@ShmuelBrill However, since (AFAIK) it's completely unused and has been since its inception, I think it can probably be discarded. Pinging @IsaacMoses (who I guess will see this at some later point, since his access to chat is, er, not).
I am in need of your help on a project that I am working on. I am attempting to translate the Yiddish phrases which can be found in the document used to sell chametz to a non-Jew into Hebrew. The document I am working with, by HRH"G Avraham Aharon Yudelewitz ztz"l (author of Shu"t Bet Av), is spr...
@ShmuelBrill Yeah, I saw something about it on Shturem, I think. It's a wonder that they were able to recognize the handwriting, though - the copy on HB is pretty poor.
@msh210 I seem to recall someone saying that Vayikra is basically addressed to the people at large, while Tzav is talking to the kohanim, telling them what they have to do with each type of korban.
So it would make sense to put terumas hadeshen at the beginning of the kohen's manual.
And come to think of it, that distinction is supported by the way the respective sections are phrased: everything in Vayikra is introduced with דבר אל בני ישראל, while in Tzav it's דבר אל אהרן ואל בניו.
How about this: the first part of the parsha says: zot torat ha'olah this is the laws of the olah. This is paralleled by later zot torat hamincha / asham / shelamim. however, the later ones stay on topic, while the olah paragraph talks about terumat hadeshen instead. Why? What happened to the laws of the olah?
That's Vayikra 6:2 6:7 7:1 and 7:11
whoops. i just forgot what parsha we were doing this week
I think msh210 through me off when he mentioned terumat hadeshen above.
@AdamMosheh The most basic meaning is something like "a sweet smell." Rashi consistently explains it as "it is a pleasure to Me that I commanded and My will is done." There's also the idea in halachah that it requires the limbs of the sacrifice to be placed on the fire raw, rather than being cooked elsewhere and then brought onto the altar (i.e., the "sweet smell" of it being roasted by the fire has to take place there and nowhere else)
@Alex I've usually heard this as "pleasing odor" but wasn't sure it was literal. That the sweetness comes from the act, not necessarily the physical odor, is interesting.
@MonicaCellio So yeah, apparently it's both - there's the pleasure that Hashem gets from our act, and then there's the actual odor of the burning korban
I'm trying to remember -- I think the incense offering is also a reiach nichoach sometimes, but is the mincha offering ever described that way? Cooking grain doesn't have the same pleasing aroma that meat barbecue does, I wouldn't think (bread yes, but not just meal)?
@MonicaCellio It is (2:2) - the Gemara derives from the fact that the same term is used for animal, bird, and meal offerings that Hashem is equally pleased by all of them ("whether one does a lot or a little, as long as he directs his heart towards Heaven").
@Alex thanks. And it's not always "more or less", either; sometimes birds and meal are commanded in their own rights, after all. God is pleased with the act in all cases even though the physical odors are of different strengths/pleasing-ness.
Wow, I'm being inarticulate today. Sorry. I meant that if the reiach nichoach were just about the scent of lamb bbq, we might expect some offerings to be better than others. But becasue it's not just about the smell, they're all good.
Which actually brings me to something I've been wondering about. Rashi to 2:1 says that a minchah is usually a poor person's korban, and that's why the Torah distinguishes it with the term nefesh - he's offering his very soul along with the flour. But practically speaking, since a minchah had to consist of high-quality flour, would it really have been any more affordable than a bird?
The more so since Rambam (Maaseh Hakorbanos 13:12) says that the normal way was to bring a minchah in a metal utensil, which would then be donated to the Beis Hamikdash (as a service vessel) along with the minchah
@DoubleAA He says מביא אדם סולת מתוך ביתו בקלתות של כסף או של זהב או של שאר מיני מתכות כלי שהוא ראוי לכלי שרת - a person would bring fine flour from his house in a gold or silver basket, or of some other kind of metal, a vessel which is suitable to be used as a service vessel (in the Temple)
@DoubleAA It's more than that, I think. In Pirkei Avos kemach (regular flour) is contrasted with soles, where a sieve will let the kemach through and keep the soles
@DoubleAA It's in Sotah 14b. It sounds from there like it must be metal and nothing else, though I guess it's possible maybe then that a poor person might buy a ready-made korban minchah from the Temple commissary and then they'd give it to him in a vessel.
@Alex and if he doesn't have to donate the vessel each time (as Double AA suggested), then he's basically borrowing the vessel and can return it later.
@Alex and you might be right, too. It seems plausible that the mincha "deserves" that level of kavod at each step along the way, but ownership of the vessel could be a separate question. It changes the economics of it for sure.
@Alex Right, which means the "fine flour" used in translation in elementary school is fine in the sense of good quality, not in the sense of coarseness: it's actually coarse flour. (backread a bit, sorry for the delayed comment)
@MonicaCellio Essentially, korbanos are just to make man feel like he is doing something for God, even though there is of course no real benefit to God. And they are to take place at the Temple so that man can feel like God has a place within the people and so that the individual can feel part of the community.
@MonicaCellio So, all these offerings are comparable to what might go on between people and their flesh-and-blood king, so that the people can relate to God on their own (lowly) level.
@jake so the korbanot are just a means -- for all He's concerned, God could have commanded any behavior, so long as it was something we would fulfill at the temple?
@Alex But IIRC there's a machlokes in M'nachos how to sift the flour: you use 13 sifters, but what order you use them in is a subject of machlokes. I forget the details, but I think it would affect how fine soles is.
