Shabbat Parashat Tzav - 5786

Shabbat Parashat Tzav - 5786

Rabbi Hal Miller

  This is the offering of Aharon and his sons, which each shall offer to God on the day

  he is inaugurated: a tenth ephah of fine flour as a meal offering, continually, half of it

  in the morning and half of it in the afternoon. [Vayikra 6:13]

When is this offering brought? The verse first gives us a time frame of "on the day he is inaugurated", but then follows that with "continually". To understand this we must first ask why the verse mentioned the phrases "Aharon and his sons" and "half of it in the morning and half of it in the afternoon".

It begins in the singular, "this is the offering", switches to plural, "Aharon and his sons", then returns to singular "which each shall offer". The commandment to bring an inauguration offering applies to each Kohen. Torah Temimah reads these phrases as a command to each Kohen as an individual, not as a group. Rav Moshe Feinsten adds that these phrases mean that when there is no Kohen Gadol, the obligation to this offering falls upon all the other Kohanim. But at first glance, that does not seem to follow with regard to the idea of an inauguration offering. In addition, the end of the verse splits the offering into halves to describe what part of the day it is to be offered, which also does not comport with an inauguration offering.

Rashi answers that there are two offerings in our verse. Every Kohen brings this meal offering upon his inauguration. In verse 6:15, we see that the Kohen Gadol brings a second inauguration offering when he is elevated to the position, so that is not commanded in our verse. But others explain that what we have in ours is only one sacrifice, the daily continual offering that the Kohen Gadol brings, which is not the daily communal offering, rather just for the Kohen Gadol. Rav Soloveitchik explains that our verse tells, as Rav Moshe above, that in the absence of a Kohen Gadol any Kohen is able to bring this daily meal offering.

Rambam puts our verse in context. This section of our parsha [6:12-16] discusses the daily offering of the Kohen Gadol. The once-in-a-lifetime inauguration offering for newly-anointed Kohanim comes in 8:26-28. Proof of this comes in our verse with the morning-evening breakdown, which only applies to the daily offering. To understand the "inaugurated" phrase, Rambam explains that once Kohanim are inaugurated, they become eligible to carry out this commandment whenever necessary, thus instead of reading it "on the day he is inaugurated" it should be read "from the day he is inaugurated".