Shabbat Parashat Shemini - 5784

Shabbat Parashat Shemini - 5784

Rabbi Hal Miller

  Aharon raised his hand toward the people and blessed them, and he descended from

  having performed the sin-offering, the olah-offering, and the peace-offering. [Vayikra 9:22]

Aharon is on top of the Altar inside the Tent, performing various services. He raises his "hand"

(singular!) toward the people, but where were they? Aharon then blesses them and descends from

the Altar. Moshe joins him (the next verse) and they come to the Tent, but wasn't Aharon already

there? They go out together to bless the people, which Aharon had just done. The Torah does not

tell us what Aharon blessed the people with nor what he and Moshe together did so. There are a

lot of questions inherent here, not all of which are well addressed in the commentaries.

To begin, Onkelos changes "hand" to "hands" but without explanation. Nearly all of the commentators

follow Onkelos, a few of whom use it to answer the question about what the blessings were. Rashi

for example, says this is the priestly blessing, the benediction from the duchaning. Torah Temimah

understands from this that the right hand must be raised higher than the left. Rav Hirsch writes that

"There is no power of blessing innate in the hands of the Kohanim. The hands can only direct upwards

towards the One who has promised blessing." For this, either one or two would give the same result.

Ramban and others note that the priestly blessing is not given by God until Bamidbar [6:24-26] and

asks how Aharon could have used it here. He gives a few answers. One is that in Bamidbar [7:1], the

Torah said, "It was on the day that Moshe finished erecting the Tabernacle", which is our parsha.  In

general Ramban believes the Torah is chronological, but here he says that the verses specified a

change in order. Talelei Oros writes that Aharon did use the text we now call the priestly blessing, even

though God had not given it yet, and in fact later on, God accepted what Aharon had originated here,

approving it. Alternatively, Ramban says that the blessing of Aharon here is unspecified, something

personal, as would later be so with Shlomo at the time of building the First Temple [Malachim I 8:22].

Rav Yosef Soloveitchik gives another reason for Aharon using the priestly blessing, that it was to be

used only by Aharon and his offspring, so even though Moshe himself had been acting until this point

as the Kohen Gadol, the blessing of the people in this fashion was not for Moshe to do. This explains

the following verse where both brothers bless the people with a different blessing.

In the verse after ours, Moshe and Aharon come out from the Tent and bless the people. What did they

say? Rashi, who understands Aharon to have already used the priestly blessing, cites Tehillim [90:17]

and Torat Kohanim that the brothers said, "May the pleasantness of my Lord our God be upon us . May

the Shechinah rest in the work of Your hands ." He explains that this was to show the people that God

had forgiven them for the calf episode and that they were still the chosen people.

As to the choreography, Rashi and others explain that Aharon was carrying out the service on his own,

but reached a point where he was not clear, the burning of the incense. He then went down to Moshe

for instruction, and the two went back into the Tent together so Moshe could show him. Torat Kohanim

tells that our verse is truncated, that Aharon descended from the Altar prior to raising his hands and

blessing. Others describe the activity as showing either a Torah command that a blessing is required

for every ascent and for every descent on the Altar, or that the word blessing here really means prayer,

that Moshe prayed for acceptance of the just-finished service, as we see in the order of prayer even

today, or that the close of the service requires both chesed and gevurah on the part of those performing

it, which here meant both Aharon and Moshe together.