Komentaryong Sumisipi para sa Mga Awit 40:7

ואת פר החטאת ואת שני האילים, the bull as a sin offering is mentioned first, in accordance with the statement of our sages that whenever both a sin offering and a burnt offering have to be brought the sin offering is brought first. (Pessachim 59) The reason is simple; how could the person offering the burnt offering expect it to be welcome in the eyes of G’d if he still required atonement for a sin in order to be in G’d’s good graces? David paraphrases this in Psalms 40,7 עולה וחטאת לא שאלת, “You do not ask for burnt offerings and sin offerings.” This bull became a “sin offering” after having been anointed, a procedure similar to the anointing of the High Priest for his office. However, in this instance the blood of this sin offering was not brought into the sanctuary, seeing that the sin of Aaron and his sons had not been of such a severity as would require this additional procedure. Severe errors by the High Priest are the ones listed in Leviticus 4,3 or 4,13 by the Supreme Court. Such errors require that the blood of their sin offerings be brought into the sanctuary itself. We explained all this at the appropriate place in chapter 16. The reason why the Torah first deals with the burnt-offering before dealing with the consecration offerings, is that there was an element of sin, i.e. need for forgiveness in connection with the burnt offering, as is evident from the Torah’s concluding remark ונרצה לו לכפר עליו, “and it shall become acceptable for him to atone for him.” (1,4). The reason why the Torah first deals with the burnt-offering before dealing with the consecration offerings, is that there was an element of sin, i.e. need for forgiveness in connection with the burnt offering, as is evident from the Torah’s concluding remark ונרצה לו לכפר עליו, “and it shall become acceptable for him to atone for him.” (1,4) whereas in all other שלמים offerings the priest receives the right thigh, in the case of the mandatory שלמים offering of the Nazir at the end of his term, the priest received both the right thigh and the foreleg, זרוע. As to the ram of the consecration offering שלמים, even the thigh is offered on the altar. When a non priest offers a שלמים, generally speaking, he will donate the thigh together with the lower leg, to the priest who enters inside the holy domain out of bounds to the owner of the sacrifice. The Nazir donates also the יד, i.e. the foreleg, symbolically handing the priest the work of his hands, which until the termination of the period of his vow as Nazir had all been dedicated to G’d. On the other hand, the rites of the consecration offerings required that the offering itself was a preparatory offering enabling the priest henceforth to enter the holy domains of the Temple. To symbolise this the thigh was presented on the altar.

מן הבהמה, if he chooses to offer a 4-legged mammal, it must only be from either the category of cattle or sheep and goats. Wild roaming, undomesticated beasts, are not permitted to be offered as sacrifices on the altar. This needed to be spelled out as we were taught in Deuteronomy 14,4-5 that the wild roaming beasts with the distinguishing features that make them “pure” animals are permitted for consumption by Israelites provided they have been slaughtered in the appropriate manner. The animals discussed in these portions as candidates for sacrifices are only the ones mentioned in our verse here, i.e. בקר or צאן. The Torah indicates that such voluntary offerings as are under discussion at this time may even be offered by gentiles and accepted on the altar of the Temple or Tabernacle. When Leviticus 22,25 proscribes offerings tendered by the בני נכר what are meant are not gentiles but Jews who have become estranged to their G’d, have renounced their religion and become meshumadim. These are far worse that gentiles born as such, and that is why G’d rejects their voluntary offerings on His altar. Included are Jews who publicly desecrate the Sabbath. [Eyruvin 69 states that desecrating the Sabbath publicly is equivalent to violating all of G’d’s commandments. Ed.] There are three categories of offerings which may sometimes be voluntary and other times mandatory. These comprise the burnt-offering, עולה, the peace-offering, שלמים, and the gift-offering (non-animal) מנחה. When they are offered by the poor i.e. bird offerings, only pigeons and turtle doves qualify among all the birds. Complementary offerings known as סולת-שמן-לבונה are also part of voluntary offerings on occasion. The sin offerings חטאת and אשם are invariably mandatory offerings. This helps to explain the offerings of Hevel and Kayin and why the offering of Kayin was not accepted by G’d. (Genesis 4,5) It consisted of material which G’d had not designated as fit to be offered as a gift to Him. The Torah did not simply state that G’d did not turn to Kayin, but that “He did not turn to Kayin and His gift.” In other words, the reason He did not accept Kayin’s offering was that it consisted of matter rejected by G’d as unfit to be an offering to Him. On the other hand, when Noach offered a sacrifice G’d responded not only by accepting it, without further ado, but He reacted to it as if it were the most pleasant smelling fragrance, ריח ניחוח, although burnt flesh and fat most certainly does not exude a pleasant fragrance. What the Torah meant to say there (Genesis 8,21) was that G’d accepted the parts of the offering which were fit to please Him as if it were sweet smelling fragrance. (as a result of that offering not only did G’d promise never to bring another deluge, but He permitted man to kill animals for food, something that had been forbidden since Adam’s sin or earlier). Interestingly, the Torah does not say that G’d accepted all of Noach’s offerings, presumably seeing that some pure animals that were of the free roaming category are not acceptable although these animals are fit to be eaten by Jews, and all the more so by gentiles such as Noach. (the author speaks about this in Genesis 8,21 claiming that prior to the giving of the Torah all of the species of “pure” animals were fit as sacrifices.) In connection with the sin offerings it is mandatory for the person trying to obtain forgiveness by means of such mandatory offerings to place his hands on the animal with all his weight, as if attacking it, and praying that it be accepted as a substitute of his own person. Each individual’s sin offering possesses an element of what we are familiar with from the legislation concerning the communal “scapegoat” upon which the High Priest placed his hands, symbolically transferring the many sins of the Jewish people to that animal. (Leviticus 16,21) By means of this symbolic act, the humility with which the owner of the sin offering is to approach G’d prior to gaining a chance of acceptance and forgiveness, has been demonstrated. As a result, ונרצה לו לכפר עליו, “G’d will be in a mood to forgive such a person.” Seeing that there are so many different kinds of sin, some of which are merely sinful thoughts, not involving sinful deeds, it is appropriate to ask G’d’s forgiveness also for such sinful thoughts. This is best accomplished as a by product of the voluntary burnt offering called עולה by the Torah, an offering of which the priests only receive the skin and hair of the animal. The burning of the fat parts of the animal or the parallel fistful of flour and oil of the gift offering מנחה, which is burnt on the altar, are the instruments that bring about this atonement for sinful thoughts. Obtaining forgiveness for sinful deeds (all of them committed inadvertently, of course) other parts of the bodies of the offerings presented as חטאת or אשם, “sin offering or guilt offering,” are required. Peace offerings, שלמים, on the other hand, are viewed (based on Tzefaniah 3,9) as if the owner joins, becomes a partner with the angels, he and they serving their Lord jointly.

