4 et al) is that the female input results in the male achieving whatever excess it possesses. [Seeing the word כבד, liver, is masculine, one would have expected the Torah to describe the lobe, יותרת as something masculine rather than something feminine. Ed.] We have already pointed out that all the forbidden species originate or have become part of the קליפה, the domain described in Kabbalah as part of the negative side of the emanations, that which is not destined for eternal life.

וכסיליהם According to some, כְּסִיל is the name of the star which is nearest to the south pole, at the sight of which the camels die.¹¹The star near the south pole is seen by the inhabitants of the northern hemisphere only in the midst of the summer, when the camels are exposed to the greatest heat. The name of the star is, according to I. E. (on Amos 5:8) Edom in Hebrew, Sahil in Arabic; it is now known by the name Kanopus. My opinion is¹²Concerning the four constellations mentioned in the Bible חַדְרֵי תֵימׇן עׇשׁ כְּסִיל כִּימׇה (Amos 5:4, Job 9:9, 38:31), I. E. gives the following explanation: חדרי תימן Kanopus and the stars round him; עש the Great Bear; כסיל the Heart of the Scorpion; כימה the left eye of the Taurus. (In his Kele Nehosheth, a description of an astronomical instrument and its use, כימה is identified with Algadia, or the Haedi in the Auriga.) These four constellations occupy, according to I. E. the four most important spots of the celestial sphere; namely, עש is near the north pole; חדרי תימן near the south pole; כסיל near the south equinoctial point; כימה near the north equinoctial point. At present, however, the latter two are not near the mentioned points, because of the eastward motion of the Zodiac, which amounts in a hundred years nearly to one degree and a half. that כסיל is the Heart of the Scorpion constellation; it is, however, possible that כסילים in this verse—comp. כְּסׇלִים flanks (Lev. 3:4)—signifies the stars near the poles.¹³This derivation is also mentioned, and, as it seems, adopted by I. E. in his commentary on Lev. (3:4.) A distinction is therefore to be made between the singular כסיל the Heart of the Scorpion, and the plural כסילים the stars on the sides or flanks of the two poles, hinted at in the dual form of the preceding שׇׁמַיׅם. (Comp. I. E., Sefer hashem, 100:1.) R. Jonah remarks that there is only one star named כסיל, and that here, in the plural כסילים, other stars are included; comp. בתי השן the houses of ivory (Am. 3:15).¹⁴R. Jonah is here not censured so severely as in the commentary on Amos 4:15. I. E. says there—of course only for the sake of a play of words, in which he frequently indulges, not with the intention to offend—הוא בשמים רבים הם בארץ והוא אחד מהם אם כסיל אחד. R. Jonah thinks that there was only one house of ivory in the days of Amos, namely the one built by king Ahab (1 Kings 22:39), because no mention is made of any other such house. The plural בתי השן houses of ivory must, according to his opinion, include houses which were not of ivory. This opinion is justly—though too harshly—rejected by I. E.

des Hände-Auflegens. weil es heisst (Lev. , 3. 4) לפני ה׳ וסמך, nur im Heiligtum ist das Händeauflegen geboten.

my hope Heb. כסלי, like (8:14), “whose confidence (כסלו) shall be cut off.” My hope and my thought, and because the kidneys are on the flanks (כסלים), and the kidneys advise, the thought is called כֶּסֶל.