Nehar Deah

Vayikra

The Sacrifice of the Poor Person

The book of Vayikra, which we begin to read this Shabbat, deals mainly with the various sacrifices which must be brought in the mishkan (tabernacle) and later in the Temple: olah (burnt offering), mincha (meal offering), sin offering and other related sacrifices. The Torah delineates the circumstances which require the bringing of each sacrifice (for example willful sins, false vows or as part of the purification process after contracting leprosy), the exact nature of the sacrifice (cattle or sheep, “fine flour mixed with oil”, etc) and the manner in which it is to be offered up. The description is highly technical and is meant mainly for the priests who performed the sacred rituals.

The laws of the sacrifices have been dealt with extensively in the literature of chazal (literally “our sages of blessed memory). Almost an entire order of the Mishna is dedicated to this, the order of Kodashim (from the root word meaning “holy” or “sacred”), and the sacrifices are mentioned throughout Talmudic and Midrashic (homiletical) literature, especially in two Midrashim connected directly with the book of Vayikra: a Midrashic work from the time of the Tannaim (the 1st and 2nd centuries CE), known as the Sifra, and a Midrashic work from the time of the Amoraim (the 3rd to 5th centuries CE), called Midrash Vayikra Rabbah.

Among the many topics dealt with in Midrash Vayikra Rabbah is the verse “And when a person brings a meal-offering to Hashem, his offering shall be of fine flour” (Vayikra 2:1). This verse comes after a chapter which deals entirely with the with the various olah sacrifices, a sacrifice brought from cattle, sheep or fowl, which is burnt entirely upon the altar. The mincha, in contrast to the olah, is a far more modest sacrifice, and the Midrash sees it – even if not written explicitly in the verse – as the sacrifice of the poor, who are not able to bring a more costly sacrifice. The basis for this understanding of the mincha of fine flour probably comes from a discussion of another sacrifice, the sin offering. From here onwards (Vayikra 5:1-13) it is determined that the sin offering is a lamb, but if someone is unable to bring this, they should bring a dove instead “But if his means does not suffice … then he shall bring his offering for that wherein he hath sinned, the tenth part of an ephah of fine flour for a sin-offering” (verse 11).

Viewing the fine meal offering as the offering brought by the poor, serves the editor of Vayikra Rabbah as a basis for a for a long and involved discussion of the desirability of the sacrifice brought by the poor person. The Midrash contains words of encouragement for those who feel guilt and shame in front of others, who are bringing more sizable offerings than theirs. From a heavenly viewpoint – the Midrash tells us – the smaller and more modest sacrifice brought by the poor person is no less, and maybe even more beloved, than the impressive sacrifices of the wealthy. In order to demonstrate this principle, the Midrash (3:5) brings a story which deals with King Agrippa and a poor person, and the following is the beginning of the story:

“King Agrippa wished to offer a thousand burnt offerings on one day. He sent and said to the priest: ‘Do not let anyone besides me sacrifice today.’ A poor person came and in his hand were two turtledoves. He said to [the priest]: ‘Sacrifice these for me’. He said to him: ‘The king commanded and said to me, no one shall sacrifice other than me today.’ He said to him: “my lord priest, I catch four every day, I sacrifice two and earn my living from two, if you don’t sacrifice them for me, then you cut off my earnings.’ He took them and sacrificed them.”

In this story contrasts a well known king, with an anonymous poor man. The first wishes to sacrifice a thousand burnt offerings (from cattle or sheep) in “one day”, an extremely impressive act, and in order to do so he claims exclusive access to the Temple. In contrast is the poor man, who wishes to sacrifice two turtledoves “every day” out of a simple literal belief that the sacrifices he brings will help him to catch more birds the next day. The priest, who is probably caught between his obligation to obey the king and his desire to help the poor man, decides eventually to accept the birds, thinking that no-one will notice among the mountains of burnt meat, the two small turtledoves. But the story continues and tells that “Agrippa dreamt: ‘the sacrifice of the poor man is preferable to yours.” The heavenly message to Agrippa and to the reader is that the tiny offering of the poor man is thought more highly of than all the elaborate sacrifices of the king.

“[Agrippa] sent and said to the priest: ‘Did I not say to you that no-one besides me should sacrifice today?!’ He said to him: ‘My lord king, A poor man came and in his hand were two turtledoves. I told him that the king had commanded me and said to me that no-one besides him should sacrifice today. He said to me: ‘I catch four every day, I sacrifice two and earn my living from two, if you don’t sacrifice them for me, you cut off my earnings.’ Should I not have sacrificed? He said to him: ‘Everything you did, you did well.’”