ויתעצב אל לבו, “and His heart felt sadness.” In terms of the plain meaning of the words the term “heart” when applied to G-d is, of course, only a figure of speech. The same is true whenever the Torah speaks of other organs and appears to attribute them to G-d Who is totally abstract, devoid of any such organs. The reason that the Torah nonetheless employs such terms is to convey to us that our actions may or may not please G-d, may even elicit reactions that if they had been observed in humans would be described as “joy, anger, frustration, happiness and the like.” Such reactions when expressed by human beings usually involve human organs also. When the psalmist (Psalms 104,31) speaks about ישמח ה' במעשיו, “G-d rejoices in His works,” on the one hand, and in this instance we read ויתעצב ה' אל לבו, ”G-d was saddened in His heart,” both descriptions are of necessity anthropomorphisms, i.e. approximations of G-d’s reactions in terms which we humans can understand. They do not reflect the objective reactions of Someone Whose Essence we have not been privileged to understand
It follows that when the Torah wishes to give us an inkling of G-d’s reaction to man’s behavior it uses the word “heart” in order to help us understand. Seeing that the human heart is a major vessel in his thinking process, the Torah chose to attribute G-d’s feelings in reaction to human aberrations as reactions by “His heart.”
You find that if a person wants to concentrate he isolates himself and bends his head so as to exclude distracting intrusions into his thinking. The reason for this is that the brain, i.e. the head is where his ability to form thoughts originates. This thought process is then relayed to the heart. Granted, that this metaphor sounds somewhat far-fetched, the fact remains that ideas, thoughts travel in a downward direction from the brain to the heart.. When the Bible speaks about a messenger from G-d, such a messenger is usually described as פי ה', the “mouth” or “mouthpiece” of G-d (compare Isaiah 34,16) כי פי הוא צוה, “for My mouth (He) has commanded.” The prophet describes himself as G-d’s messenger (agent, or angel) who acts as G-d’s mouthpiece. The spirit of G-d is described as פי the spirit of the angel known as פי,“my,” resp “His mouth.” Yonathan ben Uziel therefore translates our verse here not as “G-d was saddened to His heart,” but as “His angel was saddened to his heart.” [Our editions of Yonathan ben Uziel do not have this wording; Ed.] According to our author the אורים ותומים, the parchment with the Holy name of G-d inside the breastplate of the High Priest which served as a source of communication from G-d to him, was also known as פי ה’, “the mouth of G-d, i.e. as an angel named “mouth of G-d.” Another example of such a reference to פי ה' is found in Joshua 9,14 where the acceptance of the Gibeonites as allies of the Jewish people is described. The failure of consulting G-d on that issue is described there as ואת פי ה' לא שאלו, “they did not consult ‘the mouth of G-d.” When we read in Numbers 11,1 ויהי העם כמתאוננים, רע באזני ה', “the people were as if looking for something to complain about, it was evil in the ears of G-d;” here to the word “in the ears” may be understood as the “ear” in question being one of G-d’s angels. Whenever the function of G-d’s angel is passive, i.e. he is to be an instrument of receiving G-d’s instructions, such a function of the angel is described as his being the “ears” of G-d. When he is supposed to be active in a supervisory manner, he is called “the eyes of G-d.” A very interesting example of this approach is found in Zechariah 3,9 where the prophet describes G-d’s supervision of the Jewish people in revolutionary terms, saying על אבן אחת שבעה עינים, “a single stone enjoying a variety of no less than seven supervisory “eyes,” i.e. agents of G-d.” When David speaks of אזנים כרית לי , “You assigned an ear [in order to listen to You ] “to me” [rather than the commandment to offer sacrifices, Ed.], he refers to his ear as the organ, or in this case G-d’s instrument, which helps to make him tune in to G-d’s “wavelength.” Whenever the term “ear or ears” is used for celestial beings the meaning is that these ”ears” are listening to Israel’s prayers. When G-d dispatches an angel to fight against Israel’s adversaries such an angel is usually described as יד ה' “the hand of G-d,” i.e. His executive arm. One of the examples of such a meaning of the term יד ה' is found in Samuel I 5,11 כבדה מאד יד האלוקים שם, “for the hand of the Lord had been very heavy there.” There are, of course, numerous similar quotations in Exodus when the Torah describes the plagues G-d inflicted upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians. When G-d’s agents are about to reveal a previously unknown manifestation of the Lord, the angel performing this task is often described as “the feet of G-d.” We find an example of this in Zechariah 14,4 ועמדו רגליו ביום ההוא על הר זיתים, “and on that day His feet will stand on Mount Olives, etc.” The prophet refers to G-d’s “soldiers.” There are numerous other examples of that nature.