This is the law of the sacrifice of shelamim that you bring to Hashem.[2]
The nations of the world were not happy, relates a midrash.[3] Why is it only the Jews who are commanded to bring offerings, and we are left out of it completely? Bil’am conveyed the hard facts to them. “Korbanos are about shalom/peace and completion. Those who accepted the Torah in which the korbanos are specified – they are obligated to offer them. All of you, however, rejected it. Now you come and want to offer korbanos? Whoever accepted the Torah gets to bring korbanos!”
It appears that the mental roadblock here concerned the shelamim in particular. Non-Jews are permitted to bring olos. It’s shelamim from which they are locked out. So much so that even if a non-Jew explicitly designates an olah, we offer it as a shelamim. The gemara[4] states that we disregard what he says, because we know that “his heart is directed to Heaven.” Rashi explains that we understand the intent of his offering: He wishes that it should be totally dedicated to Hashem, and consumed on His altar. Shelamim, on the other hand are called that because they bring peace between all concerned parties. The mizbe’ach gets a portion; so do the kohanim; the majority goes to the owners. On the face of things, it does not all go to Heaven!
This still leaves us confused. How can we be so sure that the non-Jew doesn’t mean exactly what he says when he dedicates an offering as a shelamim? Why do we go with our read of his intentions, against his declaration of what he means?
The principle here is an important one. It’s not that we don’t take him at his word. We understand, however, that the basic principle of the shelamim is something beyond his comprehension. When he says “shelamim,” he cannot mean what we mean by that word. Those who do not live the Torah life-style simply cannot relate to the kohen’s partaking of food being a holy activity. So holy that the owner of the korban achieves atonement through the kohen eating. All the more so, they can’t comprehend that when the owner himself eats, he is doing something holy. The shelamim perforce remains a mystery to them.
The Jew who lives by mitzvos that constantly finds kedushah in ordinary things can understand that even gashmiyus can be ruchniyus! This is a pronounced feature of the shelamim. It makes sense, then, that on Shavuos, when we mark our receiving of the Torah, the prescribed Korbanos that go with the two loaves of wheat bread are two shelamim!
Through this analysis, we can come to terms with the strange visit of the Queen of Sheba to Shlomo Hamelech. Coming from the lap of luxury in a country renowned for its riches, she is intrigued by stories of Shlomo’s wisdom, and sets out to see for herself.
She is not disappointed. He answers every question that she poses to him. In a word, she was blown away. “[She] saw all the wisdom of Shlomo…the food at his table…and his passageway by which he ascended to Hashem’s Temple [Rashi. Targum Yonoson, however translates this phrase as “the olos that he brought to the beis hamikdosh], and the spirit went out from her.”[5]
The wisdom part makes sense. But the food at his table? She certainly was not wanting for royal delicacies at home! Was it the wealth behind it? Not so likely; she was hardly a pauper herself.
Rather, she was amazed by the contrast between Shlomo’s elegant table, and his humbling himself in beating a path to the beis hamikdosh and offering Korbanos. More accurately, it was the precisely the lack of contrast that impressed her. Shlomo did not make a firm distinction between the material things with which he was surrounded, and the spirituality of avodah in the Temple. He found ruchniyus in the gashmiyus, and transitioned seamlessly between the two realms.
Astounded as she was, she still could not process what she witnessed. “Then she turned around and went to her land, she and her servants.”[6] She did not just “go;” she turned around and went. The inspiring example of Shlomo just could not find a place within her to land. Not a one of her servants was moved to stay behind and join the Jewish people.
Only a person who lives by the Torah can understand this principle of the shelamim.
- Adapted from Be’er Moshe, by the Ozharover Rebbe zt”l ↑
- Vayikra 7:11 ↑
- Tanchuma, loc. cit. ↑
- Menachos 77b ↑
- 1Melachim 10:4-5 ↑
- 2Divrei Hayamim 9:12 ↑