It seems that Agrippa learnt the lesson and in the last words he says, he in fact confirms that from a heavenly viewpoint, there is no preference for quantity and quality of a sacrifice, but rather the proper intentions of the person bringing it. Agrippa probably intended to impress all those who knew him, with this exceptional sacrifice, but the simple poor man sacrifices from a feeling of gratitude for his daily earnings given to him, he believes, in merit of his sacrifices. “A handful of the meal offering of the poor is desired by me” the Midrash says in Hashem’s name in one place (paragraph 1).

As a result of the story of Agrippa and the poor man, the Midrash brings briefly two similar stories. The first tells “it happened that there was a bull that they were lading to be sacrificed and he would not continue [walking], along came a poor man with a handful of trakisima [=a kind of vegetable, a poor man’s food] and held it out to him and he ate and sneezed and expelled a needle and continued on to the sacrifice. The owner of the bull dreamt: ‘the sacrifice of the poor man is preferable to yours.’” We have before us a wealthy man who wishes to sacrifice a bull and a poor man who gives up his meager meal out of pity for the bull who stubbornly will not move from where he stands, towards the sacrificial altar. It turns out that as a result of eating the trakisima, the bull sneezes and expels a needle that was stuck in its throat, and thereafter is prepared to continue to the sacrifice. If it had not eaten the poor man’s food, it would not have been fit for sacrifice, which means that the modest offering of the poor man’s vegetable is of greater value then the bull. The third story is “it happened to a woman that brought a handful of fine flour, and there was a priest who mocked her and said: ‘see what they sacrifice, what is there to eat of it? What is there to sacrifice of it?’ The priest dreamt: ‘do not mock her; it is as if she sacrificed her soul”. Here we have a poor woman who only has a handful of fine flour and this she brings as a mincha offering. According to the Torah (Vayikra 2:2), the priest may eat a “full handful”, and when the offering is as small as this there is a doubt as to whether there is enough to eat and to sacrifice. This is why the priest mocked her, but from heaven he was taught that one does not behave in such a manner. The pauper that brings only a small offering, is important and beloved as if he sacrificed his own soul upon the altar. This idea is expressed in the verse: “and if a person [literally “a soul”] should sacrifice a mincha offering”, where the first three words are interpreted alone, “if a soul should sacrifice”, when speaking of someone who is prepared to sacrifice his soul.

It seems that the compiler of Vayikra Rabbah, who is trying to deal with the socio-ethical aspects of the sacrificial laws and not to dwell on their details, found in the verse “if a soul should sacrifice” and on the topic of the fine meal mincha offering, a basis for a discussion on the difference between impressive external acts and the true intentions of the heart. God takes note of what is in the heart of the person bringing the offering and not the worth of the sacrifice, and therefore Agrippa, the great king, and the owner of the bull, a wealthy man of great means, do not merit to reach the same spiritual level of the poor hunter, the owner of the trakisima and the woman who sacrifices a single handful of fine meal.

Professor Avigdor Shenan
Hebrew Literature Department

Literature of Our Sages – Sifra

In “Nahardeah” for parashat Bo we presented the Mechilta of Rabbi Yishmael and the Mechilta of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, two Tannaic Midrashim on the Book of Shemot. We also have a Tannaic Midrash for the Book of Vayikra, known alternatively as the “Sifra” (an Aramaic word meaning “book” or “the book”), “Sifra D’bei [=of the house of] Rav” or “Torat Kohanim” (“The Torah of the Priests”, also a name for the Book of Vayikra itself, due to it’s contents as much up it deals with the sacrificial service or other issues specific to the priests). The Sifra, like other Tannaic Midrashim, is an commentary style Midrash, that is – a Midrash that deals with a biblical book, verse after verse, sometimes even word after word, while connecting to each of these varied traditions from the teachings of our sages.

When we talked about the Midrashim of the Mechilta, we mentioned the widely accepted opinion that the Tannaic Midrashim can be divided – on the bases of linguistics, terminology, names of sages and content – between two schools of study: the school of Rabbi Akiva (to which the Mechilta of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai belongs) and that of Rabbi Yishmael. It is generally accepted that the Sifra belongs to the school of Rabbi Akiva, but research indicates that their did exists a Midrash on the Book of Vayikra from the school of Rabbi Yishmael, and traces of it are quoted in the Talmud or even became embedded in the Sifra itself.

