Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra includes foundational words on the rationale behind the sacrifices. In this short piece, abridged from the original Hebrew, which appeared in the Vayikra 5784 issue of Nifla’ot, Rav Ginsburgh reveals the inner dimension of the Ibn Ezra’s sometimes difficult to follow commentary.
More than One Rationale for Each Commandment
Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra begins his commentary on the Book of Leviticus with the revelation that a mitzvah can have more than one rationale behind it. Let us see his three types of rationale for the sacrifices and understand them from the perspective of the Torah’s inner dimension:
[Just as] we find two reasons for the covenant made with an individual, it is also possible for one commandment to have many reasons. The commandment regarding the burnt offering and the sacrifice are examples of the latter, for when the officiant offers each part in its proper time, then the part which has a part in the world to come is saved. Therefore the meaning of le-khapper (to make atonement) is to give ransom.
Ibn Ezra claims that just as a covenant has two reasons, physical and spiritual, so a single commandment may have multiple reasons. An example of the first is the commandment of circumcision, which is a covenant with an individual, which has both a physical and a spiritual reason. Similarly, the burnt offering in particular, and sacrifices in general, have many reasons both physical and spiritual.
Ransom as Atonement
The first and primary reason is, “when the officiant offers each part in its proper time, then the part which has a portion in the World to Come is saved.” In other words, when the person bringing the offering presents each part of the sacrifice in its proper time (at the right moment and in accordance with the law), corresponding to the equivalent part of the human body, then the person is delivered from the decree upon him and merits a portion in the World to Come. This is the meaning of atonement as it applies to sacrifices. The sacrifice serves as a ransom, a substitute, in place of the punishment due to the person (and all this can occur only after the person has already repented before God).
The atonement-as-ransom effected by the sacrifice is based on the correspondence between the body of the sacrificial animal and the body of the person. The portions of the sacrifice eaten by the priests (such as the meat of the sin offering) serve “to sustain the teachers of the Torah.”[1] Nachmanides elaborates on this as follows[2]:
Since human actions are fulfilled by thought, speech, and action, God commanded that when a person sins, he should bring a sacrifice, he shall lay his hands upon it, corresponding to the deed; he confesses verbally, corresponding to speech; and he burns the innards and kidneys, which are the instruments of thought and desire, along with the legs, corresponding to the person’s hands and feet that perform all his work; and the blood is dashed upon the altar corresponding to his own blood and life. So that the person, in performing all these acts, should contemplate that he sinned against his God in body and soul, and that it would be fitting for his blood to be spilled and his body burned, were it not for the loving-kindness of the Creator, Who took from him a substitute and atonement—this offering—so that its blood would be in place of his blood, a life in place of a life, the chief limbs of the offering in place of his own chief limbs, and the portions given to the priests to sustain the teachers of the Torah, so that they might pray on his behalf. And the daily burnt offering (the tamid) is brought because the multitude cannot be kept from sinning continually. These are compelling and heartfelt ideas, as fitting as words of homily.
Nachmanides supplements the Ibn Ezra by emphasizing that the inner intent of the person bringing the sacrifice should be that it would have been fitting for his own blood to be shed, were it not for God's kindness in accepting the sacrifice as a ransom in his place. He further adds that the portions given to the priests are “so that they may pray on his behalf.” And at a deeper level: the reason the animal serves as a ransom for the person is not merely due to external resemblance, but because the sin and deficiency are bound up with the animal dimension within the person himself—referring to the animal soul—and the sacrifice represents the elevation of the animal soul.
Prophecy and the Secrets of Creation
Ibn Ezra continues with two more reasons for the sacrifices. The second reason he notes is that “there are mysteries in the burnt offerings pertaining to future things.” By bringing a burnt offering, one attains prophecy and knowledge of future events.[3] The third reason is that “one may contemplate from each sacrifice the secret of Creation.” Through careful attention to the details of the sacrifice, one may penetrate the secrets of Creation: from the anatomical wisdom of animals, one arrives at the wisdom of the human body, and from there to the wisdom of the act of Creation in general (for man is a small world, an olam katan).