@MonicaCellio He also starts out with an idea that since we describe Hashem as "above" us, then that suggested to people the idea that the way to offer something to Hashem is to burn it and make it "go up" with the smoke
@jake But that goes back to Rashi's נחת רוח לפני שאמרתי ונעשה רצוני (I think it's from Sifra, actually). It's not the actual burning flesh that Hashem enjoys, but that we are doing what He told us to
@jake yeah, that's long confused me. God doesn't need our offerings; anything from this world that God wants he can take (or make). It being for us (not God) makes sense, but the torah talks about God wanting it and deriving pleasure. The idea that He derives pleasure from us doing it, rather than from it itself, helps.
@MonicaCellio That is one of his points. Although on the other hand, we don't anymore have that materialistic way of feeling like we are interacting with God one-on-one. Also, korbanos are not "obsolete". If we had a Temple, the same reason to give offerings that applied back then still applies today.
@Alex But the problem remains, as @msh210 stated. How can we "benefit" God in any way? Even if just by doing as he says?
@jake God doesn't need us at all, yet He chose to make us and give us the world and command us. Why? God must get something out of it even if we can't understand it. I envision it as kind of like a scientist watching what his experiment will do, or a parent raising a child -- inadequate comparisons to be sure (I'm not calling God a mere scientist), but maybe something like that mindset.
@jake In a certain sense we can't understand that - לא מחשבותי מחשבותיכם. But there is the idea in the Midrash (and from there quoted extensively in Chassidus) that Hashem "desired" to have a dwelling place here on earth, and that means that He made things such that we fulfill that "desire" of His (and, as Chassidus comments, "you can't ask why someone desires something")
@MonicaCellio M'silas Y'sharim famously says God wanted to benefit someone, so created people to reward us. Which raises the "if he wants to benefit someone, isn't that desire a lacking in him (chas v'shalom)?" question; see also Alex's post just above this one.
@msh210 Indeed, Sefer Hachinuch makes that point too in his introduction to the mitzvah of building the Beis Hamikdash and offering korbanos in it (mitzvah 95, parshas Terumah), as well as in other places
I think we all agree we can't understand if/what/how God "wants", want being a indication of lacking which a perfect being can't have. However, we also agree that we as humans use the terms to help describe and quantify our relation with God because we need to as finite beings. Trying to understand it deeper usually leads to many strange logical connundrums (like discussing time-travel does).
@Alex Perhaps. Although it seems like Shadal would argue that God does not "dwell" anywhere in particular. The Bais Hamikdash is simply a place where his people occupy themselves with serving Him (for their own benefit, of couse) so that they can feel part of a community.
@MonicaCellio Getting back to your question, I don't know about any individual (there were the korbanos that each person had to bring on the shalosh regalim, but I don't know about the rest of the year). It seems that in the aggregate, though, on a typical day there were korbanos being brought all day - there was in fact a special kind of korban (called "kayitz hamizbe'ach") for slack times, and it sounds like those weren't very often
@Alex I once suggested that kayitz comes from summer, because the day is longer so more downtime. (I know there is a rashi that says otherwise somewhere, but I like my pshat :) )
@Alex Yet certainly more korbanos were brought on holidays than on non-. (See mishna Tamid describing the mound of ashes.) You say korbanos occupied the bhm"k all day: so you think they simply slowed down on non-holidays relative to holidays?
@Alex Even when people brought, like on holidays, most of them didn't go into the temple, they sent one of them as a messenger to deal with it. Remember: one cow feeds a lot of people.
@Alex Thanks. I've never tried to do it via math -- how many Israelites were there, how many kohanim (and resident levi'im), how much to feed them, therefore what's a minimum... aside from the chagim, was this something you did a couple times a year, a couple times a month...?
@msh210 Something like that. Say on a holiday there might have been a couple of dozen korbanos being offered at the same time, while on a regular weekday maybe just one or two
@Alex including all the other stuff (k'tores, m'nora, prayers)? or justthe acts with the animal?
@Alex Then @DoubleAA I'm surprised most people would send a korban by messenger and skip viduy. (I mean then can say it at home, and I'm sure they did, but still.) [citation needed], as they say at WP.
@Alex Hmm I seemed to recall it saying that the pesach was offered at 9.5 after the tamid at 7.5 and 8.5 implying an hour of putting stuff on the mizbeach, but i don't see that now.
@Alex you said a couple dozen korbanot might be being offered at the same time. Do you mean in different stages of "production", or that that many might have been on the altar together?
@MonicaCellio There were numerous rings (to hold the animal in place for slaughter). Although each mishmar (on-duty shift for the week) had one to use, if I recall right they shared when there were more animals.
@MonicaCellio Either one. They weren't supposed to mix up pieces from different korbanos, but you could have more than one kohen standing there and throwing pieces on the fire
@msh210 Each mishmar, no? (24 rings, 24 mishmaros)
@Alex ah, ok. I know it's a big altar, but was wondering about mixing parts up. But having one kohen tending each pile, so to speak, would mitigate that.
@msh210 There were eight pillars, but each one had three rows of hooks (doesn't say how many per row, though). The mishnah doesn't say how many tables, but Rambam says eight.
I have to go too, actually. Thanks, all, for a fascinating discussion! (And I'd love to see a paper along the lines of what @MonicaCellio mentioned, analyzing the operations of the Beis Hamikdash quantitatively.)
Here is the mechirat chametz contract I am currently working on. I would really appreciate comments and revisions, besides for what I posted in my question. Very few changes have been made to the original (which was an old, hard-to-read print).
I looked over this answer Why isn't the book of the Maccabees part of the Jewish canon?, but I had further questions.
I understand why its non canonical, i think its easier to understand when an item is non-holy-spirit-inspired by how the writer puts the hero(s). If the hero(s) are put with...
I looked over this answer Why isn't the book of the Maccabees part of the Jewish canon?, but I had further questions.
I understand why its non canonical, i think its easier to understand when an item is non-holy-spirit-inspired by how the writer puts the hero(s). If the hero(s) are put with...