The biblical Book of Vayikra is known to contain mainly laws and commandments, and because of this, the Sifra also includes mainly issues of ritual law, and the amount of homiletical material in it is relatively minimal. Nonetheless, this is not sufficient to justify the common designation of the Sifra (and the rest of the Tannaic Midrashim) as “Midrashei Halacha” (Midrashim of Ritual Law), and it is better to describe it, as is done above, as a Tannaic Midrash. As an aside, the difficulty in the use of the term “Midrash Halacha” is far greater when speaking of the Tannaic Midrash on the Book of Shemot, the Mechilta, and the Book of Devarim, the Sifrei, whose homiletical content is no less than its legal content.

As an example of homiletical material woven into the Sifra we will bring the first mention in the literature of chazal of the Siren (a mermaid), the mythical creature which is part woman and part fish. In the style of the Sifra (Shemini, section 3), this surprising mention appears in a legal context, in a discussion of the question as to whether a dead Siren would cause ritual impurity in the same way a dead human does …

At the beginning of the Sifra a famous paragraph appears, a list which is attributed to Rabbi Yishmael, whose topic is the “thirteen principles by which the Torah is interpreted” by them. The reference is to thirteen rules by which one can deduce new ideas through reading the verses and words of the Torah. Already in the times of Hillel the Elder, at the end of the first century BCE, a list of seven rules had been put together (for example “kal vachomer” [= “a fortiori” (Latin), "Even more so; by a stronger reason"]), and in the time of Rabbi Yishmael, at the beginning of the second century CE, another six rules were added. This list of rules, which originated with the school of Rabbi Yishmael, was included at an early stage into the work of Rabbi Akiva, and is found in all manuscripts of this work and serves it as a type of methodological introduction.

Characters – Marcus Julius Agrippa

Marcus Julius Agrippa – Agrippa the First – was king of Judah from 37-44 CE. He was born in the year 10 or 11 BCE. His father, Aristobulus, was the son of Herod and Miriam the Hasmonean. His mother, Berenice, was the daughter of Costobarus and Salome, sister of Herod, such that his parents were in fact cousins, as was common practice in the royal courts of those days. Miriam, Costobarus and Aristobulus were all murdered by Herod, before Agrippa was even three years old. Even though he was probably born in Judah, he grew up and was educated in Rome till an advanced age.

Agrippa was of Edomite origin and it is worthwhile to look at how chazal viewed him and what did this king’s character symbolized to them. There is no easy answer to this question as it is difficult to know whether sources referring to Agrippa are referring to Agrippa the First or his son, Agrippa the Second. In addition: it is known that the sources of chazal can be interpreted in many ways. Therefore, for example, there is a well known tradition which appears in the Mishna, in Tractate Sotah (7:8). There we are told of Agrippa who read the Torah in public before the nation of Israel at the conclusion of the festival of Succoth (Tabernacles) after the Sabbatical year – as the Torah requires – “and when he got to [the verse] ‘you may not place a foreigner over you’ (Devarim 17: 15) his eyes ran with tears. They said to him: do not fear Agrippa, you are our brother, you are our brother, you are our brother”. It seems that Agrippa wept because he realized that the Torah demands that the king of Israel be “from amongst his brothers” (Devarim, ibid). The term “you are our brother” is interpreted by some as an expression of amity, but there are those who claim that what we have here is actually a cynical speech, as the Edomite is also referred to by the Torah as a “brother” (“You shall not abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother… The children that are born to them of the third generation may enter into the assembly of Hashem” [Devarim 23:8-9]), and there is in the words “you are out brother” an oblique reference to his defective origins and to his being a third generation descendant of Herod, who was hated by chazal.

Despite this we can point out certain trends which are repeatedly found in the literature of chazal, with reference to the character of Agrippa. He is mentioned repeatedly – as we saw in the story brought from the Mishna – as someone who expressed active interest in the Torah of Israel, its commandments and its customs. The commandments that Agrippa does follow are often those of an extrovert nature (such as the story of the sacrifices which is dealt with in the main section of this edition of ‘Nahardeah’) to the extent that it can be claimed that he wished to publically express his sentiments in order to gain compliments and praise. One can often see in his opinions, his Roman point of view, a result of his education. This can be seen in a question he asks (Midrash Tanchuma, Lech Lecha, 20) about circumcision. Agrippa want to know why such an important commandment is not included in the Ten Commandments, and it seems that the necessity of circumcision and the status of the Ten Commandments were topics that the Romans often wrestled with when they discussed Judaism and its Torah.

In some of the stories of Agrippa it is in fact stated that the sages praised him for his actions, but on the other hand it is written that “Israel deserved destruction [because] they fawned over Agrippa” (Tosephta Sotah 7:16), and again we discover – we are dealing with the first Agrippa and not his son – the complicated attitude of chazal towards him.