The three reasons correspond to the Ba’al Shem Tov’s perennial model of submission, separation, and sweetening, or chash-mal-mal, as follows: atonement, as though the person had offered himself, corresponds to submission, attained by recognizing that he is deserving of death before God. Understanding the secrets of Creation corresponds to separation, since the unique place of man within Creation and the perfection of his body through the covenant of circumcision, makes him into a “small world.” Prophecy corresponds to sweetening, since the Hebrew equivalent mal also means to speak or recount (מִי מִלֵּל).[4] To prophecy the future and means to reveal the hidden dimension, the Divinity that continuously constitutes all of existence through the Ten Sayings of Creation.
Sacrifices Before other Commandments
The Ibn Ezra continues:
The reason for mentioning the sacrifices before the commandments is that the Divine Presence will return to its place [Above] if the law of the burnt offering is not observed; and so it was.
This is an important and fundamental point. Following the Exodus from Egypt, the Giving of the Torah, and the construction of the Tabernacle in the Book of Exodus, the book of Leviticus arrives with two primary divisions: first the matters of sacrifices, and thereafter the matters of other commandments. The sacrifices precede the commandments because the sacrifices are the foundation for the indwelling of the Divine Presence among Israel—“They shall make Me a sanctuary and I will dwell among them”[5]—and if the sacrifices are not maintained, the Divine Presence will withdraw and return to its place, as it was in the destruction of the Temple.
From a Chasidic perspective, the precedence of the mystery of sacrifice over all the commandments corresponds to the manner in which self-sacrifice (mesirat nefesh) must precede the performance of all the commandments, and the sanctification of God’s Name[6] must precede the performance of a mitzvah.
The complete order is thus: Torah, sacrifice, commandment. First, the Giving of the Torah, then the construction of the Tabernacle and the laws of the sacrifices, through which the indwelling of the Divine Presence and prophecy come to Israel, and finally, all 613 commandments (principally from the portion of Kedoshim onward). We may add that this will be the order in the Messianic era as well: following the building of the Temple and the indwelling of the Divine Presence, prophecy will spread,[7] and we will arrive at the perfection of the fulfillment of all the commandments.[8]
The inner significance of this order—Torah, sacrifices, commandments—represents the revelation of Divinity from above to below. The Torah is the revelation of God's will (will pertains to Keter, the secret of the 620 (כֶּתֶר) letters of the Ten Commandments). Sacrifices pertain to the intellect, chabad. Commandments pertains to the emotional faculties of the heart. Meaning that sacrifices are to all other commandments as the intellect is to the emotions. Sacrifices ascribe a special place for thought and intent, as can be seen in the myriad laws surrounding the desired intent the one bringing the offering must have: from the intent that the sacrifice give off a pleasing aroma, and so on, through to thoughts that can invalidate the sacrifice. But, in all practical commandments, the action is primary (though it must be performed out of love and awe, which serve as wings to the deed, and therefore everything pertains to the emotions).
[1]. Ibn Ezra loc. cit.
[2]. Nachmanides on Leviticus 1:9.
[3]. Just as Moses’s prophecy comes from within the Tabernacle (as Ibn Ezra writes: “He called to Moses…: for the Glory called to him from the Tent of Meeting to come there, and there He would speak with him, the Glory being within the curtain, and it was there that Moses would enter.”
[4]. Genesis 21:7.
[5]. Exodus 25:8.
[6]. The commandment to sanctify God is written in the passive form, וְנִקְדַּשְׁתִּי, indicating that it happens, as it were, of itself. This is why it is the commandment that will endure into the future when other commandments will be nullified.
[7]. Until “your sons and your daughters shall prophesy” (Joel 3:1).
[8]. Hilchot Melachim 11:1.
